Gardens of Philosophy: Ficino on Plato (review)

This work is a translation of Ficino's "shorter commentaries or summaries" (Clement Salaman's terms, vii) that he prefixed to almost every one of his translations both of Plato's dialogues and of the twelve letters attributed to Plato. It fills a need, since these Ficinian works have never been translated into English before. Even those Anglophone scholars who know Latin still need a translation in order to read quickly through a large body of material. Farndell omits the longer commentaries, some of which have been translated into English by others — that on the Symposium by Sears Jayne and those on the Philebus, the Sophist, and part of the Phaedrus by Michael J. B. Allen. Those which Ficino prefixed to his translation of the Parmenides, Timaeus, Republic, and Laws, while substantial, remain without English translation to this day, except that Allen has translated and commented on the passage in the Republic about the Nuptial Number (Nuptial Arithmetic, 1994).

Farndell rightly eschews all considerations of the authenticity of individual Platonic works on the grounds that Ficino took no interest in this question. I presume his text of the Latin is Basel, 1576, Opera Omnia or its facsimile, since if he had gone back to the manuscripts he would have told us which ones. It would be nice to be apprised occasionally of what page of this edition is being translated in case the reader wants to check the Latin. Farndell appends no footnotes or endnotes; but each section has a brief introductory page called "Translator's Notes." Kristeller documents Ficino's terms for these "arguments" or "epitomes"; they were distinguished from "commentaries" by their relative brevity. Ficino started writing them to explain nine of the ten dialogues that he translated for his dying patron, Cosimo de' Medici (d. 1464). They all appeared in print prefixed to their respective dialogues in Ficino's Opera Platonis (1484) (Supplementum Ficinianum Items XI and XII, I.cxvi–cxviii).

Farndell gives us a translation of Ficino's prefaces to twenty-five selected dialogues of Plato and all of the prefaces to the twelve Letters of Plato. These prefaces will interest intellectual and cultural historians and students of philosophy, religion, and literature. Particularly analytical and relevant to literary scholars are the prefaces to the Cratylus and Ion and to the Seventh Letter. The prefaces range in genre from pious generalities to rigorous analysis, from rhetoric to summary to commentary. Ficino's originally intended audience was composed of sophisticated intellectuals who would scorn the simplicity of the Gospels if Ficino had not glamorized them by associating them with Plato. As Ficino says in his general preface to his translations as well as in Ficino's own Letters and many other places, his lifelong project was to prove that Plato can be harmonized with Christianity.

This translation is not up to the high standard set by the team which is currently translating Ficino's own Letters, of which Farndell is a longtime member; but it is reliable enough to assist a scholarly reader who knows some Latin. The style is graceful: Farndell achieves a pointed alliteration and consonance when he translates "princes perish not from lack of funds but from lack of friends" (151). The Latin "virtutis officium id esse traditur, ut, et actiones et ea quibus agendo utimur utilia reddat," should be translated not "it surrenders actions as well as the useful things which we employ when acting" but rather something like "it renders actions, and those things which we employ when acting, useful" (14, see Oxford Latin Dictionary, s.v. reddo, sense 17). The Latin "Item coelestia triplicitatibus signorum quatuor, ignea, ae rea, aquea, terre" should be translated not "Again, the world of the heavens consists of the threefold nature of the four signs, fiery, etc.," but something like this: "Again, the celestial bodies [meaning here the stars] are in four triplicities of signs [a standard astrological list], fiery, etc." (96; Opera, 1310...