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MAUDE VANHAELEN

FICINO’S COMMENTARY ON ST PAUL’S (1497):

AN ANTI-SAVONAROLAN READINGOF VISION AND PROPHECY

ESTRATTOda

THE REBIRTH OFPLATONIC THEOLOGY

Proceedings of a conference held at The Harvard University Centerfor Italian Renaissance Studies (Villa I Tatti) and

the Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento (Florence, 26-27 April 2007)

ForMICHAEL J.B. ALLEN

Edited byJAMES HANKINS and FABRIZIO MEROI

Leo S. Olschki EditoreFirenze

FIRST EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

ATTI DI CONVEGNI

. 27 .

Villa I Tatti

The Harvard University Center

for Italian Renaissance Studies

30

Comitato Scientifico

Michael J. B. Allen - Simonetta Bassi - Andrea Battistini - Giuseppe Cambiano -Michele Ciliberto - Brian P. Copenhaver - Mariarosa Cortesi - Germana Ernst -Massimo Ferretti - Massimo Firpo - Tullio Gregory - James Hankins - FabrizioMeroi - Filippo Mignini - Vittoria Perrone Compagni - Gregorio Piaia - Adriano

Prosperi - Elisabetta Scapparone - Fiorella Sricchia - Loris Sturlese

I testi pubblicati in questa collana sono preventivamente sottoposti a procedimentodi peer review.

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This volume, a coproduction of the Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimentoand Villa I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies,

has been made possible by support from the Scholarly Programsand Publications Funds in the names of Myron and Sheila Gilmore,Robert Lehman, Jean-Francois Malle, Andrew W. Mellon, Craig and

Barbara Smyth, Lila Wallace – Reader’s Digest, and Malcolm Hewitt Wiener

ISBN 978 88 222 6226 4

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. VII

The Publications of Michael J.B. Allen on Marsilio Ficino, 1975-2012. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . » 1

PLATONIC THEOLOGY BEFORE FICINO

CLAUDIO MORESCHINI, Ermia Alessandrino nel Medioevo e nel Ri-nascimento: alcune note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . » 7

STEPHEN GERSH, Medieval Platonic Theology: Nicholas of Cusa asSummation and Singularity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . » 15

JOHN MONFASANI, Prisca theologia in the Plato-Aristotle Contro-versy before Ficino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . » 47

FICINO’S PLATONIC THEOLOGY

CARLOS STEEL, Ficino and Proclus: Arguments for the Platonic Doc-trine of the Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . » 63

SEBASTIANO GENTILE, Ficino, Epicuro e Lucrezio . . . . . . . . . . . . » 119

JAMES HANKINS, Ficino’s Critique of Lucretius . . . . . . . . . . . . . » 137

BRIAN P. COPENHAVER, Ten Arguments in Search of a Philosopher:Averroes and Aquinas in Ficino’s Platonic Theology . . . . . . . » 155

JOHN M. DILLON, Saving Plato: Ficino on Plato’s Doctrine of theSoul’s Eternity and Reincarnation in Context . . . . . . . . . . . » 191

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PLATONIC THEOLOGY AFTER FICINO

MAUDE VANHAELEN, Ficino’s Commentary on St Paul’s First Epis-tle to the Romans (1497): An Anti-Savonarolan Reading of Vi-sion and Prophecy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. 205

CESARE VASOLI, Francesco Patrizi e la teologia platonica. L’Uno e lagenerazione dell’infinito . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . » 235

THOMAS LEINKAUF, Marsilio Ficino’s Theologia Platonica andFrancesco Patrizi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . » 253

NICOLETTA TIRINNANZI, Il De umbris di Giordano Bruno e laTheologia platonica di Marsilio Ficino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . » 269

SARAH HUTTON, Marsilio Ficino and Ralph Cudworth . . . . . . . . » 295

Index of Manuscripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . » 311

Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . » 313

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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MAUDE VANHAELEN

FICINO’S COMMENTARY

ON ST PAUL’S FIRST EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS (1497):

AN ANTI-SAVONAROLAN READING OF VISION AND PROPHECY

1. INTRODUCTION

When Ficino publicly commented upon St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans inthe Cathedral of Florence, some time at the end of 1497, he was not only echo-ing a long tradition of ancient and medieval exegesis of the Pauline epistles. Hewas also reiterating a position that he had started to develop in the 1470s in histreatise on St Paul’s rapture (De Raptu Pauli) and in his Platonic Theology re-garding the soul’s divine powers. At the time he delivered his interpretation ofRomans, he had also completed his commentaries on Plato, Plotinus, and othermajor Neoplatonic philosophers, and he was about to publish his commen-taries on Dionysius the Areopagite. These works had a profound impact on Fi-cino’s reading of Romans. Firstly, Ficino saw Plato and his Neoplatonic succes-sors as theologians rather than philosophers, that is to say, as divinely inspiredthinkers who wrote about divine rather than, or as well as, natural causes. Sec-ondly, the humanist considered Denys the Areopagite to be both the «Plato-nicae disciplinae culmen» and «Christianae Theologiae columen», becausehe was transmitting St Paul’s teachings («a Paulo mundi sole didicerit»), whichwere themselves confirmed by Plato («Platone etiam confirmante»).1

In this context, St Paul perfectly embodied the model of Christianity asFicino understood it: a form of mystical spirituality in agreement with Neopla-

1 See FICINO’ Argumentum in Orationem Dionysii de Trinitate, in MARSILII FICINI Florentini... Opera & quae hactenus extitere & quae in lucem nunc primum prodiere omnia ... in duos tomosdigesta ... una cum gnomologia ..., Basileae, Henricpetri, 1576, en reimpression numerique, suivieet prefacee par S. TOUSSAINT, Paris, 2000 (= Op.), p. 1013. Dionysius the Areopagite was a sixth-cen-tury monk, who claimed to be St Paul’s first pagan convert mentioned in Act 17, 34. In reality he wasa follower of the Neoplatonist Proclus, and adapted Neoplatonic ontology and mysticism to a Chris-tian framework, offering a perfect synthesis of Christianity and Paganism.

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tonic metaphysics, far away from the Church’s dogmatic religion and scholas-tic theology. This is not to say that his understanding of the world was notdeeply influenced by Christian dogmas and Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy;however, his vision of religion as a form of enlightened wisdom practicedby both the Apostles and some pagan philosophers, was very different fromthe religion practiced by contemporary Christians and from the theologytheorised through Aristotelian syllogism by scolastic philosophers.

Like some medieval mystics such as Denys the Carthusian, Jean Gerson,and Nicholas of Cusa, Ficino stressed the mystical aspect of St Paul’s experi-ence, which had enabled him to ascend up to the third heaven and see Godface to face.2 Unlike any interpreter before him, however, Ficino consideredthat St Paul’s rapture could be equated with the ecstatic states described bysome pagan theologians, especially those whom he called the ‘Platonists’, i.e.Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus, who had transformed Plato’sphilosophy into a theology. But there was another reason that led Ficino tocomment on St Paul’s Epistles, which can only be explained by the historicalcontext in which he was writing. At the time Ficino delivered his commentaryon St Paul, Florence was dominated by Savonarola’s religious and political re-form, which the Dominican friar had achieved by claiming to be directly in-spired by God. As modern scholars have shown, when Savonarola arrived inFlorence for the second time in 1490, he was perpetuating a long-standing tra-dition in Florence, dominated by Apocalyptic and millenarist preoccupations,which were deeply influenced by medieval Joachitism,3 but also charac-terised by a recourse to «irrational and esoteric» doctrines related to pro-phecy, which had been revived by Ficino’s translations of Hermetic, Pytha-gorean and Neoplatonic writings.4 In this respect, and despite his repeated

2 On late medieval commentaries on Romans and their focus on Paul’s mystical ascent to thethird heaven, see K. FROEHLICH, Paul and the Late Middle Ages, in A Companion to Paul in the Re-formation, ed. by R. WARD HOLDER, Leiden-New York, 2009, pp. 15-40.

3 On Joachim of Fiore, see M. REEVES, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages. AStudy in Joachimism, Oxford, 1969. On Ficino, Pier Leone da Spoleto and gioachimist prophetism inthe Renaissance, see R. LERNER, The Prophetic Manuscripts of the «Renaissance Magus» Pierleone ofSpoleto, in Il profetismo gioachimita tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento, Atti del III Congresso interna-zionale di Studi gioachimiti (S. Giovanni in Fiore, 17-21 settembre 1989), a cura di G.L. POTESTA,Genova, 1991, pp. 97-116 and C. VASOLI, Ficino, la religione e i ‘profeti’ (1474-1482), in Laurentialaurus. Scritti offerti a Mario Martelli, a cura di F. BAUSI-V. FERA, Messina, 2004, pp. 287-311; onSavonarola’s allusions to gioachimism, see D. WEINSTEIN, Savonarola, Florence, and the MillenarianTradition, «Church History», XXVII, 4, 1958, pp. 291-305.

4 See D. WEINSTEIN, Savonarola and Florence: Prophecy and Patriotism in the Renaissance, Prin-ceton, 1970; J. HANKINS, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, Leiden-New York, 1990, pp. 348-349;C. VASOLI, Savonarola e la cultura fiorentina, in Studi Savonaroliani. Verso il V centenario, Atti delprimo seminario di studi, a cura di G.C. GARFAGNINI, Firenze, 1996, pp. 107-126; S. TOUSSAINT, Pro-fetare alla fine del Quattrocento, ivi, pp. 167-181.

MAUDE VANHAELEN

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claims that he was prophesying «new things in a new way» Savonarola’s mes-sage of renovation echoed, at least in some part, that of Ficino, who was him-self convinced that his mission of reviving the Platonici’s wisdom was divinelyinspired («Deo aspirante») and would lead to the renovatio of the spiritualityof his time.5 Ficino believed that he had prophetic abilities and practiced ex-orcism in at least two instances.6 He also considered that Florence was theplace where the renovation of the Church could be achieved through a returnto the spirituality of the first Christians (Jesus and Paul), the Platonici and the‘real’ Aristotelians (the Neoplatonic interpreters of Aristotle).

And yet we know that the Florentine philosopher gradually shifted atti-tude towards the friar, first celebrating him as a prophet comparable to So-crates and St Paul, then considering him as a false prophet, an Antichrist un-der demonic influence. As has been shown by a number of scholars, thischange of attitude not only reflects that of Ficino’s contemporaries,7 but alsoSavonarola’s own position, whose message of renovation of the Church firstechoed a series of Ficinian topoi related to love, charity and astrology, beforebecoming exclusively centred upon what Savonarola claimed to be a directrevelation of God’s mysteries. As we know, Savonarola’s apologetics wasfounded upon the belief that prophecy was something beyond philosophy,only accessible to the immediate experience of the mystic. This position im-plicitly rejected Ficino’s interpretation of pagan philosophy as a form of piaphilosophia.8 However, this is not sufficient to explain specifically which pa-

5 On this point, see HANKINS, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, cit., pp. 267-359; M.J.B. ALLEN,Synoptic Art. Marsilio Ficino on the History of Platonic Interpretation, Florence, 1998, pp. 1-49, withreference to Ficino’s letters to Pannonius and Paul of Middleburg; C. VASOLI, Il mito dei ‘prisci theo-logi’ come ideologia della ‘renovatio’, in his «Quasi sit deus». Studi su Marsilio Ficino, Lecce, 1999,pp. 11-50.

6 On Ficino’s prophecies and exorcisms, see C. CELENZA, Late Antiquity and Florentine Platon-ism: The ‘Post-Plotinian’ Ficino, in Marsilio Ficino. His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy, ed. byM.J.B. ALLEN-V. REES, Leiden, 2002, pp. 71-98: 89-91.

7 In 1497, several documents circulate, casting some doubt on the licit and true character ofSavonarola’s prophecies: the famous and anonymous Epistola responsiva, the Del modo scernere ilfalso dal vero profeta by Samuele Cascini, and a letter entitled A tutti li veri et non stimulati amicidi Jesu Christo crocifisso. See L. POLIZZOTTO, The Elect Nation. The Savonarolan Movement in Flor-ence (1494-1545), Oxford, 1994, chapters 2 and 3. On the Antichrist in the Renaissance, see C. VA-

SOLI, Temi mistici e profetici alla fine del Quattrocento, in his Studi sulla cultura del Rinascimento,Manduria, 1968, pp. 180-240; A. CHASTEL, L’Antechrist a la Renaissance, in Cristianesimo e Ragiondi Stato. L’Umanesimo e il Demoniaco nell’arte, Atti del II Congresso internazionale di Studi uma-nistici (Roma, 1952), a cura di E. CASTELLI, Roma-Milano, 1953, pp. 177-186; ID., L’Apocalypseen 1500. La Fresque de l’Antechrist a la Chapelle Saint-Brice d’Orvieto, «Bibliotheque d’Humanismeet de Renaissance», XIV, 1952, pp. 124-140; WEINSTEIN, Savonarola and Florence, cit., pp. 227-246.

8 M.A. GRANADA, Savonarola et Jean-Francois Pic contre Ficin, in Savonarole. Enjeux, debats,questions, Actes du Colloque international (Paris, 25-27 janvier 1996), ed. par A. FONTES-J.L. FOUR-

NET-M. PLAISANCE, Paris, 1997, pp. 275-290. On Ficino’s prisca theologia, see D.P. WALKER, The

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FICINO’S COMMENTARY ON ST PAUL’S FIRST EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS (1497)

gan doctrines Savonarola, who knew Platonic and Aristotelian philosophyquite well, rejected in his sermons and treatises.

Some scholars have stressed the political nature of the conflict between Fi-cino and Savonarola, pointing out that both men competed for the protectionof wealthy Florentine families.9 Others have adopted the view that the friar at-tacked Ficino’s doctrine of revealed prophetic knowledge because he sought todefend, following the revival of ancient Greek sceptical writings, the superi-ority of a form of revealed prophetic knowledge that would be based uponChristian revelation alone.10 However, evidence suggests that the nature ofthe conflict was also philosophical, and concerned the question as to whetherspecific Neoplatonic doctrines on prophecy could be used in matters of faith.Savonarola’s notes on «the doctrine of the Platonists» («De doctrina Platoni-corum»), now in a sixteenth-century manuscript,11 show that the Dominicanfriar was fascinated by Platonism, and knew in detail Ficino’s (and Pico’s) dis-cussions on Neoplatonic doctrines related to prophecy, including the role ofdemons and the vehicle of the soul in the process of divine inspiration.

The purpose of this article is thus to explore in more detail the philoso-phical significance of Ficino’s attitude towards Savonarola, and, conversely,of the friar’s repeated attacks against the ancient «astrologers» and «philoso-phers», in explicit opposition to «the wise men and the sophists of his time».12

Moving away from a perspective that would oppose Ficino’s Avicennian Pla-tonism to Savonarola’s anti-Platonic, Thomist position,13 this article argues

Ancient Theology: Studies in Christian Platonism from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century, Lon-don, 1972, pp. 1-21; C. VASOLI, Dalla pace religiosa alla ‘prisca theologia’, in Firenze e il Concilio del1439, Convegno di studi (Firenze, 29 novembre-2 dicembre 1989), a cura di P. VITI, Firenze, 1994,pp. 3-26; HANKINS, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, cit., pp. 459-463; M. DE GANDILLAC, L’idee deRenaissance chez Marsile Ficin, in Historia Philosophiae Medii Aevi. Studien zur Geschichte der Phi-losophie des Mittelalters, hrsg. von B. MOJSISCH-O. PLUTA, 2 vols., Amsterdam-Philadelphia, 1991, I,pp. 321-328; ALLEN, Synoptic Art, cit., pp. 1-49; M. IDEL, Prisca Theologia in Marsilio Ficino and inSome Jewish Treatments, in Marsilio Ficino: His Philosophy, cit., pp. 137-158.

9 See M. JURDJEVIC, Prophets and Politicians: Marsilio Ficino, Savonarola, and the Valori Family,«Past and Present», 183, 2004, pp. 41-77.

10 On Savonarola’s use of ancient scepticism for apologetic purposes against Ficino’s priscatheologia, see WALKER, The Ancient Theology, cit., pp. 58-62; R.H. POPKIN, Prophecy and Scepticismin the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century, «British Journal for the History of Ideas», IV, 1, 1996,pp. 1-20; and GRANADA, Savonarola et Jean-Francois Pic contre Ficin, cit., pp. 275-290.

11 Conv. Soppr. D.8.985, ff. 208r-214v. The manuscript was identified in 1961 by E. GARIN, Lacultura filosofica del Rinascimento italiano. Ricerche e documenti, Firenze, 1961, pp. 201-212. Thetext has been recently edited by L. TROMBONI, Girolamo Savonarola lettore di Platone. Edizione ecommento del De Doctrina Platonicorum, «Rinascimento», II s., XLVI, 2006, pp. 133-213.

12 Triumphus Crucis, a cura di M. FERRARA, Roma, 1961, Proemium, p. 1: «Gloriosum Crucistriumphum, contra huius saeculi sapientes garrulosque sophistas, arduum profecto ac supra vires,temporibus tamen nostris utile opus ac necessarium, divina ope fretus aggredior».

13 The opposition between Thomas’ and Avicenna’s doctrines of prophecy will be discussed

MAUDE VANHAELEN

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that Savonarola’s virulent opposition to ancient philosophy does not concernpagan philosophy as a whole, but Ficino’s revival of specific Neoplatonic doc-trines on prophecy; and that, in this process of criticism, Savonarola was ledto make a series of dangerous statements on the nature of his own propheticexperience. As we will see, this also explains why Ficino re-states in his com-mentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans his views on the prisca theologia,by equating St Paul’s teaching with some aspects of Neoplatonic philosophy,and establishes a distinction between Savonarola’s alleged revelations and hisown interpretation of the truly divine prophecies of St Paul, the only mortal to«have heard in ecstasy the secret words that should not been said to men»(«audivit arcana verba quae non licet homini loqui»).14

The implications of this research are not limited, therefore, to offering anew reading of Ficino’s commentary on St Paul’s Romans.15 They also enlight-en the philosophical significance of the debate between Savonarola and hisopponents. They underline what constituted the core of Ficino’s and Savonar-ola’s opposition, at a time when the boundaries between preaching and pro-phecy were becoming dangerously blurred: the need to adopt or reject a seriesof pagan doctrines and religious practices in order to justify the exercise ofspecific prophetic powers.

2. CONTEXT

In a virulent Apology addressed to the College of the Cardinals shortlyafter Savonarola’s execution, some time in 1498, Ficino compares the Domin-ican friar to a bad demon that had deceived the Florentines, an Antichrist thathad terrorised people with false prophecies, acting as if possessed by a demon

below. For a similar position, challenging the view of Savonarola as strictly Thomist, see D.A. LINES,Pagan and Christian Ethics: Girolamo Savonarola and Ludovico Valenza on Moral Philosophy, «Do-cumenti e Studi sulla tradizione filosofica medioevale», XVII, 2006, pp. 427-444. On Savonarola’scriticism of Plato, see WALKER, The Ancient Theology, cit., pp. 42-62; WEINSTEIN, Savonarola andFlorence, cit., pp. 185-226.

14 2 Cor 12, 2-4, referred to in Ficino’s preface to the commentary, in Op., p. 425. The fact thatFicino’s commentary on Romans might contain anti-Savonarolan allusions was first mentioned byA.F. VERDE, Lo studio fiorentino (1473-1503). Ricerche e Documenti, IV.3: La vita universitaria, Fi-renze, 1985, pp. 1270-1273.

15 Studies of Ficino’s commentary on Romans include W. DRESS, Die Mystik des Marsilio Fici-no, Berlin-Leipzig, 1929, pp. 151-216, who focuses mostly on Ficino’s indebtedness to ThomasAquinas; J. LAUSTER, Die Erlosungslehre Marsilio Ficinos theologiegeschichtliche Aspekte des Renais-sanceplatonismus, Berlin, 1998, pp. 25-33, who focuses on the theological and apologetic aspects ofFicino’s interpretation. Lauster’s ideas are recapitulated in his Marsilio Ficino as a Christian Thinker:Theological Aspects of his Platonism, in Marsilio Ficino. His Theology, cit., pp. 45-69.

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or seized by poetic rapture.16 Ficino confessed to have been himself con-vinced, at first, by Savonarola’s sermons, before changing his mind «threeyears earlier» (that is, at the end of 1495), when he had started to warn hisfriends, «in secret and openly», of the imminent danger presented by Savo-narola’s prophecies.17 The astrologers and Platonists, he states, could easilyhave shown that there were clear signs indicating that Savonarola was in factsubject to demonic influence.18 Ficino himself had attempted to protect theFlorentines from the pernicious influence of Savonarola, in the same waythe pagan sorcerer Apollonius of Tyana had performed an exorcism to protectthe Ephesians from an impending catastrophe.19

The context of the Apology is well known, and is further documented byWeinstein’s identification of two letters Ficino addressed to his amicus unicusGiovanni Cavalcanti within a week in 1494.20 On the twelfth of December of1494, that is two weeks after Charles VIII’s departure from Florence, Ficinowrites a first letter to Cavalcanti, where he states that Savonarola is God’s cho-sen («divinitus ad hoc electum»), a man of sanctity and wisdom («per virumsanctimonia sapientiaque praestantem Hieronymum»).21 Shortly afterwards,

16 For the text, see P.O. KRISTELLER, Supplementum Ficinianum, 2 vols., Florentiae, 1937, II,pp. 76-79; for the date, ibid., I, p. CLXI.

17 Ibid., II, pp. 77-78: «[...] et si ab initio dum repente mutata Republica Galli variis passimterroribus Florentiam agitabant ipse quoque una cum trepido populo nescio quo demonio perterri-tus sum et ab breve deceptus, sed cito resipivi atque iam toto triennio clam frequentius saepequepalam nec sine discrimine notos mihi multos commonefeci, ut monstrum hoc veneficum longe fuge-rent in calamitatem huius populi natum». Ficino’s use of the name Sevonerola might be a pun onSaevus Nero, alluding to the identification, in patristic literature, between the Antichrist and the Ro-man Emperor Nero. On this interpretation, see R. DE MAIO, Riforme e miti nella Chiesa del Cinque-cento, Napoli, 1973, p. 78.

18 KRISTELLER, Supplementum Ficinianum, cit., II, p. 77: «Quibus autem rationibus Astrologisimulque Platonici Savonarolam multis diversisque vel infelicibus syderum influxibus inflatum fuisseconicerent, in presentia disputare non expedit. Sed ut summatim dicam, ex diversis infortunatisquesyderum influxibus atque confluxibus saltem velut ex signis quibusdam Astrologi forsitan cum Pla-tonicis coniecturam facerent Savonarolam immo ut rectius loquar Sevonerolam variis improbisquedemonibus fuisse subiectum».

19 Ibid., pp. 77-78: «Simile quoddam infortunium Ephesiis imminens ex squalido quodam senemalis demonibus acto Apollonium Theaneum deprhendisse et expulisse ferunt. Ego quoque idemiam diu in istoc Sevonerola deprhendi [...]». On Apollonius’ exorcism, see PHILOSTRATUS, Life ofApollonius, IV, 10, an episode that is condemned by Eusebius of Cesarea as sorcery (PraeparatioEvangelica, IV, 13).

20 See R. MARCEL, Marsile Ficin (1433-1499), Paris, 1958, pp. 555-579; WEINSTEIN, Savonarolaand Florence, cit., pp. 185-192; HANKINS, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, cit., p. 348; C. VASOLI,Savonarola, Ficino e la cultura filosofica fiorentina del tardo Quattrocento, in ID., «Quasi sit deus»,cit., pp. 107-126 and P. VITI, Ficino, Platone e Savonarola, in Marsilio Ficino. Fonti, testi, fortuna,Atti del Convegno internazionale (Firenze, 1-3 ottobre 1999), a cura di S. GENTILE-S. TOUSSAINT,Roma, 2006, pp. 295-318.

21 Op., p. 963: «Nonne propter multa delicta, postremum huic urbi hoc autumno exitium immi-nebat, nulla prorsus hominum virtute vitandum? Nonne divina clementia Florentinis indulgentissima,

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however, on 20 December 1494, just after the beginning of Savonarola’s po-litical reform, Ficino writes to the same Cavalcanti a second letter. At the re-quest of his friend to explain how to distinguish between good and bad pro-phets, Ficino analyses a passage from Plato’s Philebus (39e-40c) whereSocrates explains that all men form in their mind images or pictures of thefuture, which can be true or false, depending on whether the beholder is agood or a bad man.22 According to Plato’s interpretation, Ficino states, badmen, who lie to themselves, often imagine false pleasures and images; evenwhen their images of the future seem to be realised, the events they predictonly occur superficially, rather than intrinsically; as a result, bad people arealways agitated and ill, and their pleasures are like those of people who areill, asleep or insane.23 Savonarola is not mentioned, but, as pointed out byWeinstein, given the context, the reference is unmistakable, echoing the argu-ments Ficino presents three years later in his Apology against Savonarola: Sa-vonarola might appear to utter true prophecies, and his visions might look asif they had been realised, but in reality his alleged frenzies and visions are falseand those of a sick man.

Ficino’s apparent change of opinion is also reflected in Savonarola’schange of attitude towards astrology. Ficino’s first letter to Cavalcanti comes

integro ante hunc autumnum quadriennio nobis [nob Op.] istud praenuntiavit per virum sanctimoniasapientiaque praestantem Hieronymum ex ordine praedicatorum, divinitus ad hoc electum? Nonnepraesagiis monitisque divinis per hunc impletis, certissimum iamiam supra nostrum caput imminensexitum, nulla prorsus virtute nostra, sed praeter spem opinionemque nostram mirabiliter evitavimus?».

22 Op., pp. 963-964: «Contuli heri tecum et cum genero tuo Gerardo Ianfilatio pro viro, quid inPhilebo Plato de amicis Dei sentiat, vel inimicis. Placuit ergo tibi ut ipsa verba Platonis ad te scribe-rem, et quae ibidem sit expositio nostra. Accipe igitur atque lege feliciter. Verba Platonis haec sunt.Vir iustus et pius et probus, nonne Deo amicus est, iniustus autem et improbus, inimicus? Est pro-fecto. Plurima quidem spe unusquisque ducitur. Interiores enim sermones quidam sunt in unoquo-que nostrum, quos et opiniones et spes nominare solemus, sunt quinetiam phantasmata picta. Namcuique licet fingere se cumulum auri maximum possidere oblectamentisque variis abundantem, omnisuavitate perfundi. Annon dicendum opiniones imaginationesque eiusmodi bonis viris quia Deo ami-ci sunt, veras frequenter evadere, malis autem saepe numero falsas? Dicendum certe. Pravis utiqueviris oblectationes quaedam adsunt, saepe confictae ac denique falsae, falsis igitur voluptatibus pravisaepe numero gestiunt, homines autem boni gaudiis semper veris aluntur. Hactenus Plato».

23 Ibid.: «Sequitur expositio nostra. Bonus vir a Platone censetur, qui in se quidem temperatus,ad Deum autem pius est, ad homines vero iustus. Animus eiusmodi propter similitudinem Deo praecaeteris est amicus, malus autem propter dissimilitudinem inimicus. Itaque cum Deus et moveat in-trinsecus et ubique provideat, nimirum opiniones et imaginationes spesque bonorum virorum, veraefrequenter evadunt, malorum vero falsae, utrique gaudia quaedam excogitant, optant, sperant, haecbonis viris tamquam divinis atque veridicis, vera saepe contingunt, malis vero falsa. Mali enim tam-quam sibimet mendaces, sicut frequenter opinione falluntur, ita falsa saepius oblectamenta confin-gunt, denique si pravis tamquam a divina veritate discordibus, succedere spes non debent, saepe ta-men in externis successum habere videntur, sequitur saltem ut intrinsecus non succedant, semperergo solicitantur intus atque languent, eorumque voluptates similes sunt falsis voluptatibus aegrotan-tium, somniantium, insanorum».

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two days after Savonarola’s tenth Sermon on Haggai (delivered on 10 De-cember), where Savonarola uses images that are strikingly similar to Ficino’sown spiritual message. Here Savonarola recalls that love is unifying andtransforms the lover into the beloved, just as charity makes you love Godmore than yourself, thus echoing Ficino’s doctrine of love described inhis commentary on Plato’s Symposium.24 Savonarola then attacks the astro-logers in a way that is not dissimilar to Ficino’s defence of free will againstastrological determinism, as expounded, for instance, in his commentary onPlotinus’ treatise On Fate.25 According to Savonarola, the astrologers limittheir observations to the motions of celestial bodies, rather than trying toreach God’s divine intellect; they fail to verify whether earthly dispositionscorrespond at all to celestial motions and to find the means that could en-courage or counter these motions. As a result, Savonarola concludes, onlythe wise man will rule the stars, recalling the famous Renaissance motto(«sapiens dominabitur astris») that is at the core of Ficino’s conception ofastrology.26 Similarly, Savonarola announces to the Florentines the adventof «a doctor of the souls», coming to Florence to cure spiritual illnesses,an image that would, in the mind of the Florentines, not only refer to Christ,but also to the way in which Ficino had described himself five years earlierin his preface of Plotinus.27 As we can see, we are far here from the anti-astrological, anti-Platonic vituperations that are traditionally ascribed to Sa-vonarola.

24 Predica sopra Aggeo, X (dated 10 December 1494), a cura di L. FIRPO, Roma, 1965, p. 160:«quando uno communica del suo ad altri volentieri, e segno che lui ama quel tale a chi lo da o peramor di chi fa tale dono; e perche l’amore e cosa unitiva e transferisce l’amante nello amato, peroquesto essere largo datore e cosa dilettevole, e ideo amicus dicitur alter ego, cioe fa che l’amico euna medesima cosa con l’altro amico; e di qui nasce la carita fa che tu ami Dio sopra di te ed el pros-simo come te». Compare with Ficino’s doctrine of love, in De Amore, e.g. VII, 13-15. On Ficino’scomparison between Platonic love and St Paul’s caritas, see C. VASOLI, Considerazioni sul De raptuPauli, in ID., «Quasi sit deus», cit., pp. 241-261.

25 On Ficino’s discussion of Plotinus’ criticism of astrology, see M. VANHAELEN, Ficin et le DeFato de Plotin, «Accademia», VII, 2005, pp. 45-60.

26 Predica sopra Aggeo, X, cit., pp. 164-165: «Non e el cuore del giusto come quello degli astro-logi, che sperano nel cielo che ei veggano e non passano piu su, ma el giusto spera in Dio, che e soprae’ cieli, ed el suo libro e la mente divina; el libro degli astrologi e solamento el cielo, e dicano e vo-gliano che quivi sia scritto ogni cosa. Ma pogniamo che per il cielo si vedesse qualche disposizione,bisogna poi guardare in terra e non tanto in cielo, e vedere se le disposizioni di quaggiu corrispon-dano col cielo, e poi bisogna vedere tutti e’ mezzi che possano o conducere o impedire, el che e im-possibile vedere; e poi ci e el libero arbitrio, che non puo esser sforzato da’ cieli, se l’uomo non vole,quia sapiens dominabitur astris».

27 Ibid., pp. 165-169. On Ficino’s preface to Plotinus (in Op., pp. 1537-1538) and his divinemission, see H.D. SAFFREY, Florence, 1492: The Reappearance of Plotinus, «Renaissance Quarterly»,XLIX, 1996, pp. 488-508; VASOLI, Dalla pace religiosa alla ‘prisca theologia’, cit., pp. 3-26; HANKINS,Plato in the Italian Renaissance, cit., pp. 282-300; ALLEN, Synoptic Art, cit., pp. 51-92.

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Two days later, however, Savonarola implicitly attacks, in a famous pas-sage of the eleventh sermon On Haggai, the intellectual members of the Laur-entian circle, where he criticises those «who frequent the houses and meetingsof great men as their satellites and adulators, do not praise the true and livingGod but are quicker to praise vain things, such as the astrologers and poetsand philosophers and others of this kind, and hold them almost as theirgods».28 In this context, Ficino’s second letter mentioning true and false pre-dictions, based upon Platonic arguments, sounds like one of these veiledwarnings Ficino alludes to in his Apology. Ficino’s shift of attitude reflects,therefore, Savonarola’s own ‘ambiguity’, echoing at first Ficino’s own spiritualmessage, then gradually excluding intellectuals and philosophers and con-demning any form of spirituality that would not be based on his own interpre-tation of the Scriptures and God’s direct revelation.

3. THE NATURE OF PROPHETIC KNOWLEDGE

To determine the philosophical implications of Ficino’s and Savonarola’sopposition, let us go back to the first letter Ficino addresses to Calvacanti inpraise of Savonarola. In this letter Ficino establishes a clear link between Savo-narola’s predictions and what he sees as the divinely inspired prophecies of pa-gan theologians. The letter, entitled «why Providence allows the occurrence ofadverse events, and how to counter evils by means of predictions and reme-dies», evidently attempts to make sense of the troubled events that are unfold-ing in Florence, as the army of Charles VIII is marching towards Florence andSavonarola is predicting that God’s wrath will fall upon Italy. Ficino explainsthat divine Providence allows both just and unjust men to be tormented byevils, because often what we call ‘evil’ can be sent by God for the greater good.Ficino then invokes Plato, Plotinus and Synesius to explain how remedies cancounter the malevolent influences of demons.29 Ficino also celebrates the

28 Predica sopra Aggeo, XI (dated 12 December 1494), cit., p. 182: «questo vuol dire che questesimil gente, che stanno nelle case e conviti degli uomini grandi come loro satelliti e adulatori, nonlaudano Iddio vero e vivo, ma laudano piu presto cose vane, come sono astrologi e poeti e filosofie altri simili, e hannoli quasi per loro dei».

29 Op., p. 961: «Operae pretium est praeterea diligenter considerare Platonicum illud in Phae-dro, de venefica mali daemonis astutia dictum. Daemon aliquis statim ab initia vitiis, quae plurimisimmiscuit voluptatem. Haec quidem ibi Socrates, inquit, admonens malorum daemonum praecipu-um esse studium, animas seorsum a coelesti patria in hoc exilio diutius detinere superni patris oblitaslongasque machinari moras illecebris oblectamentisque terrenis, quibus profecto quasi poculis vene-ficae Circes soporiferisque Syrenum cantibus delinitae, numquam aut certe tardius in coelestem pa-triam revertantur. Contra vero daemonicas insidias benefica providentia Dei statuit, ducibus quidem

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works of the prophets sent by God to predict the advent of terrible events andgive people scope to avoid them. Given that his mission is to reconcile Chris-tian and Platonic mysteries, he states, it might be worth recalling that paganstoo had their own prophets, such as Socrates and his demonic voice, Diotima,the Sybils, Epimenides, who confirm the teachings of the biblical prophets.30

Plato himself recognised that divine prophecy was superior to human predic-tions and described how the divinely inspired prophets underwent illumination,erotic ecstasy, alienation and furor, transcending human prudence and divinerituals. The ways in which God sent these divine powers in time prior to theProphets is explained by Avicenna in his book on divine things, in accordancewith Plato.31 This, Ficino concludes, confirms the mysteries of our sacredChurch, and is exemplified by Savonarola’s divinely inspired prophecies, whichwill enable the Florentines to prevent the occurrence of catastrophes.32

Ficino’s characterisation of Savonarola as a prophet that perpetuates a tra-dition initiated by Plato, Plotinus, Synesius, Avicenna and the biblical pro-phets, goes hand in hand with the definition of prophecy he develops in the Pla-tonic Theology, written between 1469 and 1474 and published in 1482. In BookXIII, Ficino lists among the divinely inspired prophets Diotima and Socrates,the Sibyls, the Delphi priests and the Hebrew prophets.33 Similarly, Ficino un-derlines the similarities between the abstraction of St Paul’s soul and the fren-zies experienced by some pagans under the influence of good daimones:

The divine theologian Paul, in the divine abstraction of the soul, ascended to thethird heaven of the celestial hierarchies. One day, with God inspiring them, several

his laetiferisque saporibus, sapores amaros interim commisceri, ne ab eiusmodi voluptate, quam Ti-maeus malorum escam nominat, capiamur, ut pisces ab hamo. Hanc utique Platonici, praecipue Plo-tinus atque Synesius, magna ex parte causam esse putant, ut divina providentia tot tantisque pertur-bationibus animos in terris vexari voluerit».

30 Op., p. 962.31 Op., pp. 962-963: «Post haec Plato, cum prophetam et sacerdotem divinis occupatum sapi-

entiae humanae longe admodum intervallo praeposuisset, describit mentem quandam divino prorsusamore flagrantem ecstasimque amatoriam patientem atque furorem alienationemque huiusmodi, nonsolum humanae prudentiae, sed divinis etiam muneribus omnibus anteponit. Vbi plane comprobatapostolicum illud: Maior horum charitas. Mitti ante Prophetas a Deo et qua ratione mittantur, Avi-cenna etiam in libro divinorum multis rationibus Platone consentit».

32 Op., p. 963, quoted in note 22 above.33 M. FICINO, Platonic Theology, English Translation by M.J.B. ALLEN, Latin Text ed. by

J. HANKINS with W. BOWEN, 6 vols., The I Tatti Renaissance Library, Cambridge, Mass.-London2001-07 (hereafter PT), XIII, 2, 8 (IV, pp. 130-131): «Mentes vero divinas illa prae caeteris praesagiaindicant, ut in Phaedro vult Plato, quia sine arte et consilio fiunt, qualia sunt quae de Diotima vate etSocrate et Epimenide Plato refert; quae de Sibyllis Varro una cum Platone; quae de Pythiis oraculishistorici narrant et philosophi paene omnes confirmant, praesertim Platonici; quae de somniis expe-riuntur omnes; quae de divinis prophetis tradunt Hebraei».

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Galileans too were suddenly transformed from being fishermen into sublime theolo-gians. All antiquity testifies that in times prior to them many priests, inspired by de-mons, often danced in frenzy and proclaimed marvels.34

Elsewhere, Ficino compares the fire that transported Paul and Elias toheaven with the fire described by the Magi and the Platonists,35 and he oftendescribes St Paul’s raptus in Platonic and Chaldaean terms.36 Later on, inBook XVI, Ficino goes as far as to compare the Neoplatonic rituals of magic,sacrifice and demonology with the Christian rituals of prayer and fasting, in-deed reconsidering Christian rituals in the light of Neoplatonic mysticism.37

Ficino’s view that Neoplatonic and Christian doctrines on prophecy couldbe compared had profound metaphysical implications. The two letters quotedabove share the same concern: since the effects of divine inspiration and de-monic possession are similar, how can we distinguish between the two, andhow do we know that the visions are sent to us by God rather than by evilspirits? This question was not new, of course, and was part of the Christiantradition of discernment of spirits that had flourished in the middle Ages.38

However, rather than relying solely on the Christian mystical tradition, Ficinoused Greek pagan texts on demonology and prophecy to answer this pro-blem. We know that between 1486 and 1489, Ficino suddenly interruptedhis commentary on Plotinus, and devoted some time to the interpretationof other Neoplatonic texts on theurgy, prophecy and demons by the Neopla-tonists Iamblichus, Porphyry, Proclus, Synesius and Michael Psellus. This, heexplains in a letter to Braccio Martelli, enabled him to get a fuller picture ofPlotinus’ demonology expounded in his treatises On Our Allotted Demon andOn Love.39 These Neoplatonic texts all concern what the pagans called dai-mones, the intermediaries between God and men, which could be good orevil. Unlike Augustine, who had identified all pagan daimones with the evildemons of the Bible, Ficino – at least after starting to translate Plato --

34 PT, XIII, 2, 6 (IV, p. 128).35 PT, XIII, 4, 16 (IV, p. 206).36 PT, XIII, 5, 3 (IV, pp. 210-213).37 PT, XVI, 7, 18 (V, p. 310): «Sed eiusmodi invidorum ambitiosorumque daemonum violen-

tiam expugnari Platonici per philosophiam et sacrificia posse putant, quod Orphici nobis Hymni de-monstrant. Christus autem, verus medicus animorum, ieiunio atque oratione hoc fieri praecipit».

38 On the doctrine of discernement des esprits in Christian mysticism, see F. VANDENBROUCKE,Discernement des esprits, in Dictionnaire de spiritualite ascetique et mystique. Doctrine et histoire, III,fonde par M. VILLER et al., continue sous la dir. de C. BAUMGARTNER, assiste de M. OLPHE-GAL-

LIARD, Paris, 1957, pp. 1222-1291.39 Op., p. 875.

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adopted the notion that pagan demons were not necessarily ‘bad spirits’, andthat pagan ‘good demons’ were equivalent to Christian angels.40 A cursoryglance at Ficino’s compilation indicates that the Florentine humanist was par-ticularly interested in the ways the Neoplatonists had decribed the role gooddemons could play in the process of divine inspiration, and how these couldbe distinguished from bad, evil demons; how men could receive the gift ofprophecy when awake or in sleep, and, as a result, how they could distinguishbetween true and false prophecies.41 One of the humanist’s main concernswas to explore the different Neoplatonic accounts of the doctrine of the ve-hicle of the soul (described as the vehiculum, the spiritum, or a form of lightintermediate between immaterial and material light) that he found in Iambli-chus, Porphyry, Synesius and Proclus, the celestial body whereby demons in-spire men and the instrument whereby men can in turn communicate with thedivine through their phantasia.42 By stressing the importance, within the hu-man soul, of the phantasia, as both the place where, and the faculty whereby,

40 See for instance Ficino’s argumentum to Plato’s Apology of Socrates (published in 1484), re-ferring to Socrates’ daemon as a «good angel»: «at si minus tibi placet et familiarem hominis ducemdaemonem appellare, saltem, ut placet nostris, bonum angelum appellato» (= Op., p. 1388). See alsoM.J.B. ALLEN, Socrates and the Daemonic Voice of Conscience, in ID., Synoptic Art, cit., pp. 125-147:142-143. On Augustine’s anti-pagan polemics (part. in Books VIII-X of the City of God), see at leastP. F. BEATRICE, Quosdam Platonicos libros: The Platonic Readings of Augustine in Milan, «VigiliaeChristianae», XLIII, 3, 1989, pp. 248-281. On Ficino vs. Augustine, see M. VANHAELEN, L’entreprisede traduction et d’exegese de Ficin dans les annees 1486-1489. Demons et prophetie a l’aube de l’eresavonarolienne, «Humanistica», V, 1, 2010, pp. 125-138: 126-128.

41 On Ficino’s translation of these texts, see S. Toussaint’s Introduction in Iamblichus De mys-teriis Aegyptiorum, Chaldaeorum, Assyriorum. Proclus In Platonicum Alcibiadem de anima atque dae-mone ... Marsilii Ficini Liber de voluptate, Fac-simile de l’edition de Venice, Alde Manuce, 1497, En-ghien, 2006, pp. I-XVII.

42 On the Neoplatonic doctrines of the vehicle of the soul, see R.C. KISSLING, The ‘ochema-pneuma’ of the Neo-Platonists and the De insomniis of Synesius of Cyrene, «American Journal of phi-lology», XLIII, 1922, pp. 318-330; G. VERBEKE, L’evolution de la doctrine du pneuma du stoıcisme aSaint Augustin, London, 19872; E.R. DODDS, Appendix II. The Astral Body in Neoplatonism, in hisProclus. Elements of Theology. A Revised Text with Translation, Introduction and Commentary, Ox-ford, 19632, pp. 313-321; N. AUJOULAT, Le corps lumineux chez Hermias et ses rapports avec ceux deSynesios, d’Hierocles et de Proclos, «Etudes Philosophiques», IX, 3, 1991, pp. 289-311; J. FINAMORE,Iamblichus and the Theory of the Vehicle of the Soul, Chicago, 1985; ID., Iamblichus on Light and theTransparent, in The Divine Iamblichus: Philosopher and Man of Gods, ed. by H.J. BLUMENTHAL-E.G.CLARK, Bristol, 1993, pp. 55-64; M. DI PASQUALE BARBANTI, ‘Ochema-pneuma’ e ‘phantasia’ nel neo-platonismo: aspetti psicologici e prospettive religiose, Catania, 1998; E. DELLI, Entre compilation et ori-ginalite. Le corps pneumatique dans l’oeuvre de Michel Psellos, in The Libraries of the Neoplatonists,ed. by C. D’ANCONA, Leiden-Boston, 2007, pp. 211-230. On Renaissance treatments of this doctrine,see D.P. WALKER, The Astral Body in Renaissance Medicine, «Journal of the Warburg and CourtauldInstitutes», XXI, 1958, pp. 119-133; R. KLEIN, La forme et l’intelligible, Paris, 1970, pp. 89-119;D. DE BELLIS, I veicoli dell’anima nell’analisi di Niccolo Leonico Tomeo, «Annali dell’Istituto di filo-sofia, Universita di Firenze», III, 1981, pp. 1-21; and B. TAMBRUN, Marsile Ficin et le Commentaire dePlethon sur les Oracles Chaldaıques, «Accademia», I, 1999, pp. 9-48.

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men could receive divine inspiration, Ficino also describes a new propheticfigure that is no longer the passive receptacle of God described by ThomasAquinas and endorsed by Savonarola, but the active recipient of divine in-spiration. For Ficino considers that it is through rituals of purification thatthe soul receives messages from angels and good demons, who are God’sagents, rather than from evil spirits. These rituals not only include Christianprayer and abstinence, but also Neoplatonic theurgy, as described by Por-phyry, Iamblichus and Synesius, and analysed by Ficino in the third Bookon Life.43

The appeal of these Neoplatonic texts went far beyond the bounds of Fi-cino’s private library. Evidence suggests that important scholars like GiovanniPico, Pier Leone da Spoleto and Giles of Viterbo were fascinated by the Neo-platonic doctrines revived by Ficino.44 Not coincidentally, perhaps, Ficinochose the year 1497 to publish his translation of these texts in Venice, throughthe press of Aldo Manuzio: in a famous letter he appends to the manuscript hesends Aldo Manuzio, he makes a veiled allusion to the Savonarolan «pest».45

In marked contrast to Ficino’s appeal to the doctrine of the ancient theo-logians, Savonarola claims as early as in 1491 that in his sermons he hadpreached «new things in a new way» («nova dicere et novo modo»).46 In con-trast to Ficino’s reference to the role of intermediate beings, he claims to havereceived direct illumination from God. Savonarola’s opponents often ques-tioned the validity of his prophecies on the grounds that the divinatory roleof prophets had ceased with the Incarnation and that Savonarola could notbe certain that his visions were true, since he had rejected the Church’s me-diatory role in the interpretation of the Scriptures.47 In a famous sermon dated1495 Savonarola attempts to counter these criticisms by stating that his pro-

43 On the Neoplatonic sources of Ficino’s De Vita, see B. COPENHAVER, Iamblichus, Synesiusand the Chaldaean Oracles in Marsilio Ficino’s De vita libri tres: Hermetic Magic or Neoplatonic Ma-gic?, in Supplementum Festivum: Studies in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. by J. HANKINS-J. MON-

FASANI-F. PURNELL, Binghamton, NY, 1987, pp. 441-455.44 See VANHAELEN, L’entreprise de traduction, cit., pp. 133-136.45 Cf. Marsilio Ficino Florentinus Aldo Romano S.P.D., in Supplementum Ficinianum, cit., II,

p. 95: «Tres enim furie Florentiam iamdiu miseram assidue vexant, morbus pestilens et fames atqueseditio, atque id quod acerbius est, una cum ceteris mortalium dissimulationibus dissimulata pestis».

46 In his Sermon 49 on the Apocalypse of St John, dated February 1491, ed. by A. VERDE andE. GIACONI, Il Quaresimale del 1491, Firenze, 2001, p. 297.

47 These arguments are developped in the anonymous anti-Savonarolan Epistola Responsiva afratre Hieronymo (written immediately after the Compendio), edited in G.C. GARFAGNINI, Polemichepolitico-religiose nella Firenze del Savonarola. L’Epistola responsiva e la Defensione dell’Altoviti, «Ri-nascimento», II s., XXI, 1991, pp. 93-130. On the pro- and anti-Savonarolan arguments during theSavonarola era, see also WEINSTEIN, Savonarola and Florence, cit., pp. 227-246; POLIZZOTTO, TheElect Nation, cit., pp. 54-99.

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phecies were based on what God said to him, and not simply on an interpre-tation of the Scriptures.48 In this context, he explicitly rejects astrology. Ac-cording to him, angels and astrologers can predict future things that comeabout through a necessary cause, but «future things which are contingent,which can be or not be, and which depend on man’s free will, only Godand any creature to whom God wants to reveal them know, so that any formof divination and astrology de futuris contingentibus are utterly false and im-pious».49 Similarly, in his Compendio di rivelazioni, written in the summer ofthe same year, Savonarola justifies the veracity of his visions by establishing adistinction between two sorts of light, the natural light of human reasonwhereby the future cannot be known, and the supernatural light sent byGod to the prophet, which is «a participation to God’s eternity» and wherebythe prophet can verify that «what is revealed to him is true and comes fromGod», on account of which Savonarola rejects all forms of astrology.50 Thissupernatural light is so efficient that it makes the prophet certain of thesetwo things, «just as natural light makes philosophers certain about the scienceof the first principles or anyone certain that two and two make four».51 Again,

48 Prediche sopra i Salmi, I, a cura di V. ROMANO, Roma, 1969, pp. 41-42: «Ma tu, Firenze, haiudito con gli orecchi tuoi non me, ma Iddio. Ma li altri della Italia hanno udito sempre pel dettod’altri, e pero non arai escusazione alcuna tu, Firenze, se tu non ti converti; e credimi, Firenze,che non io ma Iddio e quello che dice queste cose».

49 Ibid., pp. 38-39: «E pero l’angelo cognosce l’ordine di tutto l’universo; ma le cose future, chesono contingente, che possono essere e non essere, e che consistono nello arbitrio libero dell’uomo,ne angelo, ne creatura altra le sa, ma Iddio a se solo ha riservato questa cognizione del futuro e com-municala a chi gli piace quanta e quando vuole. Bene e vero che l’angelo cognosce quelle cose futureche vengono per causa necessaria, sı come fa lo astrologo che giudica lo eclisse futuro per moto ne-cessario del cielo. [...] Per questo si puo manifestamente concludere che gli indovinamenti e quellaastrologia, che vuole indovinare de futuris contingentibus, sono omnino cose falsissime; perche le cosefuture e quelle che sono del liberio arbitrio, che possono essere e non essere, solamente Iddio le sa equella creatura a chi Iddio le vuole rivelare, come abbiamo detto. E pero io ti dico che l’astrologia,per volere indovinare, e cagione di molte superstizione e eresie». On Thomas’ similar view on angelsas mere transmitters of God’s inspiration and knowledge, see THOMAS AQUINAS, Questiones disputa-tae de veritate, VIII, 12 («Utrum angeli cognoscant futura»).

50 Compendio di rivelazioni, in G. SAVONAROLA, Compendio di rivelazioni: testo volgare e latino;e Dialogus De Veritate Prophetica, a cura di A. CRUCITTI, Roma, 1974, p. 6: «e pero tutte le arte di-vinatorie sono reprobate dalle Scritture e da e’ canoni, el capo delle quale e la astrologia iudicatoria:perche conoscere le cose future contingente e proprieta della sapienzia divina, in presenzia della qua-le e ogni cosa preterita, presente e futura, sicut scriptum est: ‘Omnia sunt nuda et aperta oculis eius’.Dunque le cose future contingente non si possono cognoscere per alcuno lume naturale, ma solo Dioe quello che le conosce nella eternita del suo lume, e da lui solo le imparano quegli a li quali lui sidegna revelarle. Nella quale revelazione fa due cose: una e che infonde uno lume sopranaturale alprofeta, el quale lume e una certa participazione della sua eternita, per la quale el profeta iudicadi quello che gli e revelato due cose, idest e che le sono vere e che le sono da Dio».

51 Ibid.: «e e di tanta efficacia questo lume, che fa el profeta cosı certo di queste due cose comeel lume naturale fa certi li filosofi de’ primi principii delle scienzie e come e’ fa anche certo ciascunouomo che dua e dua fa quattro».

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Savonarola admits here that God can send the prophet messages not only di-rectly, but also through the medium of angelic spirits, by means of figures sentto the prophet’s imagination, or of exterior apparitions and images. He insists,however, that it is only through God’s light that the prophet will recognisethat these apparitions are angelic, that they speak the truth and that they pro-ceed from God’s divine wisdom.52 All three forms of prophetic inspiration,Savonarola concludes, have been sent to him at various stages, and at eachstage he has been certain that they were true thanks to God’s lume soprana-turale.53

It would be tempting, in this context, to conclude that Savonarola is sim-ply reusing against his opponents the arguments that Thomas Aquinas haddeveloped against Avicenna’s doctrine of prophecy, stressing that divine pro-phecy must depend upon divine will alone. Indeed, as we have seen, in thefirst letter quoted above, Ficino makes explicit reference to Avicenna’s doc-trine of prophecy, just as he had done so in his Platonic Theology and inhis commentaries on Plato. Savonarola, like Thomas, defined prophecy as agift of God («donum Dei») unrelated to the prophet’s disposition or wisdom.As we know, Thomas had rejected Avicenna’s conception of prophecy on thegrounds that it is natural, while divine prophecy must depend upon divinewill alone. Thus, in question 12 of the De Veritate, he stated that «how greatthe aptitude in the prophet’s mind may be, it is not in his power to employprophecy».54 By contrast, Avicenna admitted the possibility, in some in-stances, of relying on the contact of the imaginative and intellectual facultieswith the celestial bodies and separate intellects (i.e. angels), rather than with

52 Ibid., pp. 7-8: «Alcuna volta quello che ha a prenunziare esso profeta lui glielo infunde nellointelletto senza altra visione immaginaria, in quel modo che infuse la sapienzia a Salamone: e in que-sto modo profeto David profeta; alcuna volta nella immaginazione forma diverse figure e visione im-maginarie, le quale significano quello che ha a intendere e a prenunziare el profeta [...]. E e da notareche queste apparizione esteriore e etiam immaginarie le fa Dio per el ministerio angelico, come dicesanto Dionisio in libro ‘De caelesti hierarchia’, perche ogni cosa che e da Dio e ordinata, iuxta illudApostoli: ‘Quae a Deo sunt, ordinata sunt’; e l’ordine della sua sapienzia e di disporre le cose infimeper le medie e le medie per le supreme. Essendo dunque li angeli mezzani tra Dio e li uomini, leilluminazione profetice vengono da Dio per mezzo delli angelici spiriti [...] e per el lume predettoli profeti conoscono chiaramente quelle apparizione essere angelice e quello che e’ parlano esser veroe procedere dalla divina sapienzia».

53 Ibid.: «In questi tre modi abbiamo avute e conosciute le cose future, alcune in uno alcune inun altro; benche in qualunque di questi modi io le abbi avute, sempre sono stato certificato dellaverita per el lume predetto».

54 Quaestiones Disputatae De Veritate, XII, 1, 1, in SANCTI THOMAE DE AQUINO Opera Omnia,iussu Leonis XIII p.m. edita, Tomus XXII. Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate, cura et studio FratrumPraedicatorum, II.1, Roma, 1970, p. 365: «Quaestio est de prophetia. Et primo quaeritur utrum sithabitus vel actus. Et videtur quod non sit habitus quia, ut dicit Commentator in III De anima, habitusest quo quis quando vult operatur; sed propheta non potest prophetia uti cum voluerit [...]».

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the divine power directly. In other words, according to Avicenna – and this isa view endorsed by Ficino –, in some instances prophecy not only depends onan emanation from the higher principles, but also on the aptitude and prepa-redness of the prophet to join with the active intellect through some rituals ofpurification.55

Yet despite referring to Avicenna’s and Thomas’ doctrines, Ficino and Sa-vonarola did not seek to perpetuate what was a scholastic discussion. By pro-claiming, as we have seen, to be the direct recipient of God’s message, Savo-narola deliberately dissociated himself from Biblical exegetes like Jerome,Augustine and Thomas, as well as from conventional preachers, who basedtheir preaching solely upon an exegesis of the Scriptures. In fact, in the Com-pendio di rivelazioni, Savonarola explains that he has changed, from being aninterpreter of the Scriptures, to becoming the direct recipient of God’s in-spiration, presenting himself as a visionary rather than a preacher. This, hestates, led him to utter new prophecies:

I say that at first I made predictions about the future with the support of theScriptures alone, with the help of reason and a variety of images, because people wereunprepared. Then I began to reveal that I knew these future events through anotherlight than the understanding of Scripture. At last I began to disclose the matter moreopenly, admitting that my words were inspired by heavens [...]. These words are notfrom the Holy Scriptures, as some thought, but have newly come forth from heavensjust at that time.56

According to him, therefore, philosophy cannot be used in matters offaith. As he states in the De Veritate Prophetica, which he wrote in 1497 after

55 On Avicenna’s doctrine of prophecy and Thomas’ criticism, see D. ALTMANN, Maimonidesand Thomas Aquinas: Natural or Divine Prophecy?, «Association for Jewish Studies Review», III,1978, pp. 1-19; D.N. HASSE, Avicenna’s De anima in the Latin West: The Formation of a PeripateticPhilosophy of the Soul (1160-1300), London, 2000, part. pp. 154-174. On Ficino’s use of Avicenna,see C. VASOLI, Note sulle citazioni ficiniane di Avicenna, in Europa e Islam tra i secoli XIV e XVI, acura di M. BERNARDINI et al., 2 vols., Napoli, 2002, I, pp. 113-178; J. HANKINS, Ficino, Avicenna andthe Occult Powers of the Rational Soul, in Tra antica sapienza e filosofia naturale: tradizioni e muta-menti. La magia nell’Europa moderna, a cura di F. MEROI, con la collaborazione di E. SCAPPARONE,2 vols., Firenze, 2006, I, pp. 35-52. As noted by Hankins, Ficino possessed at least one work of Avi-cenna (in Latin translation), as shown in a letter he wrote in 1486 to Pico (= Op., p. 879) asking himto return the book (cf. Marsilio Ficino e il Ritorno di Platone, a cura di S. GENTILE-S. NICCOLI-P. VITI, Firenze, 1984, p. 78, scheda 60).

56 Compendio di rivelazioni, cit., pp. 11-12: «dico che queste cose future per la indisposizionedel populo le prenunziavo in quelli primi anni con le probazione delle Scritture e con ragione e di-verse similitudine. Di poi cominciai a allargarmi e dimostrare che queste cose future io avevo peraltro lume che per sola intelligenzia delle Scritture; e di poi ancora cominciai piu a allargarmi e avenire alle parole formale a me inspirate da cielo [...]. Le quale parole non sono cavate dalle SacreScritture, come credevano alcuni, ma sono pure nuovamente venute da cielo».

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being excommunicated, prophecy cannot be proven by reason, but only byGod’s light.57

In addition, since Garin’s identification of Savonarola’s compilation ofnotes on Plato in a manuscript of San Marco now in the Biblioteca Nazionalein Florence, which has recently been edited by Lorenza Tromboni, we knowthat Savonarola nourished an interest in Platonism that went far beyond hisclaim of having been momentarily attracted to Plato in his youth. Both Garinand Tromboni have shown that some of these notes, entitled «On the doc-trine of the Platonists» (also known as Plato abrievatus), were used by Savo-narola in his sermons, often in a polemical way. What has escaped the atten-tion of modern scholars, however, is that most of the Platonic passages singledout by the friar concern prophecy: in the twenty-fifth Predica sopra Ezechiele,for instance, Savonarola reuses a passage from Plato’s Theages to show (in di-rect opposition to Ficino’s identification of Socrates’ demon as a good angel)that Socrates’ demon could not be a good angel, but an evil one, since his de-monic voice never provoked him to do good things.58 Similarly, from Plato’sSymposium, the friar singles out the definition of Love as a demon, as well asthe reference to the wise men as demonic, which are both central to Neopla-tonic demonology.59 But what is even more striking is that Savonarola quotesat length some passages related to Ficino’s and Pico’s expositions on the Neo-platonic doctrines of intermediaries, the soul’s vehicle, as well as the notionsof Neoplatonic Love and of spiritus, indicating that he knew these doctrines

57 De Veritate Prophetica, cit., pp. 264-265: «Ita qui futurorum certitudines putet (quae nullaratione probari queunt) non aliter quam per signa et rationes habere se posse, manifestum inscitiaesuae dabit tarditatisque argumentum: in lumine enim prophetiae ita constant, ut tale lumen habentinullam omnino dubitationem relinquere possint».

58 Prediche sopra Ezechiele, a cura di R. RIDOLFI, 2 vols., Roma, 1975, I, p. 330: «Socrate diceche seguitava uno demonio, e ben che daemon voglia dire felix e che loro credessino che quelli fus-sino angeli buoni, nondimanco sappi che quello non fu buono angelo, ma uno diavolo; onde lui diceche non lo provocava mai al bene, ergo non era buono angelo [...]». This corresponds to two pas-sages in Savonarola’s Plato abreviatus: the first, from Plato’s Symposium, is quoted in full in the fol-lowing note; the second passage is from Theages (cf. GARIN, La cultura filosofica, cit., p. 205): «Inlibro Platonis de sapientia qui Theages dicitur. Dicit hic Socrates sibi adesse demonium quoddama prima pueritia quadam divina sorte, et hoc esse vocem semper dissuadentem eam rem quam fac-turus erat, et numquam eum provocantem».

59 Cf. In Convivium (= Symposium, 202e-203a), in Girolamo Savonarola lettore di Platone: il Dedoctrina Platonicorum: studio, edizione e commento del testo, a cura di L. TROMBONI, Lecce, 2006,p. 225: «Amorem esse, asserit, magnum demonem qui, inter homines et deos constitutus, trahit ho-mines ad deum. Et hoc, inquit, est officium demonum: per demones enim sacrificia et incantationeset vaticinia et magice fiunt etc. Deus, inquit, homini non miscetur, sed per id medium commertiumomne atque colloquium inter deos et homines que conficitur. Quicumque ergo harum rerum peritusest, demonius idest felix vir et sapiens nuncupatur, in aliis vero artibus que manu proficiuntur ex-perto miscenarius dicit».

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quite well. From Pico’s «Book on Concord» (ex libro Concordiae, in fact hisCommento sopra una canzone d’amore, written in 1486), we find a passage onthe nature of intermediary beings:

Some creatures are visible, like all corporeal entities, some are separated frombodies, like the angels, some are intermediate natures, which are invisible yet are re-sponsible for setting bodies in motion, like the rational souls. God, whose divinitythey call causal, is above all these creatures. The creatures that are between the souland God obtain their formal cause through participation [in God], while the othercreatures do not participate in God’s divinity, or only in an improper way.60

Another passage concerns the question, central to Neoplatonism, as towhether one needs to place between God and the souls only one Intellect,or a number of intermediate intellects:

And if they place one God only, they disagree about what to place between Godand the souls: some place a large number of intellectual or intelligible creatures, likeProclus, Hermias, and Syrianus, but the best Platonists, like Plotinus, Porphyry andthe rest, place only one creature, which they call the son of God, and they want it tobe the most perfect creature possible.61

Elsewhere, Savonarola singles out Pico’s reference to the Neoplatonicdoctrine of the soul-vehicle, of the unity of the soul, and the question as towhether the soul is immortal in all or some of its parts:

60 Ex libro Concordiae Johannis de Mirandula, ibid., p. 181: «Creaturarum quedam sunt visibilesut corporalia omnia, quedam ab omni corpore libere ut angeli, quedam medie invisibiles sed corpo-rum motrices ut anime rationales. Super omnes Deus qui habet divinitatem, inquiunt, causale. Crea-ture autem inter animam et Deum habent causam formaliter vero participative, alie autem creaturenon sunt participes divinitatis nisi abusive» (= G. PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, Commento, a cura diE. GARIN, Firenze, 1942, I, 2, p. 463).

61 Ibid.: «Et cum unum solum Deum ponunt, inter Deum et animas discordant: quidam po-nunt magnum numerum intellectualitatum seu intelligibilium creaturarum, ut Proclus, Hermias<et> Sirianus, sed excellentiores Platonici ponunt – ut Plotinus, Porfirius et alii – unam tantumquam vocant filium Dei et volunt causam esse perfectissimam quam potest esse creatura<rum>»(= Commento, cit., I, 3, p. 464). Note that Ficino refers to the same interpretation in his ParmenidesCommentary, rejecting Proclus’ doctrine, see Op., p. 1194r-v: «Ipsum intellectum primum mundumvocant intelligibilem atque inter illum mundumque sensibilem multos deorum, id est sublimium in-tellectuum, ordines communiter esse putant. Ego vero esse multos arbitror, quemadmodum in Theo-logia probavi. Si forte quomodo distinguantur apud Syrianum atque Proclum te taedet legere, quodet me certe narrare piget, saltem in praesentia ita pingui Minerva distingue. Dii supermundani seumavis angeli – iidem namque sunt – alii quidem propinquiores sunt intelligibili mundo, alii vero sen-sibili mundo quam proximi, sed alii medii. Illos Syrianus et Proclus vocant intelligibiles, hos intellec-tuales, medios autem intelligibiles intellectualesque simul, nos certe superiores potius et inferiores etmedios communiter nominamus, sed supra mundanos omnes. [...] Sed hanc ego curiositatem, ut ali-bi dixi, non probo rursus, neque talem divinorum ordinum distinctionem, qualem ipsi laboriose po-tius quam utiliter persequuntur». On Proclus’ doctrine, see PROCLUS, Theologie Platonicienne, I, ed.& tr. par H. D. SAFFREY-L. G. WESTERINK, Paris, 1968, pp. LXIII-LXIX.

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They call man, who is in the middle, microcosm, because as regard to his body heis united to eternal heavens and corruptible matter; some, because they admit that thehuman soul is tied in its middle to an invisible body, call this body the vehicle, whichis eternal, and is different from the corruptible body. In men’s souls too there are thevegetative, sensitive and rational parts, by which man is united to plants, beasts, ra-tional animals and so forth. Above these they place the intellectual and angelic part,whereby man is united to angels, and another part whereby it is united to God, whichthey call the unity of the soul. They all maintain that the rational and the intellectualparts of the soul, as well as the unity of the soul, are immortal; but as to the otherparts, some say they are immortal, some that they are mortal.62

Similarly, Savonarola uses specific passages from Ficino’s De Amore re-lated to the doctrine of Love as the force of all motion in the universe, of Soc-rates as a figure of divine Love63 and the doctrine of the spiritus.64 All thepassages quoted here by Savonarola concern Neoplatonic demonology andwere central, as we have seen, to Ficino’s definition of prophecy.

So, when Savonarola openly criticises in the Triumph of the Cross, printedin 1497, the «new and pernicious» cult of the intermediate beings introducedby some ancient philosophers,65 he is probably alluding to Ficino’s revival ofNeoplatonic demonology and theurgy. In this work Savonarola explicitly at-

62 Ibid., p. 183: «Hominem medium vocant microcosmum, quia quantum ad corpus assimilaturcelo eterno et materie corruptibili, quia dant quod anima hominis in medietate coniungitur cuiusdamcorpori invisibili, quidam vocant vehiculum et hoc est eternum, aliud autem est corpus corruptibile.In homine etiam est anima vegetativa et sensitiva et rationalis per quas assimilatur plantis brutis etanimalibus rationabilibus aliis. Super has ponunt partem intellectualem et angelicam, per quam ho-mo angelis assimilatur, et aliam per quam assimilatur Deo, quam vocant unitatem anime. Omnes po-nunt rationalem et intellectualem et unitatem immortales; alias vero quidam dicunt esse immortales,quidam mortales» (= Commento, cit., I, 12, pp. 478-479). This refers to the debate among Neopla-tonists, as to whether the soul’s vehicule is immortal or not (cf. PROCLUS, In Timaeum, III, 234-235).

63 For instance In Commento super Convivium, ed. TROMBONI, cit., pp. 188-189: «Celum, aitPlato in libro de regno, innato movetur amore. Anima enim celi tota simul est in singulis celi punctis»(= De Amore, III, 2); «Plato volens amorem figurare Socratis effingit imaginem: macilentum, aridum,squalidum dicunt fuisse Socratem, natum melancolicum, vili paliolo opertum, humilem – infimaquerentem, per artificum officinas – volantem, rusticanis vocabulis utenti, valide mansuetus, sinedomicilio. Interrogatus cuius esset: ‘Mundanus, inquit, ubi sit patria ibi bonum’» (= De Amore,VII, 2).

64 Ibid.: «A calore cordis in nobis spiritus generantur qui tales sunt qualis in nobis est sanguisulterius, bonus vel malus ex spiritibus, autem subtilissimus vapor ascendit, maxime per oculos egre-diens, quia oculi lucidissimus est et nitidissimus, nam spiritus ad superiorem conscendit etc.» (= DeAmore, VII, 4).

65 Triumphus Crucis, cit., IV, 3, p. 220: «Quia vero astrologi inter philosophos annumerari vo-lunt, autumantes a caelo et astris nostra haec humana gubernari, ipsumque caelum nostrum quodam-modo Deum esse – unde antiquorum quidam, novum et superstitiosum cultum inducentes, solemcaeterosque planetas stellarumque multitudinem adorabant – validis ostendamus rationibus hunc er-rorem esse maximum, quodque caelestia corpora causae eorum dici nequeant, quae circa humanumversantur intellectum».

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tacks those who compare Christ with Apollonius of Tyana, Pythagoras, Soc-rates, and Plato,66 a comparison that had been frequently made by Ficino.67

In Book IV, which is set to demonstrate that «nullam relligionem, praeterChristianam, veram esse» against six principal forms of superstition (philoso-phy, astrology, idolatry, i.e. the cult of idols and plants, judaism, heresy andislam),68 Savonarola refutes in the first three sections any form of propheticknowledge that is not founded upon Christianity and the Scriptures. Savonar-ola first states that both Aristotelians and Platonists have erred in many ways,especially regarding the cult of God, and that their philosophy cannot lead totrue beatitude.69 Savonarola then attacks the astrologers, Christians only inname, who pretend to reject astrology, yet submit themselves to the powerof celestial beings and claim that they can predict the future, bring remediesto cure human illness, and bring harmony in human affairs.70 For these menare guilty of resorting to the cult of secondary causes, and of substituting tothe cult of God demonic superstitions and the observation of the stars,71

while even the philosophers, especially Aristotle and Plato, have never writtenanything about the knowledge of the future.72 Here Savonarola is attacking

66 Ibid., II, 13, p. 96: «Videsne quam impudenter quidam Apollonium Thyanaeum Christo nos-tro comparare sint ausi? Quis vero Pythagoram, Socratem, Platonem reliquosque philosophorumprincipes, vel etiam Alexandrum, Caesarem caeterosque reges ac imperatores excellentissimos et cla-rissimos viros ei conferre possit, cum eorum nemo Deum se fecerit, nec simul omnes minimum quip-piam in comparationem Christi vel eius discipulorum peregerint?».

67 See, e.g. PT, XIII, 4, 10 (pp. 196-197), where Ficino attributes miracles to Apollonius,Pythagoras, Empedocles, and Philolaus.

68 Triumphus Crucis, cit., IV, 1, p. 211: «omnes superstitionum sectas ad sex principales redi-gemus: philosophorum, videlicet, astrologorum, idolatrarum, iudaeorum, haereticorum, mahumeti-starum».

69 Ibid., IV, 2, pp. 219-220: «circa divinum pariter cultum, praesertim exteriorem, nil veri, nilcerti – ut errores quorundam taceamus – declaraverunt; quia verum finem ignorantes, debitum quo-que Deo honorem, exterioremque, qui magis homini conduceret, cultum nescierunt. Unde varia eti-am leviaque de providentia Dei disseruere. Quamobrem parum utilitatis in his, quae ad veram ho-minis salutem pertinent, eorum scripta attulerunt; immo ex diversitate opinionum ingens suborta estconfusio. Ex quo patet eorum doctrinam et relligionem, si qua ab eis tradita est, ad veram beatitu-dinem adipiscendam nihil profecisse».

70 Ibid., IV, 3, pp. 225-226: «Caeterum, astrologorum quidam, nomine potius quam re christiani,vanitatem iudiciariae astrologiae certis ineptiis velare contendunt, dicentes intellectum et liberum arbit-rium non caelo quidem per se, sed soli Deo esse subiectum; nihilominus, cum ei per accidens subiicia-tur, et omnes fere homines sensitivam partem sequantur, iactant se praevidere posse futura et ad malaevitanda hominibus remedia afferre atque rerum humanarum habenas hoc modo temperare».

71 Ibid.: «Deum enim, inquiunt per secundas causas in haec inferiora agentem, ea, mediantecaelesti influxu, gubernare. In quo caeco iudicio et ignorantia ducti, maiestatis divinae cultui dero-gant, et daemoniacis superstitionibus mortalium animos imbuentes, plus fidei et observationis caeloquam immortali Deo tribuendum vana quodammodo credulitate insinuare contendunt: dum nihil,nisi auspice caelo, fieri posse credentes, id ipsum aliis persuadere conantur».

72 Ibid.: «verum hanc divinatoriam astrologiam vanam prorsus esse ac nomine scientiae vel artis

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humanists like Ficino who had rejected judiciary astrology and defended the

use of medical and magical astrology: in his anti-astrological treatise, Ficino

had established the distinction between causae proximae and remotae and

the analogy between medicine and astrology,73 whilst in his Book on Life, he

had described the Neoplatonic doctrine of the intermediaries, revived Neopla-

tonic theurgy and demonology, and stated that Plato was a theologian. Savo-

narola is also at pains to show that the cult of celestial bodies is pernicious

rather than pious, because it uses idols, stones and plants to communicate with

God (as described by Ficino in the De Vita).74 Similarly, one should solely wor-

ship God, and honour the angels and superior intelligences not as gods, but

only in as much as they can pray for us as friends of God.75 Finally, Savonarola

demonstrates that the pagan «spirits» (spiritus, i.e. the Neoplatonic demons)

are malevolent and deceptive, and he concludes that the knowledge of future

contingents can only be in the hands of God rather than of the spirits.76 All

these passages suggest that Savonarola’s attack against paganism was specifi-

cally directed against Ficino’s revival of Neoplatonic demonology.

indignam, vel hinc maxime patet quod excellentissimi philosophorum eam potius irrisione ac silentioquam confutatione dignam censuerunt; nam, cum omnes philosophiae partes explicare conati sint,nihil de hac materia tetigerunt; cum tamen Plato et Aristoteles, atque alii, de caelo et astris haud ne-gligenter scripserint, in quorum libris nullum omnino de futurorum scientia fit verbum».

73 On this important distinction in Ficino, see E. GARIN, Lo zodiaco della vita. La polemica sul-l’astrologia dal Trecento al Cinquecento, Bari, 1976, pp. 61-92; C. VASOLI, Le debat sur l’astrologie aFlorence: Ficin, Pic de la Mirandole, Savonarole, in Divination et controverses religieuses en France auXVIe siecle, ed. par N. CAZAURAN, Paris, 1987, pp. 19-33; ID., Marsilio Ficino e l’astrologia, in L’a-strologia e la sua influenza nella filosofia, nella letteratura e nell’arte dall’eta classica al Rinascimento,a cura di L. ROTONDI SECCHI TARUGI, Milano, 1992, pp. 159-186.

74 Triumphus Crucis, cit., IV, 4, p. 233: «Primo autem sciendum – veluti superius probatum est –hominis voluntatem neque a caelo, neque ab anima caeli, ipso caelo mediante, sed nec ab aliqua sub-stantia separata, seu spirituali creatura, quantunlibet nobili, verum a solo Deo, per modum agentis,posse moveri».

75 Ibid., IV, 4, p. 234: «Plane igitur constat solum Deum, qui solus principium omnium volun-tatum et motor ac universi gubernator est, cultu latriae colendum esse. Caeteris autem intelligentiis,et si in eo quod de similitudine divinitatis primae causae participant honorandae sunt, cultus tamenlatriae minime debetur. Non ergo eis sacrificia, thuraque, sed uni Deo exhibere fas est. Cui tantumlatriae cultum relligio christiana persolvit: licet angelorum, sanctorumque memoriam recolat, laudansDeum in sanctis suis, et gratias agens quod talia ac tot beneficia suis concedere creaturis dignatus sit.Neque enim ipsos sanctos uti deos sed tamquam Dei amicos veneratur, eorum suffragia implorans,ut Deo acceptissimi pro nobis exorent, quod ipsi meritis nostris impetrare non valemus».

76 Ibid., IV, 4, pp. 237-239: «Praeterea bonus spiritus mendax non est neque homines decipit,quia mendacium ac deceptio semper mala sunt; sed spiritus illi in suis responsis multa mendacia am-biguosque sermones proferebant, sicque homines saepissime fefellerunt. Cumque insuper ostensumsit futurorum contingentium praedictionem ad solum Deum, sua aeternitate omnia complectentem,pertinere, si illi spiritus boni fuissent, nequaquam sibi, quod Dei proprium est, usurpassent. [...] Exquibus affirmari iam potest pravos illos spiritus fuisse. [...] Quod quidem non deorum, sed pessimo-rum daemonum in humanam stragem grassantium, argumentum est».

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4. FICINO’S ANTI-SAVONAROLAN COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

It is no coincidence, therefore, if Ficino decided to deliver publicly thesame year his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. In addition to statinghis own belief in the existence of a docta religio, a philosophical religion, thiswas the opportunity to underline, against Savonarola, the equivalence be-tween St Paul’s teaching and that of the Neoplatonists. But Ficino had alsoanother intention: to substitute to Savonarola’s visions those of St Paul.Although Thomas Aquinas had distinguished prophecy from raptus, bothstates were closely linked. For St Paul, by being elevated through the highestkind of «raptus», had also benefitted, like other prophets, of God’s propheticgift. However, Paul and Moses were considered to be superior to most pro-phets, because they had seen God in His essence, whilst the latter only sawlikenesses of God through dreams and visions.77 The exact nature of Savona-rola’s visions, and of his relationship to visionaries like St Paul, was open tointerpretation. Savonarola not only compared himself with the Hebrew pro-phets who had experienced ‘lower’ forms of prophetic visions, but also toMoses and St Paul, whose status was more elevated. In addition, as Weinsteinhas recently pointed out, Savonarola’s visions, especially the famous ascent upto the Virgin’s throne related in the Compendio di rivelazioni, could be seen astrue revelations comparable to St Paul’s raptus, rather than imaginary visions,prompting Savonarola’s opponents to ridicule the Dominican friar, and Savo-narola to insist that his visions were only images sent to him by God ratherthan the result of having been carried to heavens.78

So by restating, some twenty years after his De Raptu Pauli, the centralityof St Paul as «the only mortal to have heard what cannot be said to men»,Ficino also intended to establish a clear distinction between Savonarola’s

77 Summa Theologiae, II, 2, q. 175, a. 3, ad 1-2: «Ad primum ergo dicendum quod mens hu-mana divinitus rapitur ad contemplandam veritatem divinam, tripliciter. Uno modo, ut contempletuream per similitudines quasdam imaginarias. Et talis fuit excessus mentis qui cecidit supra Petrum.Alio modo, ut contempletur veritatem divinam per intelligibiles effectus, sicut fuit excessus Daviddicentis, ego dixi in excessu meo, omnis homo mendax. Tertio, ut contempletur eam in sua essentia.Et talis fuit raptus Pauli, et etiam Moysi. Et satis congruenter, nam sicut Moyses fuit primus doctorIudaeorum, ita Paulus fuit primus doctor gentium».

78 See D. WEINSTEIN, Savonarola. The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet, New Haven-Lon-don, 2011, p. 150, who cites among other texts the 1495 A un amico, in Lettere e scritti apologetici, acura di V. ROMANO-A. F. VERDE, Roma, 1984, p. 252: «Ancora tu di’ che molti si fanno beffe percheio ho scritto che io sono stato in Paradiso [...] non s’intende che io sia stato in Paradiso corporal-mente, ma che fu tutta visione immaginaria [...] e in questo modo li Profeti vedevano molte cose;e maxime Ezechiel spesso dice essere stato in questo modo in diversi luoghi, nelli quali e certoche andava col spirito e non col corpo».

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so-called revelations, the mystical experience of St Paul, and his own interpre-tation of the Apostle’s oracles. One can imagine the effect the following open-ing lines of Ficino’s commentary must have had on its audience in 1497, quot-ing in the Vulgate the famous passage of St Paul’s second Epistle to theCorinthians:

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third hea-ven, whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I knowthat this man was caught up into Paradise, whether in the body or out of the bodyI do not know, God knows, and he heard things that cannot be told, which manmay not utter.79

Such were the mysteries, Ficino goes on, that Paul, «sun of the world,chosen vessel, trumpet of the Holy Ghost» uttered in the second Epistle tothe Corinthians, «as if he were singing oracles». It is now our task, Ficino says,to interpret these oracles, as far as it is possible to human beings, with the aidof God («Deo aspirante»).80 Since it is not permitted to human beings to lis-ten on earth to the words of God («neque nobis liceat cum in terra hominesvitam agimus haec audire»), we need to transcend the limits of human beings(«studendum nobis est humanos quoad possumus supergredi limites»), andfirst pray St Paul so that in his mercifulness he takes us with him up to thecelestial and angelic realm («et in primis excelsus Paulus obsecrandus ut ipsesua clementia secum ad coelestem quendam angelicumque gradum nos attol-lat»). For, Ficino pursues, it is by and through Paul’s inspiration that we cangain knowledge of divine realities («quamobrem et nos, venerandi patresfratresque dilectissimi, fide speque divina freti et amore flagrantes ad divino-rum intelligentiam Paulo revelante proficisci debemus»).81 In other words,and in marked contrast to Savonarola’s claim of being the immediate recipientof God’s words, Ficino considers that we cannot be the direct recipients, thechosen vessels, of divine inspiration as were the Apostles, we can only be theirdivinely inspired interpreters; we cannot utter divine oracles, we can only in-terpret them; we cannot rise towards God by ourselves, but through the read-

79 Op., p. 425: «Scio hominem in Christo ante annos quatuordecim sive in corpore nescio, siveextra corpus nescio, Deus scit, raptum huiusmodi usque ad tertium coelum, et scio huiusmodi ho-minem sive in corpore sive extra corpus nescio, Deus scit, quia raptus est in Paradisum et audivitarcana verba quae non licet homini loqui» (= 2 Cor 12, 2-4). I use the King James version.

80 Ibid.: «Paulus Apostolus Gentium, sol mundi, vas electionis [= Act 9, 15], spiritus sancti tu-ba, mysteria haec quae modo narrabam in secunda ad Corinthios Epistola tanquam oracula cecinit,quae quidem cum ad eam Epistolam exponendam pervenerimus aspirante Deo pro viribus explicareconabimur».

81 Ibid.

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ing and unveiling of the divine prophets’ wisdom. In this way, Ficino substi-tutes to Savonarola the prophetic figure of St Paul; he progressively replacesthe friar’s new interpretation of the Scriptures, by his own, divinely inspired,interpretation of St Paul’s «oracles».82

Ficino also appears to contrast Savonarola’s position as a Dominican friarto that of St Paul, a divine prophet of ancient times. He insists on the univer-sality of Paul’s figure, called Saul by the Jews, Paul by the Christians, andHermes by the pagans («Saulus quidem apud Hebraeos dictus est, Paulus au-tem Gentes appellatione [...] Paulus ipsa etiam natura, acumine, animo, elo-quio omnium praestantissimus, hinc apud Gentiles Mercurii nomen est adep-tus»).83 Paul, he says, was a Christian philosopher, a man that God chose notonly to educate people but also to convert the intellectuals («tantum profectovirum elegit Deus ut non solum mirabiliter erudisse rudes iudicaretur, sedetiam ingeniosissimos eruditissimosque mirifice convertisse»),84 implicitly cri-ticising Savonarola’s rejection of Florentine philosophers.

Ficino underlines that St Paul’s message is not a new invention, but hadbeen long before announced by God; not through one testimony, but by sev-eral, and not by anyone, but by the prophets themselves, not by those whoprophesy by means of human intelligence or demonic instinct, but by divineinspiration («Quod sane non leve novumque fuit inventum sed divinitus longeante promissum, non per unum testem, sed per plures, non quoslibet, sedProphetas, non qui humano ingenio vel instinctu daemonico, sed afflatu divi-no praedicerent»).85 Given the context in which he was writing, it is fair toinfer from this passage that Ficino was establishing a distinction betweenPaul’s mission, which had been announced by the ancient prophets, and Sa-vonarola’s isolated claims of being God’s receptacle and of prophesying newthings in a new way.

82 Similarly, as a recent study by S. Toussaint has shown, Ficino had several years earlier under-lined in his commentary on Dionysius the Areopagite, the necessity for the translator and interpreterof Dionysius’ «enigmas» to be inspired by «divine madness», in implicit opposition to AmbrogioTraversari’s literal translation, which was seen as a pure receptacle of God’s words. See S. TOUS-

SAINT, L’influence de Ficin a Paris et le pseudo-Denys des humanistes: Traversari, Cusain, Lefevred’Etaples. Suivi d’un passage inedit de Marsile Ficin, «Bruniana & Campanelliana», V, 2, 1999,pp. 381-414. The passage referred to is in Op., p. 1013: «Hoc igitur Dionysiaco mero Dionysius nos-ter ebrius exultat passim, effundit aenigmata, concinit dithyrambos. Itaque quam arduum est profun-dos illius sensus intelligentia penetrare, tam difficile miras verborum compositiones, et quasi Orphi-cum dicendi characterem imitari, ac Latinis praesertim verbis exprimere. Idem profecto ad id facileconsequendum necessarius omnino nobis divinus est furor».

83 Op., p. 427. On the association Paul-Hermes, absent in Thomas Aquinas, see Act 14, 12.84 Ibid.85 Op., p. 428.

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In this context, Ficino adopts a liberal interpretation of the famous pas-sage of St Paul’s first chapter of the Epistle. St Paul had condemned the pa-gans on the grounds that they could have known God’s invisible realities byexploring the creation of the world, but had preferred idolatry and sodomyinstead of worshipping God (I, 20: «invisibilia enim Dei a creatura mundiper ea quae facta sunt intellecta conspiciuntur»). Like Augustine and ThomasAquinas Ficino considered that this statement indicated that some pagan phi-losophers had access to the divine signs of God. Reusing the famous argumentof «common notion» Ficino argues that all people have been granted a commu-nis notitia of God, since God manifested himself to the Hebrews through theprophets and to the pagans through the philosophers, even if this led them toglorify arrogantly these men as if they were God.86 Here Ficino reuses anotherwell-known apologetical topos to counter Savonarola: instead of rejecting, likemany do, all philosophers on the grounds that their work concerned opinionrather than knowledge, St Paul considered that philosophers possessed muchknowledge, even of divine things, but attacked their arrogance and ingratitude(«Multi philosophos spernunt omnes, quasi opinione sola, scientia vero nullanitantur. Paulus autem scientiam illis multam concedit, etiam divinorum, sedsuperbiae et ingratitudinis accusat»).87 In other words, philosophy shouldnot necessarily be rejected in religious matters as stated by Savonarola.

Similarly, St Paul’s reference to «the invisible realities» corresponds to theintellectual substances that cannot be perceived by the sense-organs and arethe effects of God, which both the Platonists and the Aristotelians had aknowledge of through their study of the visible motion and order of the worldspheres («eiusmodi sane substantias non solum Platonici, sed etiam Peripate-tici per mundanarum sphaerarum motum atque ordinem cognoverunt»).88 It isto gain insight into God’s eternal virtue as efficient cause «that the philoso-phers, even the Peripatetics, seem to have observed the perpetual and multi-form movement of the immense machines» («sempiterna virtus, id est infinitapotestas, quam philosophi etiam Peripatetici ex perpetuo omniformique in-gentium machinarum motu perscrutari videntur») alluding to a famous pas-sage of the Timaeus (47b-48b).89 In other words, while Savonarola had pre-

86 Op., p. 436: «Dicitur autem ‘Deus manifestavit’ quoniam communem notitiam divinorumDeus ipse sicut Iudaeis revelaverat per prophetas, ita Gentilibus manifestam effecerat per philoso-phos. Hinc quidem effectum est, ut et Iudaei prophetis et Gentiles philosophis frequenter gloriaren-tur, et inanem utrorumque iactantiam in hac epistola Paulus castigaverit».

87 Ibid. On this apologetical topos and the interpretation of the first chapter of Romans, seeWALKER, The Ancient Theology, cit., pp. 9-10.

88 Ibid.89 Op., p. 437.

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sented Plato and Aristotle as philosophers who were not concerned with as-trology, Ficino here describes them as having acquired the knowledge ofGod through their study of the world-spheres’ motions. Ficino then comparesSt Paul’s appellations of God (bonitas and divinitas) with those in use amongPlatonists and Aristotelians (causa finalis, bonum, bonitas, divinitas). Like Tho-mas Aquinas, Ficino insists, however, on the fact that St Paul is the only man tohave been able to reach the third heaven in a state of rapture and gain access toGod’s deity and substance. The philosophers only knew two heavens; theycould not apprehend what God is in Himself, as testified by Plato’s Parmenidesand confirmed by Dionysius the Aeropagite.90

Besides these passages, which echo Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, othersections of the text discreetly point out to another aspect of Ficino’s interpre-tation. One of the most frequently developed arguments in the commentary isthat St Paul’s condemnation of pagan rituals is similar to the condemnationformulated by the Neoplatonists Porphyry and Iamblichus against popularforms of demonic cult. As we know, in the texts translated by Ficino, bothPorphyry and Iamblichus had, each in their own way, criticised the supersti-tions of their time (judiciary astrology, black magic), the former defending theuse of a philosophical religion, the latter a form of magic called theurgy.Although in his commentary on Romans Ficino never explicitly places atthe same level St Paul’s Christian teachings and the Neoplatonic philosophy,the implications are clear: some Platonists had, like St Paul, condemned pa-gan superstition and defended a philosophical religion. Here the impact ofthe demonological texts mentioned above by the same Porphyry and Iambli-chus is particularly important. Whilst in his De Christiana Religione, written in1474 and published two years later, Ficino generally (but not always) criti-cised these same Neoplatonists as anti-Christians, and used the term daemonin a pejorative sense,91 in the commentary on Romans the humanist considers

90 Ibid.: «Divinam Paulus bonitatem, quatenus rerum omnium finis est omnibusque providet,divinitatem appellare videtur, quia summa rerum causa finis est, ut Plato probat, praecipuumque no-men Dei bonum, unde divinitas dicitur, id est, bonitas, et bonum, ut inquit Aristoteles, communedivinum. Non utique dicimus philosophos deitatem ipsam ex operibus invenisse, haec enim est ipsaDei substantia, illis adhuc [adhoc Op.] ignota, sed divinitatem, id est beneficam providamque percuncta diffusionem et segregatam interim excellentiam. [...] Quid autem ipse Deus in seipso sit etPlato in Parmenide confitetur ignotum, idemque Dionysius Areopagita confirmat, et solus Paulusraptus ad tertium coelum est assequutus». Cf. THOMAS AQUINAS, Lectures on St Paul’s Epistle tothe Romans, V, 117.

91 On the date of the De Christiana religione, see KRISTELLER, Supplementum Ficinianum, cit., I,pp. LXXVII-LXIX. On Ficino’s use of Porphyry, mostly as an anti-Christian philosopher, and probablythrough Augustine, see De Christiana Religione, 11, 21 and 24; in this work Ficino only mentionsIamblichus once; he consistently uses the word daemon in a negative sense.

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pagan daemones as good or bad spirits; in addition, Porphyry and Iamblichusalways appear as authorities on the science of demons (as good or bad spirits)and as direct witnesses of, and opponents to, the pagan forms of superstitioncondemned by Paul.

For instance, Ficino states that Paul and Christ both condemned materialcult, just as

[...] the Pythagorean Apollonius of Tyana as well as the Platonists Iamblichus andPorphyry have distinguished five types of cult, which concern five different speciesof spiritus [i.e. demons], and condemned the Egyptians on the grounds that they pri-vilege material cult and worship aerial demons; they considered the Chaldeans weresuperior to the Egyptians, because they adopted a spiritual cult above all, given thatthey mostly worshipped intelligences which are separate from matter, and theirfather.92

In another passage, Ficino compares St Paul’s anti-pagan critique of ido-latry with Iamblichus’ and Porphyry’s condemnation of the rites performedby the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans («[...] ut merito Paulus avaritiam ido-lorum servitutem nominare voluerit. [...] Iam vero Iamblichus et Porphyriussacros Aegyptiorum Graecorumque et Romanorum ritus improbaverunt,quod corporeorum vel bonorum vel malorum gratia, corporea numina potiusquam incorporea colerent»).93 Elsewhere, after having described the idol-atrous cults of the ancients, Ficino states that «much more foolish, bad andshameful superstitions were introduced by many priests, both civil and poetic,as well as incantations towards bad demons, as testified by Porphyry and Iam-blichus» («superstitiones autem multo etiam magis aniles et iniquas et turpesintroduxerunt pontifices multi civiles et poetae, simul atque fortuna malis ubi-que daemonibus incitantibus, quod Porphyrius Iamblichus confitentur»),94

equating once more Paul’s condemnation of pagan idolatry with the Neopla-tonic attacks against superstitions. Beyond Ficino’s strategy of reluctance

92 Op., pp. 432-433: «Quibus in verbis Christus et Paulus materialem cultum vel improbant, velminime probant. Apollonius Theaneus Pythagoricus, item Iamblichus Porphyriusque Platonici spe-cies quinque cultus esse disputant pro quinque speciebus spirituum qui coluntur. Spiritus enim in-fimos crassum aerem habitantes sacrificiis ex frugibus animalibusque coli solitos. Spiritus autem pu-rum aerem incolentes vaporibus sonisque et cantibus atque luminibus, aetherea vero numinaorationibus luminibusque simul, sed intellectus a corporibus separatos intelligentiae viribus atquemotibus, horum denique patrem excessu quodam mentis et ineffabili voluntatis affectu. Iamblichusinter haec damnat Aegyptios quod materiali cultu prae caeteris uterentur, aeriorumque daemonumcultores essent. Anteponit autem iis Chaldaeos qui spiritalem cultum potius sequerentur, utpote se-paratas a materia mentes patremque earum praecipue colerent».

93 Op., pp. 439-440.94 Op., p. 440.

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(«haec quidem illi viderint»), the philosophical implications of establishingthis equivalence are clear: according to him there exists in pagan philosophya licit cult towards intermediate beings, and a science of discerning demonicpossessions and prophetic visions, which were known to the Neoplatonists.

The Platonists themselves, as he recalls earlier in the commentary, havedistinguished five different forms of prediction, and stated that only predic-tions uttered through divine inspiration are certain and always true.95 Simi-larly, Ficino states that Plato described three forms of light: in the Republic,he described the natural light and the divine light that are commonly pouredinto the soul of the contemplators; in the Symposium and the Phaedrus, thecelestial light that is poured into the souls of those who are in paradise,and whereby God illuminates those who on earth can sometimes go beyondthe limits of human beings and refute human fallacies.96 This last passage in-dicates that Ficino does consider that some pagan philosophers had access toGod’s supranatural light. In other words, even if St Paul is the only one tohave seen God in His essence, prophecy and vision were gifts that Godhad imparted to Christians and pagans alike. It was the humanist’s task totranslate and interpret the ancient texts that expounded these doctrines. Inthis way, Ficino seeks to reassess, against Savonarola’s strict separation be-tween pagan philosophy and Christian religion, the validity of his revival ofancient theology.

5. CONCLUSION

To conclude, behind the characterisation of Savonarola as a true or falseprophet, as a new Socrates or a deceptive demon, there not only lie fears thatSavonarola had usurped the role of biblical prophets, but also tensions re-

95 Op., p. 428: «Praedictiones apud Platonicos quinque modis fiunt, aut enim fortuna, aut arte,vel natura, vel daemone, vel toto moti praedicimus. Sola praedictio facta divinitus certa est semper-que veridica».

96 Op., p. 442: «Trinum Platonici lumen animis putant infundi divinitus, sicut et oculis a Soletrinum. Primum quidem naturaliter unicuique proprium, secundum vero commune contemplantibussuperinfusum, tertium denique coelicolis animisque vel ad coelum iam reversis, vel hic nonnumquamabstractis exhibitum vel ostensum. De duobus quidem primis Plato exemplo solis loquitur in Repu-blica, de tertio autem in Convivio atque Phaedro, quod quidem ad beatos vel abstractos animos ita sehabet, sicut lux pura Solis ad coelestes coelicolarum oculos se habere putatur. Primum itaque lumenDeus non aufert peccatoribus, sed relinquit ad poenam, secundum vero magis minusve [minusneOp.] negat, et perditis omnino negat. Tertium postremo in patria quidem largitur aeternum, extrapatriam vero mentibus humanos aliquando limites excedentibus sub quadam corruscatione revelathumanasque fallacias arguit. Ego dixi in excessu meo omnis homo mendax [= Ps 116]».

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garding the relationship between men and the divine, between the preacherand the prophet. Like most of their contemporaries, Ficino and Savonarolawere obsessed with the need for a reform of the Church and of the spiritualityof their time. By developing the view that this renovation could solely bebased upon Christian faith and revelation, Savonarola rejected from the fieldof religion what he called ‘philosophy’, i.e. the very doctrines that Ficino hadrevived since the early 1470s and considered as theologies that could lead tothe renovatio of Christianity. By stressing the passivity of the prophet, Savo-narola could support his claim that his revelations were unique and gratui-tous, and at the same time concentrate in his own hands the power of pro-phecy, thus excluding conventional preaching, as well as Ficino’s ‘esoteric’mysticism. As Ficino became gradually aware of the philosophical, religiousand political implications of Savonarola’s position, he formulated more expli-cit attacks against the Friar, which led him to make a series of fundamentalstatements on the inherent agreement between some of the most delicateNeoplatonic doctrines and St Paul’s Christianity. But if Ficino was inclinedto draw dangerous equivalences between Christian and pagan prophets andendorse esoteric practices to gain demonic and prophetic powers, he nevertook Savonarola’s fatal step of aligning himself with the ancient prophets.He was therefore careful to present himself in his commentary on Romansas an interpreter of St Paul’s oracles. In this way he could draw an implicit(yet deeply ambivalent) distinction between his treatises on, and practice of,astrology and demonology, and his preaching activity within the church.

At the turn of the century, when Savonarola’s prophecies did not seem,after all, to have been fully realised, prominent theologians and philosopherscontinued to debate on the ways in which to reform the Church, and return tothe Golden Age predicted by ancient prophecies. And as the Council of La-teran definitely prohibited, in 1517, ‘free and inspired’ prophetic preaching,some continued, in the secret of their secular cenacles, Ficino’s conversationwith the angels, despite facing accusations of necromancy or suspicions thatthey had been deceived by demons.

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