Plato's Third Eye: Studies in Marsilio Ficino's Metaphysics and its Sources

by Michael J.B. Allen

Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) was one of the luminaries of the Florentine Renaissance and the scholar responsible for the revival of Platonism. The translator and interpreter of the works of both Plato and Plotinus as well as of various Hermetic and Neoplatonic texts, Ficino was also a musician, priest, magus and psychotherapist, an original philosopher and the author of a vast and important correspondence with the intellectual figures of his day including Lorenzo the Magnificent. Professor Allen has become the foremost interpreter of Ficino's metaphysics and mythology, and the ancient sources they draw upon; and this collection of essays assembles his work on Ficino's complex interrogation of Platonic 'theology' as not only a preparation for Christianity but as an enduring medium for intellectuals to explore and to express Christian truths.

360 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

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.