Editing Marsilio Ficino (section)

=== Platonic love ===
Notably, Ficino coined the term [[Platonic love]], which first appeared in his letter to Alamanno Donati in 1476. In 1492, Ficino published ''Epistulae'' (Epistles), which contained Platonic love letters, written in Latin, to his academic colleague and life-long friend, [[Giovanni Cavalcanti (poet)|Giovanni Cavalcanti]], concerning the nature of Platonic love. Because of this, some have alleged Ficino was a homosexual, but this finds little basis in his letters or his general works and philosophy.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kaske |first=Carol |date=2006 |title=Review: Marsilio Ficino. The Letters of Marsilio Ficino. |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1353/ren.2008.0389 |journal=Renaissance Quarterly |volume=59 |issue=3 |pages=829 |doi=10.1353/ren.2008.0389 |jstor=10.1353/ren.2008.0389 |s2cid=164146779 |quote="I find no evidence in his letters of the homosexuality of which some contemporaries and some scholars over the last fifty years have suspected him." }}</ref> In his commentary on the ''[[Republic (Plato)|Republic]]'', too, he specifically denies to his readers that the [[Pederasty in ancient Greece|homosexual references]] made in Plato's dialogue were anything more than to bemuse the audience, "spoken merely to relieve the feeling of heaviness".<ref>Ficino, Marsilio, "The Commentary of Marsilio Ficino to Plato's ''Republic''", in Arthur Farndell, ed. and transl., ''When Philosophers Rule: Ficino on Plato's'' Republic'','' Laws'', and'' Epinomis (Shepheard-Walwyn, 2009), p. 24.</ref> Regardless, Ficino's letters to Cavalcanti resulted in the popularization of the term Platonic love in Western Europe.{{citation needed|date=December 2021}}