1433–1499

Translator
Philosopher

Early Life.

Marsilio Ficino was born at the time when the revival of knowledge of the classics was expanding greatly in Renaissance Florence. His father was the Medici family's physician, and Ficino was to follow in his footsteps. Ficino did pursue a career as a physician, but he also mastered a number of other fields. By the time he was thirty he had come to the attention of Cosimo de' Medici, who began to support his scholarly endeavors. Cosimo had recently acquired collections of Plato's manuscripts as well as of the Corpus Hermeticum that he asked Ficino to translate from Greek into Latin. The Corpus Hermeticum was a collection of mystical and magical texts that had long been attributed to the ancient Egyptian figure Hermes Trismegisthus (meaning literally "Thrice Great Hermes"). During the 1460s Ficino involved himself in these projects, and he continued to...