Ficino

Consequently, the reader will learn about the painting “factories” of established masters, the intricacies of the patronage system, how to work in egg tempera, the cultural influence of the Platonist Marsilio Ficino and the rivalry between Florentine art based on disegno — a word meaning “design” or “drawing” and implying careful preparation — and the more freewheeling colorism of Titian and the Venetian school.

For three years he lived in this regal home, meeting all the great and learned men of Italy: Politian, the poet and philosopher; Ficino, the head of the Platonic Academy; Pico della Mirandola, the prince and scholar, and many others.

Among the 50,000 printed books is a Hebrew Bible of 1788, one of the twelve known copies of the complete edition of Soncino; a Latin Plato, by Ficino, with marginal notes by Tasso and his father Bernardo; a Dante of 1477, with notes by Bembo, &c.

Among the former, the first rank was unanimously given to Politiano, Pico della Mirandola, Leon-Battista Alberti, and Marsilio Ficino.

This is the epoch of the Platonic Academy, which Marsilio Ficino had founded under the auspices of Cosimo.