MA
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Combat | ATK 25 DEF 70 SPR 88 SPD 60 INT 96 |
| Rank | Founder of the Florentine Platonic Academy / Renaissance magus / Catholic priest |
| Domain | Platonic and Hermetic translation, natural magic, music as therapy, the rehabilitation of pagan wisdom for Christianity |
| Alignment | Holy / Esoteric / Renaissance |
| Weakness | His "natural magic" stayed safely on the licit side of the Church's lines; his bolder magical interests appear only in private letters and the suppressed *De Vita Coelitus Comparanda* |
| Key Act | Translated the *Corpus Hermeticum* into Latin (1463) at Cosimo de' Medici's command, displacing his ongoing Plato project. Translated the entire works of Plato (1484), Plotinus (1492), Iamblichus, Proclus. Wrote *Three Books on Life* (1489), a treatise on astrological-medical magic |
| Source | Ficino, *Pimander* (1463 trans.); *De Vita* (1489); *Theologia Platonica* (1482) |
The single most important translator in Western Esotericism’s history. Ficino’s Hermes translation gives Renaissance Europe its “ancient Egyptian wisdom”; his Plato gives it Platonism; his Plotinus and Iamblichus give it Neoplatonic theurgy. An ordained Catholic priest, he considers himself fully orthodox — his project is to show pagan wisdom prefigures Christianity, not contradicts it. He sees the prisca theologia (“ancient theology”) as a golden chain from Hermes through Pythagoras, Orpheus, Plato, culminating in Christ. The chain is historical fiction, but the idea shapes Western esotericism ever since.
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