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15Plotinus on the Daemon as the Soul’s Erotic Disposition towards the GoodElenchos: Rivista di Studi Sul Pensiero Antico 44 (2): 313-331. 2023.The idea that the soul has a guardian daemon was a common topic among Platonists, informed by different readings of Plato, especially Symp. 202e and Resp. 620e. In his philosophically dense interpretation, Plotinus describes the daemon as the ‘pole of attraction’ or the erotic disposition that keeps the core of one’s personality directed towards the Good. In this way, the daemon promotes the soul’s ascent to higher levels of reality through a transition from unconsciousness into consciousness th…Read more
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17Reading Theophrastus's Mind: Marsilio Ficino's Reception of Priscian of LydiaIn E. Anagnostou & K. Parry (eds.), The Neoplatonists and Their Heirs: Christians, Jews, and Muslims, Brill. pp. 417-1438. 2023.'Reading Theophrastus's Mind: Marsilio Ficino's Reception of Priscian of Lydia', in The Neoplatonists and Their Heirs: Christians, Jews, and Muslims, ed. by E. Anagnostou and K. Parry, Brill 2023, pp. 417-1438 This article has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 under the Marie Skłodowska Curie Grant agreement 795792.
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6Spinning the Whorl of the SpindleHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 37 (1): 39-60. 2020.Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) was greatly intrigued by the questions on free will raised by the myth of Er in Plato’s Republic. By focusing on his Argumentum in Platonis Respublicam, this article discusses Ficino’s interpretation of the myth in light of his view on the faculties of the soul—intellect, reason, the imagination, and the vegetative power—and of how they become subject to providence or fate. Moreover, it will situate Ficino’s discussion of the myth within his understanding of the univers…Read more
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9Plotinus (204/5-270 C.E.) is a central figure in the history of Western philosophy. However, during the Middle Ages he was almost unknown. None of the treatises constituting his Enneads were translated, and ancient translations were lost. Although scholars had indirect access to his philosophy through the works of Proclus, St. Augustine, and Macrobius, among others, it was not until 1492 with the publication of the first Latin translation of the Enneads by the humanist philosopher Marsilio Ficin…Read more
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Ficino, Plotinus, and the chameleonic soulIn Valery Rees, Anna Corrias, Francesca Maria Crasta, Laura Follesa & Guido Giglioni (eds.), Platonism: Ficino to Foucault, Brill. 2020.
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7Harmony and contrast: Plato and Aristotle in the early modern period (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2022.Plato and Aristotle were very much alive between the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries. The essays in this volume investigate the interaction, both in terms of harmony and contrast, between the two philosophers in early modernity, that is in a time when long-forgotten texts became available and a new philological awareness was on the rise. Dealing with famous and less famous early modern interpreters and philosophers, in a transnational and translinguistic perspective, this volume reveals …Read more
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6Platonism: Ficino to Foucault (edited book)BRILL. 2020.Platonism, Ficino to Foucault explores some key chapters in the history Platonic philosophy from the revival of Plato in the fifteenth century to the new reading of Platonic dialogues promoted by the so-called ‘Critique of Modernity’.
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11The World Soul and the Emergence of Human LifeInternational Journal of the Platonic Tradition 17 (1): 61-82. 2022.Marsilio Ficino’s view on ensoulment, which can be extrapolated from his critique of natal astrology, relies on the relations of metaphysical proportion between the different levels of life and being which are central to Platonic philosophy. Drawing primarily on Plotinus, Ficino describes the emergence of life in the embryo as a process in which the World Soul is the true agent. For him, the ‘human nature’ that is present in the developing embryo attracts into the mother’s womb the seed of ‘huma…Read more
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3When the Eyes Are Shut: The Strange Case of Girolamo Cardano’s Idolum in Somniorum Synesiorum Libri IIIIJournal of the History of Ideas 79 (2): 179-197. 2018.In his treatise on dreams Somniorum Synesiorum Libri IIII, published in 1562, the Italian Renaissance philosopher and physician Girolamo Cardano distinguishes between idola and visiones. Historians have discussed the reasons for such a distinction without taking into account Cardano’s original theory of sense-perception. In this article I shall argue that, in order to interpret the meaning of idola and visiones in Cardano’s theory of dreams, one should bear in mind his view that hearing is super…Read more
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9Naming pain: sense of suffering and sense of self in Girolamo CardanoHistory of European Ideas 46 (3): 227-241. 2020.ABSTRACTHardly a few people manage to escape big fears without dying [of them]; not so with pains. This statement captures Cardano's understanding of the difference between mental and physical pain. As a physician with a lifelong history of anxiety and alienation, Cardano inquired ceaselessly into the nature of the delicate interaction between the two kinds of pain. It was his belief that the subtle nature of mental suffering makes it difficult, if not impossible, to identify, name, and give a m…Read more
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5Aesthetic Themes in Pagan Christian Neoplatonism: from Plotinus to Gregory of Nyssa_ _, written by Daniele IozziaInternational Journal of the Platonic Tradition 11 (1): 111-112. 2017.
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6Raymond Klibansky and the Warburg Literary Network: Intellectual Peregrinations from Hamburg to London and Montreal, edited by Philippe Despoix and Jillian Tomm and with the collaboration of Eric Méchoulan and Georges LerouxInternational Journal of the Platonic Tradition 16 (1): 95-97. 2022.
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3Brill's Companion to Medieval and Early Modern Platonism (edited book)BRILL. 2016._Brill's Companion to Medieval and Early Platonism_ explores the impact exercised by Platonism on philosophy and many other fields of European culture, and the links it established with Christian, Jewish, Byzantine and Arabic traditions of thought during the Middle Ages and the early modern period.
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21Imagination and Memory in Marsilio Ficino’s Theory of the Vehicles of the Soul 1International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 6 (1): 81-114. 2012.The ancient Neoplatonic doctrine that the rational soul has one or more vehicles—bodies of a semi-material nature which it acquires during its descent through the spheres—plays a crucial part in Marsilio Ficino’s philosophical system, especially in his theory of sense-perception and in his account of the afterlife. Of the soul’s three vehicles, the one made of more or less rarefied air is particularly important, according to Ficino, during the soul’s embodied existence, for he identifies it with…Read more
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4Dii medioxumi and the Place of Theurgy in the Philosophy of Henry MoreIn Douglas Hedley & David Leech (eds.), Revisioning Cambridge Platonism: Sources and Legacy, Springer Verlag. pp. 13-30. 2019.The philosophy of Henry More was deeply indebted to the philosophical tradition of late antiquity. His metaphysics, clearly inspired by the magnificent synthesis of Plato, Plotinus and the later Platonists operated in the fifteenth century by Marsilio Ficino, relied on the continuity of being between Spirit and Matter, which also justified the presence of daemons and disembodied souls within the natural world. However, More fiercely criticised all forms of religious worship in which dii medioxum…Read more
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9Book review: Marsilio Ficino and his Influence, written by Laus Platonici Philosophi (review)International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 8 (2): 260-262. 2014.
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13From Daemonic Reason to Daemonic Imagination: Plotinus and Marsilio Ficino on the Soul's Tutelary SpiritBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 21 (3): 443-462. 2013.This article explores Marsilio Ficino's interpretation of Plotinus's notion of tutelary daemon, as found in Enneads III.4. While Plotinus considered external daemons as philosophically insignificant and described one's personal daemon as the highest part of one's soul, Ficino placed great emphasis on the existence of outer daemonic entities which continuously interact with human beings. As a consequence, for Plotinus the soul's tutelary daemon corresponded to man's capability for intellectual kn…Read more
Areas of Specialization
History of Western Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
History of Western Philosophy |