Nuptial Arithmetic: Marsilio Ficino's Commentary on the Fatal Number in Book VIII of Plato's Republic

by Michael J.B. Allen

The latest of Michael Allen's distinguished studies of the Renaissance Neoplatonist, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), presents a difficult, fascinating text. Late in his career, Ficino wrote a commentary on the intractable passage in Book VIII of Plato's Republic that concerns the mysterious geometric or "fatal" number. He was thus the first modern interpreter of this famous passage, and Allen is the first in our era to translate and elucidate his remarkable commentary.

Allen's critical translation of Ficino's analysis of the fatal number passage shows how it develops philosophical, psychological, numerological, astrological, and prophetic themes that had a particular resonance at the end of the fifteenth century.

302 pages, Hardcover

First published June 21, 1994

About the author

Michael J.B. Allen is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Italian at UCLA.

His interests include Renaissance philosophy, drama, poetry, magic, mythology, iconography, hermeneutics, along with the Platonism of Marsilio Ficino & Pico della Mirandola.

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the kind of book it's almost impossible to give a rating to - while it's really dense and usually intensely esoteric it's also kind of nuts in the best way possible. It's a commentary on a commentary on Plato and it dives head first into Renaissance thought and numerology, centered on Plato's idea of a Fatal Number - a number of years after which, even if it has no internal flaws, a society will begin to decline. Ficino (and, secondarily, Allen) approaches this idea through ideas concerning harmony, number sequences and symbolism, and especially proportions and while it can be off-puttingly dense it is also impressively ambitious and all-encompassing.