Plato`s Persona: Marsilio Ficino, Renaissance Humanism, and Platonic Traditions, Denis J.-J. Robichaud

In 1484, humanist philosopher and theologian Marsilio Ficino published the first complete Latin translation of Platos extant works. Students of Plato now had access to the entire range of the dialogues, which revealed to Renaissance audiences the rich ancient landscape of myths, allegories, philosophical arguments, etymologies, fragments of poetry, other works of philosophy, aspects of ancient pagan religious practices, concepts of mathematics and natural philosophy, and the dialogic nature of the Platonic corpuss interlocutors. By and large, Renaissance readers in the Latin West encountered Platos text through Ficinos translations and interpretation.
In Platos Persona, Denis J.-J. Robichaud provides the first synthetic study of Ficinos interpretation of the Platonic corpus. Robichaud analyzes Platos works in their original Greek and in Ficinos Latin translations, as well as Ficinos non-Platonic writings and correspondence, in the process uncovering new aspects of Ficinos intellectual work habits. In his letters and works, Ficino self-consciously imitated a Platonic style of prose, in effect devising a persona for himself as a Platonic philosopher. Platos dialogues are populated with a wealth of literary characters with whom Plato interacts and against whom Plato refines his own philosophies. Reading through Ficinos translations, Robichaud finds that the Renaissance philosopher seeks an understanding of Platos persona(e) among all the dialogues interlocutors. In effect, Ficino assumed the role of Platos Latin spokesperson in the Renaissance.
Platos Persona is grounded in an extensive study of scholarship in Renaissance humanism, classics, philosophy, and intellectual history, and contextualizes Ficinos intellectual achievements within the contemporary Christian orthodox view of Platonism. Ficino was an influential figure in the early Italian Renaissance: the key intermediary between Greek and Latin, and between manuscript and print, giving voice to Plato and access to the ancient frameworks needed to interpret his dialogues.