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READING MARSILIO FICINO IN QUATTROCENTO ITALY.
THE CASE OF ARAGONESE NAPLES1
MATTEO SORANZO
Summary: This essay focuses on the reception of Marsilio Ficino’s works
and ideas in Naples at the time of the Aragonese domination, and it
offers a preliminary discussion of this neglected area of Renaissance
Neoplatonism. Based on a contextualization of Ficino’s letters to
Giovanni d’Aragona, four manuscripts produced at the Aragonese library
and other pieces of evidence such as Pierantonio Caracciolo’s Farsa de
l’Imagico and Giovanni Pontano’s dialogue Actius, it argues that the
works and ideas of Marsilio Ficino did circulate at king Ferrante’s court,
but were criticized by Giovanni Pontano and his elite of followers. In
particular, the essay provides new evidence about the existence of a
Ficinian workshop based at the King’s library, and about some of its protagonists such as the scribe and scholar Ippolito Lunense.
Introduction
Around 1493, during the Kingdom of Ferrante of Aragon (1423-1494),
Neapolitan playwright Pierantonio Caracciolo presented a farsa entitled
The Wizard (L’imagico) to the King and his court at Castelnuovo.2 Farces
and other theatrical genres such as the gliommero and the intramesa were
commonly practiced at the Aragonese Court. Local poets such as Jacopo
Sannazaro and Pietro Jacopo de Gennaro—as De Blasi and Bianchi have
recently illustrated—composed successful farces and gliommeri, which
voiced the multicultural and multilingual society of Aragonese Naples, and
sometimes even channeled elements of social dissent.3 Farces, moreover,
are important documents of the intellectual life of the court, and in par1 I would like to thank Valery Rees, Christopher Celenza, Teodoro Katinis and
Dario Brancato for their comments and useful feedback on earlier versions of
this essay.
2 Torraca, Francesco, Studi di Storia Letteraria Napoletana, 69. I would like to
thank Gianni Cicali for having first introduced me to this interesting, yet poorly known, text.
3 De Blasi, “A proposito degli gliommeri dialettali di Sannazaro,” 54-7; Bianchi,
“Le farse di Jacopo Sannazaro,” 60-1.
Quaderni d’italianistica, Volume XXXII, No. 2, 2011, 27-46
MATTEO SORANZO
ticular of the group of intellectuals gathered at Castel Capuano, the smaller residence of the king’s son and his entourage.4 By suggesting the social
status of their fictional characters through a careful selection of linguistic
registers, as Galasso has explained, courtly playwrights could raise issues
and express controversial ideas without compromising their position at
court.5 In line with this general trend, Caracciolo’s farce stages a wizard
that unusually combines traditional features of ancient philosophers with
rather precise references to astrology, magic and the legendary doctrines of
Zoroaster and Pythagoras. More precisely, Caracciolo’s imagico promises to
reveal the secret of human happiness after positing himself in a lineage of
ancient philosophers that seems to recall, albeit loosely, the ideas about the
existence of a prisca theologia that circulated in Quattrocento Florence:
I am not one of them, because my art is written in precious papers;
almost all these doctrines are divine. My first master was Zoroaster, and
after him Hermippo, Agonace and Speusippo; and these spheres are
made with the art of Anaxogoras, Empedocles, Pythagoras and Plato.6
Boillet, in an interesting study that illustrates how magic was a widespread interest at the Aragonese Court, has compared Caracciolo’s wizard
with analogous characters found, for example, in Sannazaro’s Arcadia.7
Rather than a generic interest in things supernatural, however, I would like
to suggest that Caracciolo’s wizard precisely displays the features of a new
figure of philosopher, theologian and “doctor of the soul” that Marsilio
Ficino (1433-1499) was spreading in Italy and Europe through the printed editions of his works and the complex network created through his letters.8 This recognition is problematic, as the actual diffusion of Ficino’s
texts in Naples is hardly acknowledged by the few scholars who ventured
into this neglected avenue of research. Whereas Ficino’s fortune has been
thoroughly documented in the case of cities like Urbino or Rome, the diffusion of the Florentine philosopher in Quattrocento Naples has generally
been discussed in elusive, and often contradictory, terms. If over fifty years
4 Ryder, The Kingdom of Naples, 54.
5 Galasso, Napoli capitale, 63-4.
6 Torraca, Studi di Storia, 433: “Io non so de quistoro che mia arte / E scripta in
degne carte so doctrine/ Quasi tutte divine el primo mastro / Me fo Re
Zoroastro, apresso Hermippo / Agonace et Speusippo; et queste sphere / sono
delarte vere de Anaxagora/ De Empedocle Pythagora et Platone.”
7 Boillet, “Paradis retrouvé et perdus,” 125.
8 Vasoli, “Marsilio Ficino: un Nuovo Tipo di Filosofo,” 97-108.
— 28 —
THE CASE OF THE ARAGONESE NAPLES
ago Giuseppe Saitta juxtaposed the spiritualism of Florentine NeoPlatonists to the materialism of Neapolitan Aristotelians, Noel Brann has
recently used Naples as an example of the fortune of Ficino’s theory of
genius.9 And despite their opposite conclusions, neither of these scholars
managed to ground their grand claims on sufficient evidence, so that this
important moment in early modern intellectual history has only been the
object of not systematic, albeit illuminating, works. Francesco Tateo, for
example, has suggested that the imitation of Petrarch at the Aragonese
court might have been sensitive to the language and themes of Florentine
Neoplatonism.10 Marc Deramaix, moreover, has often discussed the presence of Ficinian themes in the later works of Neapolitan poet Jacopo
Sannazaro, which he has persuasively linked with Augustinian Friar Giles
of Viterbo.11
Following in the footsteps of Tateo and Deramaix, this article argues
that the Ficinian themes found in Caracciolo’s Farsa de l’Imagico are a product of the Aragonese court in the 15th century. In my view, the diffusion of
Ficino’s books and ideas in Naples needs to be understood as a facet of the
diffusion of Florentine artists, objects, texts and ideas at the Aragonese
court that characterizes the kingdom of Ferrante.12 Moreover, the way
Neapolitan readers responded to Ficino’s ideas further documents the intellectual exchange between Florence and Naples, and in particular the relationship between Giovanni Pontano, the Rucellai family in Florence and
Nicolò Machiavelli, an assiduous member of the Rucellai’s gardens and an
attentive reader of Pontano’s works.13 In this perspective, Caracciolo’s play
can be matched with four additional pieces of evidence, which are respec9 Saitta, Il Pensiero Italiano nell’Umanesimo, 653-6; Brann, The Debate over the
origin of Genius, 123-6.
10 Tateo, “Raffronti petrarcheschi nella Napoli umanistica,” 293-310.
11 Deramaix, “La genèse du De Partu Virginis,” 173- 276.
12 For a general discussion of the historical context, see Galasso, Il Regno di
Napoli, 72-9. The relationships between Naples and Florence were not limited
to diplomacy and economics, but they also affected activities such as, for example, architecture, and jewelry making and literature. For recent studies on these
specific subjects see, for example, De Divitiis, “Building in local all’antica style,”
505-522; Clark, “Transient Possession: Circulation, Replication and
Possession,” 1-37; and De Nichilo, “Dal carteggio del Pontano,” 42-3.
13 For a thorough examination of the relationship between Giovanni Pontano, the
Rucellai family and the genesis of Machiavelli’s Discorsi, see Gilbert, “Bernardo
Rucellai and the Orti Oricellari,” 101-131; Richardson, “Pontano’s De Prudentia
and Machiavelli’s Discorsi,” 353-357; and, more importantly, Ginzburg,
“Pontano, Machiavelli, and Prudence,” 117-125.
— 29 —
MATTEO SORANZO
tively a. Marsilio Ficino’s letters to Cardinal Giovanni d’Aragona written in
1478-80; b. the manuscript copies of Ficino’s translations of Plato’s dialogues and Platonic Theology commissioned by Ferrante of Aragon in
1490-3; c. Ippolito Lunense’s translation of Ficino’s argumenta; d.
Giovanni Pontano’s critical use of Ficino’s language in his dialogue Actius
(written 1495-1499; first printed 1507). Although incomplete, this cluster
of evidence is sufficient to suggest that the circulation of Ficino’s texts in
Quattrocento Naples was connected with the culture of the court, and was
not easily accepted by the elite of natural philosophers and astrologers
gathered around Giovanni Pontano.
Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni d’Aragona
The first clear exchange between Marsilio Ficino and the culture of
Aragonese Naples unfolded on the backdrop of a complex political scenario,
which involved Lorenzo il Magnifico, King Ferrante and his son Giovanni
d’Aragona, a young Cardinal at the time. In the sixth book of Ficino’s
Letters, more precisely, there are two letters addressed to Cardinal Giovanni
d’Aragona written in the aftermath of the Pazzi Conspiracy. This book covers a period comprised between 1478 and 1481, that is, the moment of
political turmoil that followed the failed assassination of Lorenzo de’ Medici
and culminated in the formation of an alliance between pope Sixtus IV and
King Ferrante of Aragon against Florence.14 Consistent with Lorenzo’s
attempt at resolving the crisis with a diplomatic mission to Naples in the
winter of 1479, Ficino tried to use his connections with the Roman Curia
as well as his rhetorical talent to exhort Sixtus IV and Ferrante to adopt a
peaceful conduct. Valery Rees has noted how Ficino’s political letters betray
his view of love and unity as the ideal forms of politics, ideas that he found
in Plato as well as in his translation of the Corpus Hermeticum.15 Rees, in
addition, has shown how these letters revive a view of the relationship
between temporal and spiritual power that applies Dante’s theory exposed
in the Monarchy to the context of Quattrocento Italy.16 In my view, Ficino’s
letters can also be matched with the broader Florentine strategy at influencing King Ferrante’s conduct by gaining the favor of his sons Alfonso,
Federico and Giovanni through the donation of precious manuscripts.
14 Historians agree that the Aragonese King was indirectly involved in the plot
against the Medici. See, among others, Najemy, A History of Florence, 12001575, 352- 361; Galasso, Il regno di Napoli, 675-7.
15 Rees, “Ficino’s Advice to Princes,” 339- 357.
16 Rees, “Ficino’s Advice,” 348-9.
— 30 —
Furthermore, Ficino’s letters betray an uncommon ability to reuse language
and themes of the Aragonese political propaganda.
Ficino’s letters to Cardinal Giovanni parallel Lorenzo de Medici’s collections of love poetry sent to Federico and Alfonso. In the 1470s, Lorenzo
commissioned two anthologies of Tuscan poetry enriched by Francesco del
Chierico’s illuminations and edited by Angelo Poliziano.17 Lorenzo’s gifts
were at the heart of a complex ideological operation addressed to the intellectual community of Ippolita Sforza, which was generally well disposed
toward Lorenzo de Medici and Tuscan culture.18 More specifically, these
anthologies constituted an extension of Lorenzo’s correspondence with
Ippolita, which contributed to set the stage for the Florentine diplomatic
mission that took place in the winter of 1479.19 While Lorenzo was using
his connections at court, Ficino was harping on his affiliations with the
Roman Curia and high prelates such as the new Archbishop of Amalfi
Giovanni Niccolini, who was called to take care of Giovanni d’Aragona’s
philosophical and religious education.20 In addition, Ficino tried to use
Giovanni Niccolini as an intermediary with Sixtus IV, while he tried to
draw on Giovanni d’Aragona to influence King Ferrante’s conduct.21 In
doing so, Ficino could count on the Cardinal’s interest in theology as well
as on his bibliographic taste. Giovanni’s amazing collection of theological
manuscripts, some of which were eventually added to the Aragonese
Library, included for the most part items copied and illuminated by the
best scribes and illuminators available in Florence.22
While Lorenzo’s Raccolta Aragonese was meant to instruct the young
Federico about Tuscan love poetry, Ficino’s first letter to Cardinal Giovanni
was originally intended to accompany three philosophical texts written in
the genre of speculum literature. The purpose of Ficino’s gift was introducing his young addressee to a view of wisdom (sapientia) that is linked with
Plato and strategically juxtaposed to Cicero’s teachings:
Some time ago, Reverend Father, I wrote three addresses, Platonic rather
than Ciceronian, to deter my friends from vice and, as far as I could, to
exhort them to virtue. The first describes the miserable shadow of evil
life; the second recalls the happy image of the good life; the third expresses the divine form of goodness itself.23
17 De Robertis, “Lorenzo Aragonese,” 3-14.
18 Mazzacurati, “Storia e Funzione della Poesia,” 48- 67.
19 Bryce, “Between Friends?,” 340- 365.
20 Figliuolo, “Giovanni Battista Niccolini,” 41- 61.
21 Kristeller, “Marsilio Ficino and the Roman Curia,” 83-98.
22 De la Mare, “The Florentine scribes of Cardinal Giovanni of Aragona,” 245-93.
23 Ficino, Letters, VI (5): 8.
— 31 —
MATTEO SORANZO
Besides its obvious philosophical implications, I would suggest that
Ficino might have decided to juxtapose Plato and Cicero in response to other
advice books produced in Naples, and in particular Giovanni Pontano’s De
Principe (On the Prince, written ca. 1464; first printed 1490).24 An advice
book in Latin that used philosophy at the service of political propaganda,
Pontano’s De Principe was based on a definition of wisdom related to the
works of Plato filtered through the works of Cicero. In particular, De Principe
betrays a notion of self-knowledge that is different from Ficino’s, and solidly
related to Pontano’s views on the role of religion in princely education:
Blessed is the one who—as Plato affirms, and Cicero repeats—happens
to be allowed to follow wisdom and truthful opinions in his old age.
Most clearly, therefore, the foundations have to be grounded from a
young age, so that we can follow through in the old age. Once the foundations are well grounded, we have no reason to be afraid to fall apart, as
it happens in a well built house.25
Differently from Ficino, Pontano envisioned wisdom as a form of selfknowledge that stems from experience and the attentive knowledge of classical texts; a practical virtue, that is, provocatively disconnected from religion. In De Principe, spiritual counseling is indicated as the work of professional theologians such as the Catalan Narciso Verdùn, whose role is
praised but distinguished from that of a political advisor.26 Ficino’s knowledge of typically Neapolitan themes is further demonstrated by looking at
the complex fiction staged in the second letter to Cardinal Giovanni.
Ficino’s second letter to Giovanni d’Aragona is a political exhortation
formulated in the form of a prophecy (oraculum) originally pronounced by
King Alfonso in angelic language for his son Ferrante.27 The letter seeks to
24 For a now classical interpretation of Pontano’s text, see Skinner, Foundations of
Modern Political Thought, 120-128 and Id. Visions of Politics, 135-7. More recent
discussions of this work are found in Gaylard, “Re-Envisioning the Ancients,”
245-265 and Cappelli’s introduction to Pontano, De Principe.
25 Pontano. De Principe, 24: 20: “Beatum illum – Plato dicit et Cicero refert – cui
etiam in senectute contigerit ut sapientiam verasque opiniones assequi possit.
Praeclare quidem, sed ut in senectute valeamus assequi, iacienda sunt fundamenta ab adolescentia, quibus bene iactis, tanquam in domo bene aedificata non
est verendum ut corruamus.”
26 As the King’s theological consultant, Narciso had sent a short theological meditation (lucubratiuncula) to King Ferrante in 1474, as discussed in De Marinis,
La biblioteca napoletana, 48-49.
27 Ficino, VI (5): 23: “Reverend Father, the blessed King Alfonso, your grandfather, recently uttered from heaven a prophecy in the language of angels for your
— 32 —
persuade Ferrante to adopt a peaceful conduct in the aftermath of the Pazzi
Conspiracy, thus abandoning the alliance with pope Sixtus IV against
Florence. In doing so, it includes a synopsis of Plato’s theory of the soul,
which is presented as a way by which Ferrante may use philosophical contemplation to heal his soul from the bellicose influx of Saturn and Mars.
Also, the letter draws on Ferrante’s genealogy, and more specifically on the
peaceful conduct of his father Alfonso il Magnanimo, characterized as a rex
pacis. In doing so, Ficino not only paraphrased ideas found in his philosophical works, but he also intended to gain his addressee’s attention by
astutely referring to a famous motif of Aragonese propaganda.28 More
specifically, Ficino’s use of the angelic vision is a skillful reference to
Antonio Panormita’s Triumphus Alphonsi Regis Neapolitanorum (written
1443; first printed 1538).29 A celebration of the restored peace pronounced by a pageant of allegorical personifications of virtues, Panormita’s
Triumphus includes the prosopopea of an angel who speaks to King
Alphonse and celebrates his role as a peacemaker after a period of war and
political turmoil.30 What Ficino presents as his translation of a discourse
originally pronounced in angelic language, therefore, tried to gain his reader’s benevolence by carefully reusing language and themes of the Aragonese
propaganda.
Ficino’s letters to Giovanni d’Aragona, his veiled critique of Pontano’s
De Principe and his reuse of Panormita’s Triumphus may stem from his
blessed father, King Ferdinand. Marsilio Ficino, caught up by some spirit, was
there. He heard and remembered that prophecy uttered by King Alfonso in the
language of angels. Today he has translated it for you into the language of men
with this advice: first, please read it yourself, then send it to His Serene
Highness, your father, so that what Marsilio recently understood from Alfonso
with the eyes and ears of the mind alone, he may through our care receive with
the ears and eyes of the body as well.”
28 For a recent and thoroughly documented history of this motif, see Iacono, “Il
Trionfo di Alfonso d’Aragona tra memoria classica e propaganda di corte,” 9-57.
29 Iacono, “Primi risultati delle ricerche sulla traditione manoscritta,” 560-599.
30 Beccadelli, De dictis et factis Alphonsi regis Aragonum libri, 98: “Post hos vehebatur lignea ingens turris mirifice ornata, cuius aditum angelus stricto ense custodiebat; nam super ea vectabantur virtutes quatuor: Magnanimitas, Constantia,
Clementia, Liberalitas. Haeque sedem periculosam insigne illud regium prae se
ferebant, cantantes suam quaeque compositis versibus cantionem. Omnium
primus angelus ad regem versus in hunc fere modum disseruit: ‘Alphonse rex
pacis, ego tibi castellum hoc superastantes quatuor inclitas virtutes offero
manuque trado, quas quomodo tute semper veneratus et amplexus es, nunc te
triumphantem comitari gratanter volunt’.”
— 33 —
MATTEO SORANZO
knowledge of an important anthology of Neapolitan propagandistic texts
available in Florence. Both Pontano’s De Principe and Panormita’s
Triumphus, along with other products of Aragonese humanists, were well
known to Florentine intellectuals in a manuscript commissioned by
Antonio Ridolfi, Florentine ambassador in Naples, to the scribe Pietro
Cennini in 1469-1471. An interesting figure of scribe and scholar, Pietro
Cennini had personally collaborated with Pontano and Panormita in
selecting and copying the texts included in his anthology. Solidly structured according to propagandistic criteria, this manuscript includes long
excerpts from politically committed historical works produced by Alfonso’s
humanists. As such, it played a major role in the diffusion of Aragonese
texts in Florence and in spreading the myth of Alfonso il Magnanimo as a
restorer of peace and a model of wisdom and learning.31
A Ficinian Workshop at the Aragonese Library
The positive outcome of the crisis that followed the Pazzi Conspiracy contributed to strengthen the diplomatic and intellectual relationships
between Florence and Naples, officially sanctioned by a peace treaty signed
in 1480.32 The seeds planted by Lorenzo de Medici and Marsilio Ficino,
so to speak, could flourish in this renewed political scenario. Angelo
Poliziano, for example, managed to strengthen his intellectual ties with
Giuniano Maio, professor of Rhetoric and Poetics at the Neapolitan studio.33 A member of Ficino’s network of scholars, Roberto Salviati even
involved Neapolitan intellectuals such as Maio in the rehabilitation of
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola after his brush with Innocent VIII, due to
the failed attempt at discussing the 900 theses in 1486. A copy of Giovanni
Pico’s Heptaplus was received by Maio, who enthusiastically replied in 1490
in a letter that also betrays his acquaintance with the Florentine ambassador in Naples, Piero Vettori.34 What best epitomizes this positive trend,
31 De Nichilo, “Dal carteggio di Pontano,” 39-68; Iacono, “Primi risultati delle
ricerche,” 570, 579, 583-5.
32 Galasso, Il regno di Napoli, 679. Naples’ friendly ties with Florence, which
played a major role during the conflicts with the barons and the pope, were reitereated in the peace treaty signed in 1486. The text of this treaty can be read in
Fedele, “La pace del 1486 tra Ferdinando d’Aragona ed Innocenzo VIII,” 481503.
33 Caracciolo Aricò, “Maio, Giuniano”; Ricciardi, “Angelo Poliziano, Giuniano
Maio,” 277-309.
34 Giovanni Pico, Opera Omnia (1557- 1573), 408-409.
— 34 —
however, is the career of Poliziano’s pupil Francesco Pucci (1462-1512), a
Florentine scholar who spent most of his life in Naples. Actively involved
in the life of the Neapolitan studio, employed as a librarian at the
Aragonese Library and well known in King Ferrante’s court, Pucci arrived
in Naples in 1483.35
A well trained humanist versed in eloquence, Latin poetry and classical exegesis, Francesco Pucci was the mastermind of a Ficinian workshop
based at the King’s library. In 1490, Pucci became “librero mayor” of the
Aragonese Library, and during his tenure he drastically improved King
Ferrante’s collection.36 The tasks of an Aragonese librarian also entailed the
commission and purchase of manuscripts, and Pucci had personal reason
to make sure that the King’s collection acquired prestigious copies of
Ficino’s works: Ficino himself had praised Pucci’s scholarship and rhetorical skills in a letter to Andrea Cambini in 1489.37 More specifically, I think
that Pucci’s tenure at the King’s Library is closely related with the commission of three illuminated manuscripts of Marsilio Ficino’s works in
Latin, and more precisely a copy of the Platonis Opera Omnia in two volumes, and a copy of the Theologia Platonica. Although useless for a critical
edition as codices descripti, these three manuscripts produced for the
Aragonese library document the diffusion of Ficino’s works at Ferrante’s
court, and reveal the names of two other members of this workshop
attached to the King’s Library, that is, the scribe Ippolito Lunense and the
illuminator Matteo Felice.
Although scholars agree that Ippolito Lunense and Matteo Felice produced only two manuscripts of Ficino’s texts between 1491 and 1493, the
items commissioned by King Ferrante were actually three. Based on two
records of the Aragonese treasury (cedole di tesoreria) of 1491 and 1493,
Mazzatinti and De Marinis have correctly identified the first volume of the
Aragonese copies of the Platonis Opera Omnia and Theologia Platonica with
mss. Harley 3481 and 3482 of the British Library, which both display
Ippolito Lunense’s signature, Matteo Felice’s hand and King Ferrante’s coat
of arms.38 In my view, however, there is a third item to be added to the list.
Although a record of the Aragonese treasury dated 1492 does make reference to a second volume of the Platonis Opera illuminated by Matteo Felice
35 Santoro, Uno scolaro del Poliziano, 33; De Marinis, La biblioteca napoletana, I,
186.
36 De Marinis, La biblioteca napoletana, I, 186-7.
37 Santoro, Uno scolaro del Poliziano, 18.
38 Mazzatinti, La Biblioteca dei re d’Aragona in Napoli, lxiv-lxv; De Marinis, La
Biblioteca napoletana., I, 157-8.
— 35 —
MATTEO SORANZO
and transcribed by Ippolito Lunense, Mazzatinti and De Marinis have confused this item with the copy of Ficino’s Theologia Platonica that is now
part of the Harley collection.39 I propose to identify the second volume
mentioned in the records of the Aragonese treasury with manuscript Est.
Lat. 469 of the Biblioteca Estense of Modena. First, Gennaro Toscano has
recently argued that the illuminator of the Estense manuscript was Matteo
Felice, and not an anonymous Sienese artist as cataloguers Fava and Salmi
have erroneously claimed, followed by Kristeller and Hankins.40 Second,
the Estense manuscript includes all the translations of Plato’s dialogues
mentioned in the table of contents found in the Harley 3481, but not
included in this manuscript.41 Third, Ippolito Lunense’s handwriting is
very similar to that found in the Estense manuscript, and there are many
other matching features such as the paper used, the size and the binding.
Fourth, cataloguers Fava and Salmi attributed the coat of arms found in
the first folio to Mathias Corvinus, although at close inspection this coat
of arm is almost completely abraded and the item does not display any of
Corvinus’ distinctive symbols (e.g. the raven holding a ring, the hourglass
etc.).42 To sum up, the Ficinian workshop guided by Francesco Pucci provided the King’s library with a complete copy of Ficino’s Platonis Opera in
two volumes, and a copy of the Theologia Platonica. Furthermore, a fourth
item can be added to the list.
Kristeller and, more recently, Paola Megna have demonstrated that the
copies of Ficino’s Platonis Opera and Theologia Platonica that are now part
of the Harley collection are based on the printed editions of these texts,
and their conclusions probably apply to the Estense manuscript as well.43
However, it would be wrong to believe that Ippolito Lunense and his collaborators merely reproduced a printed copy and embellished it with a rich
apparatus of illuminations, without analyzing and discussing the texts. As
he proudly claims in the frontispiece of Ficino’s translation of Plato’s dialogues, Ippolito was aware of the mistakes found in the exemplar used and
39 De Marinis, La Biblioteca napoletana, II, 297.
40 Fava, I manoscritti miniati della Biblioteca estense, I, 91-2; Kristeller, Marsilio
Ficino and his Work, 69; Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, II, 701.
41 Megna, Lo Ione Platonico, 148.
42 For a specimen of Corvinus’ illuminations, see the photographic apparatus
included in Nel segno del Corvo.
43 Megna, Lo Ione Platonico, 147-8.
44 Ms. Harley 3481, fol. 1r: “Proemium Marsilii Ficini Florentini in Libros
Platonis ad Laurentium Medicem Virum Magnanumum quos Felicissimi
Musarum antistis sapientissimique virtutum ac populorum regus et pace bel— 36 —
claimed to have personally edited the text.44 Based on similar declaration
disseminated throughout his copious production, moreover, I believe that
Ippolito can be considered a scribe and a scholar, who combined his scribal duties with rather sophisticated skills in textual criticism.45 In addition,
since he personally transcribed Ficino’s major works in their entirety, I
would suggest that Ippolito, if not a Platonist, most certainly acquired
some knowledge of Ficino’s ideas that he could have shared with other
“Tuscanophile” intellectuals gathered at the Aragonese Library in Castel
Nuovo in the 1490s.
Ippolito Lunense’s Auree Sententie e Proverbi Platonici (ca. 1493)
This hypothesis is confirmed by Ippolito Lunense’s Auree Sententie e
Proverbi Platonici, a long anthology of philosophical sayings in the vernacular that includes a long selection of Ficino’s argumenta extracted from the
two volumes of the Platonis Opera.46 Because of its material features,
Ippolito Lunense’s volgarizzamento transmitted by ms. XII E 32 of the
Biblioteca Nazionale of Naples can be considered the fourth product of the
Ficinian workshop in Naples. First, the illuminated initial and the preciously decorated borders of fol. 7r display all the distinctive features of
Matteo Felice, and if not his own work they were probably made under his
supervision. In the 1490s, the white wine-stems with colorful birds, for
example, along with figures of putti holding the coat of arms of the dedicatee surrounded by a laurel crown were the trademark of this artist, who
proudly continued to offer his distinctive blend of Tuscan and Flemish
influences on a market that was becoming increasingly sensitive to the new
antiquarian taste coming from Veneto.47 Indeed, the rather stiff and simplified portrait of Plato found in the Auree Sententiae contrasts with
Matteo Felice’s prodigious portrait of Plato in the studiolo found in the illuloque florentissimi monoarchae atque perpetui triumphatoris Ferdinandi
Aragonii Mandato Petrus Hippolitus Lunensis Exemplaris depravationes castigans magna omnes diligentia transcripsit.” By this, the scribe presumably meant
that he integrated all the corrections found in the editio princeps of 1484, as
argued by Megna, Lo Ione Platonico, 157.
45 A list of Pietro Ippolito’s claims of editorial expertise is found in Delisle,
“Review of Hugo Ehrensberger,” 292-4.
46 A systematic collation of Ippolito’s Auree Sententiae, manuscripts Harley 3481
and Est. Lat. 469, therefore, would further support the hypothesis that these two
manuscripts were found at the Aragonese Library.
47 Toscano, “Matteo Felice. Un miniatore,” 108-9.
— 37 —
MATTEO SORANZO
minated initials of the Harley and Estense manuscripts, which betray the
illuminator’s knowledge of the Saint Jerome painted by Jan Van Eyck for
the Genoese merchant Lomellini.48 However, the doctoral hood and the
sophisticated rendering of Plato’s facial complexion matches what is presumably Felice’s interpretation of a traditional Byzantine motif in Plato’s
medieval iconography, that is, the portrait of the ancient philosopher
under the Tree of Jesse found, for example, in ms. 15 of the Abbey of
Mercogliano.49
Rather than a translation in the modern sense of the word, the Auree
Sententie is a typical example of volgarizzamento based on the manuscripts in
Latin that Ippolito Lunense was copying for the Aragonese Library. Also,
considering that Ippolito began to work on Ficino’s Latin manuscripts in
1491, and that he worked for the Aragonese Library until 1493,50 I would
suggest that Ippolito’s collection was compiled within this time span and
that Francesco Pucci might have played a determinant role in the conception of this project, which perfectly matches the diffusion of literature in the
vernacular among the members of the Aragonese court. In 1488, for example, Neapolitan poet Jacopo Sannazaro had adapted the language of pastoral
poetry in Tuscan vernacular to the Aragonese court in his Libro Pastorale
Intitolato Archadio, the ancestor of his more popular Arcadia.51 In 1491,
Florentine born Francesco Patrizi wrote a commentary of Petrarch’s Rerum
Vulgarium Fragmenta for the intellectuals gathered at the King’s court.52 And
I don’t think that it is a coincidence if immediately after Ippolito Lunense
finalized his Auree Sententie, which includes a long translation of Ficino’s
commentary of Plato’s Symposium, state bureaucrat and courtly poet Benit
Gareth revised his Endimione, in light of Ficino’s theory of love.53 Once
again, the circulation of Ficino’s texts and themes in Quattrocento Naples
seems to be directly connected with the diffusion of literary texts in Tuscan
vernacular and mainly connected with a specific area of Aragonese culture,
that is, Ferrante’s court and the Aragonese library.
Although the room for the coat of arms in the illuminated bas-de page
was left blank, and Ippolito Lunense’s scribal note was left incomplete, it is
48 Toscano, “Matteo Felice,” 216.
49 Knipp, “Medieval Visual Images of Plato,” 391-3; Toscano, “Matteo Felice, un
miniatore,” 105.
50 De Marinis, Tammaro. La Biblioteca napoletana, I, 55-58.
51 Soranzo, “Audience and Quattrocento Pastoral,” 53-4; Ricucci, Il neghittoso e
il fier connubio, 190-204.
52 Paolino, “Per l’edizione del commento di Francesco Patrizi,” 53-311.
53 Barbiellini Amidei, Alla luna, 73-7.
— 38 —
my conjecture that the manuscript of the Auree Sententie is a dedication
copy addressed to a young member of a noble family connected with
Ferrante’s court. Although the manuscript was made by a scribe and an
illuminator who generally worked for the Aragonese King, it was not probably part of the King’s personal belongings. After the descent of Charles
VIII and the following downfall of the Aragonese dynasty, the books that
originally composed the Aragonese Library were either stolen and brought
to France, or transferred by the extant members of the family to Ferrara
and then Valencia.54 It is hard to believe that such an item, illuminated in
gold-leaf and preciously bound, would have been left behind in this
process. Also, it was common practice that scribes and illuminators
employed by the King worked for wealthy patrons connected with the
Aragonese court.55 Therefore, it is more plausible that Ippolito Lunense’s
Auree Sententie were addressed to a wealthy patron affiliated with the court
such as Aloysio Corellio, a member of the King’s entourage for whom
Ippolito composed a volgarizzamento of a Latin text on precious stones that
displays a very similar apparatus of illuminations.56 Additional information
about the addressee, moreover, can be inferred from the choices of Ippolito
in composing his Ficinian anthology.
An early modern volgarizzamento is not simply the translation of a
text, but it is also an interpretive tool tailored for a specific audience.57 In
line with this general principle, the opening section of the Auree Sententie
translates the section of Ficino’s Vita Platonis entitled “Sententiae et
Proverbia Platonis” by skipping the first sixteen lines, thus selecting only
those information that may be interesting for a young audience (ms. XII E
32 fols. 7r; ms. Harley 3481 fols. 5v- 6r). The passage selected by the translator, moreover, further demonstrates that Ippolito based his translation on
the Aragonese copy of Ficino’s Platonis Opera now found at the British
Library. Whereas in the printed versions this passage from the Vita Platonis
reads “ad viventes,” in the Harleyan manuscript as well as in his translation
Ippolito adopts the lectio singularis “ad iuvenes,” which is translated in the
Italian vernacular as “ali gioveni.” Moreover, in order to make his volgariz54 For a recent reassessment of this complex history, see Toscano, “La Biblioteca
napoletana dei re d’Aragona,” 29- 63.
55 Toscano, “Matteo Felice, un miniatore,” 107.
56 Giordano, “Un lapidario in volgare del sec. XV,” 65-80.
57 Folena, Volgarizzare e tradurre, 3-5. For a recent application of this general
principle to the reception of Boethius in Italian vernacular culture, see Brancato,
“Readers and Interpreters of the Consolatio in Italy, 1300-1500”; Brancato,
“Appunti linguistici sul Boezio,” 133-38.
— 39 —
MATTEO SORANZO
zamento fitting for a noble reader affiliated with the prince, Ippolito
Lunense does not hesitate to alter Ficino’s text by reassembling its parts in
a new order. Instead of accurately following Ficino’s Vita Platonis, Ippolito
integrates the few lines devoted to Plato’s interaction with princes in the
original text with a long selection extracted from Ficino’s argumenta to
Plato’s Epistles (ms. XII E 32 fols. 7v- 9r), which are not translated in the
remainder of the translation. In both cases, Ippolito’s alterations of the
original texts are astutely camouflaged through the almost systematic
exclusion of Ficino’s references to specific texts by Plato, as well as any kind
of internal reference to the Platonis Opera. All the material extracted from
the argumenta is thus adjusted to the medieval genre of the “sententia” and
presented as a translation of Plato’s original opinions in the vernacular.
Pontano’s rejection of Ficino’s ideas?
The diffusion of Ficino’s texts at the Aragonese Court and the availability of
his ideas in translation may suggest that Caracciolo’s farsa was the theatrical
counterpart of a broader Ficinian revival based in Ferrante’s court at the
beginning of the 1490s. The event, if this hypothesis is sound, would therefore need to be interpreted in the context of the diffusion of Tuscan cultural products at Ferrante’s court- a process that started at the end of the 1470s
and paralleled the complex diplomatic relationships between the Kingdom
of Naples and Florence. This reconstruction, moreover, would nicely agree
with Noel Brann, who has recently claimed that Ficino was well known in
Naples thanks to Giovanni Pontano and his circle. Conversely, it would
undermine Saitta’s characterization of Neapolitan culture as anti-Florentine
because of its “materialism.” Unfortunately, things are not as straightforward as these scholars presented them, especially if one looks at the material diffusion of Ficino’s texts and, more broadly, at the different attitudes
toward Florentine culture that were available in the field of Naples.
Brann’s claim that Pontano’s dialogue Actius gives evidence of a theory
that matches Ficino’s view of poetic frenzy sharply contrasts with Pontano’s
often critical attitude toward Florentine intellectuals such as Giovanni Pico
della Mirandola. In the manuscripts versions of his treatises De Rebus
Coelestibus (book 12) and De Fortuna (book 3), eventually altered by their
editor Pietro Summonte, Pontano explicitly attacked Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola by siding with Lucio Bellanti in a critique of the Disputations
against Astrology as a product of Savonarola’s propaganda.58 Also, Pontano
58 Desantis, “Pico, Pontano e la polemica astrologica,” 151-191; Faracovi, “In
difesa dell’astrologia,” 47-66.
— 40 —
had openly characterized Giovanni Pico’s discussion of the 900 theses as
stemming from the aristocratic snobbery and dubious religiosity of his
opponent, thus siding with pope Innocent VIII and other intellectuals
from the Roman Curia.59 Notwithstanding two eloquent praises written in
1494, Angelo Poliziano never succeeded to start a correspondence with
Pontano, while members of Pontano’s circle had harshly criticized the
Miscellanea with epigrams and slanders.60 As for the literature in Tuscan
vernacular that was flourishing at court, Pontano’s attitude combined
snobbery and pity toward an endeavor that he did not take seriously at
all.61 Pontano’s approval of Ficino’s theory of poetic frenzy, therefore,
would be the exception that confirms the rule.
Rather than matching Ficino’s theory of poetic inspiration, Pontano’s
dialogue Actius is in fact a subtle critique of Ficino’s interpretation of Plato’s
Ion and book thirteen of Platonic Theology. Framed in a broader discussion
on the causes of prophetic dreams and linked to the problem of the soul’s
immortality, the dialogue Actius constructs the personae of a natural
philosopher (Johannes Pardo) and a poet (Jacopo Sannazaro) as respectively the theorist and the recipient of inspiration. Consistent with Pontano’s
commentary of the pseudo-Ptolemaic Centiloquium, Pardo presents
prophecy as caused by the external influence (sympatheia, contagio) of one
immortal intellect (mens) acting upon multiple human souls through the
filter of stars (coelitus).62 Pardo presents his view as stemming from his own
interpretation of Aristotle, and juxtaposes his explanation to religious
accounts of prophecy as resulting from ecstasy (vacatio) and platonic frenzy (furor). Heavily altered by its editor Pietro Summonte, who might have
tried to soften its religiously controversial elements,63 this section of Actius
betrays an inclination to read Aristotle’s theory of the soul through the
commentary of Averroes and an attempt at rationalizing prophecy through
astrology. In doing so, Pardo’s persona also uses Ficino’s language to characterize religious explanations of prophecy, which natural philosophy and
astrology—in his view—can more accurately explicate. Does this different
attitude toward Ficino’s ideas underpin a broader competition between
Pontano’s circle and Ferrante’s court?
59 Soranzo, Conjecture and Inspiration, 255- 273.
60 Gualdo Rosa, 61-82; Vecce, “Multiplex hic anguis,” 235-255; Gualdo Rosa, “A
proposito degli epigrammi latini del Sannazaro,” 453- 476.
61 Parenti, Benit Gareth, 36-7.
62 Soranzo, “Giovanni Pontano on Astrology,” 23- 29.
63 Tateo, “Per l’edizione critica dell’Actius,” 145- 194; Mariotti, “Per lo studio dei
Dialoghi di Pontano,” 261- 288.
— 41 —
MATTEO SORANZO
Indeed, the portrait of Piero Caracciolo’s Imagico matches the diffusion of Ficino’s books at Ferrante’s court, and it is consistent with the success of Florentine cultural products in this specific sector of Aragonese
Naples. In this context, Pontano’s interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of the
active intellect (mens) as one and immortal displayed in the dialogue Actius
is not only a polemical refutation of Ficino’s Platonic Theology on the basis
of Averroes, but it can also be interpreted as a critique of Ficino’s popularity among Neapolitan intellectuals.64 Diverging attitudes toward Ficino’s
ideas in the early 1490s, moreover, would provide a context for Pontano’s
critical attitude toward Augustinian Friar Giles of Viterbo, who profoundly influenced the religious orientation and literary taste of members of
Pontano’s circle such as Jacopo Sannazaro through the use of Ficinian
themes in his apologetic sermons and theological commentaries.65 The discovery of a Ficinian workshop based at the Aragonese library, and the identification of a sharp divide between the “Tuscanophile” culture of
Ferrante’s court and the highly exclusive elite gathered around Giovanni
Pontano, in conclusion, lead to reconsider Giuseppe Saitta’s theses and call
for a reassessment of Ficino’s diffusion in Aragonese Naples in light of new
documentary evidence.
MCGILL UNIVERSITY
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