Miseria e dignità dell'uomo nel pensiero di Marsilio Ficino

Humanism assigns a central role to anthropological investigation in the rediscovery of classical texts. The emphasis on 'dignitas hominis', together with the ascetic issue of 'contemptus mundi', contributes to develop a complex picture of man, whose distinctive feature is restlessness. Marsilio Ficino’s works offer a valuable and effective contribution to this debate: since his main works to the later commentaries on Plato’s dialogues, the Florentine philosopher presents the human being always suspended between 'miseria', intended as a contingent condition, and 'deificatio', that is the highest aspiration to be reached in life through the rediscovering of the self. This volume analyzes the concepts of ‘misery’ and ‘dignity’ of man as interpretative keys for Ficinian thought, by restoring its originality as a result of the encounter between many heterogeneous sources and Ficino’s ingenious speculative activity. The achievement of a knowledge based not only on the discursiveness of the dianoetic process, but also on the intuitive capacity of the mind, is the task that each man must accomplish in order to make his nature perfect, along an impervious path, marked by those lights and shadows which will be inherited by the full-fledged Renaissance.