One of the masterminds behind the Italian Renaissance was a mystical musician dubbed the “second Orpheus”

Household names like Leonardo da Vinci get all the credit for sparking the 15th-century explosion of art and science. But there’s more to the story.

One of the masterminds behind the Italian Renaissance was neither a painter, nor a wealthy Medici, but a depressive priest who self-medicated with music.

Without this enigmatic figure, named Marsilio Ficino, we might not have Botticelli’s “Primavera” or “The Birth of Venus.”

Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” painted in 1483-1483, explores classical themes championed by Marsilio Ficino. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), shown in a fresco painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the Tornabuoni Chapel, church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence

I stumbled across Ficino while doing research for my book.

Born in 1433, Ficino was a frail man with pensive eyes and a humped back. But Florentine intellectuals learned not to judge him by his looks, for he had the mind of a genius and the voice of a demigod. They called him the second Orpheus.

Ficino had a gift for reading Greek, at a time when ancient philosophy was making a comeback. He was the first to translate Plato’s entire works into Latin, making them available to a wide audience through Gutenberg’s new printing press.

Ficino coined the term “Platonic love”—bosom buddies without benefits—and revived core ideas from the ancient world. Before his death in 1499, Ficino became one of the most influential scholars in all of Europe.

It helped to have friends in high places. Ficino had the ear and financial backing of Cosimo de’ Medici, titan of the powerful Medici dynasty. Later, Ficino became chief tutor to Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo de’ Medici.

Trained by Ficino to appreciate the arts, Lorenzo supported master painters such as Sandro Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci. He even invited the young Michelangelo to live with his family at the Palazzo Medici.

Scene of Ficino’s entourage celebrating neo-Platonic wisdom around a bust of Plato. Oil on canvas entitled, “The Parental of Plato,” by Antonio Puccinelli (1822-1897). Here, “parental” means “influence.” Photo: https://villegiardinimedicei.it/villa-di-careggi/

Scholars have argued that Ficino, more than anyone else, summoned the return to beauty in the Italian Renaissance

Together, they mingled in a circle of poets and intellectuals led by Ficino. Themes from Greek and Roman mythology, championed by Ficino, appeared in the masterpieces of Michelangelo and Botticelli.

Did Ficino have a direct hand in their work? No one knows for sure. But Ficino tended to rhapsodize about Venus, describing her as a transformative force for the human soul. The voluptuous goddess became the central figure in Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” as well as “Primavera.”

That’s not all.

Ficino was the New Age guru of his day. A trained physician, vegetarian and ordained priest, he melded Catholicism and Greek philosophy with a dash of pagan ritual.

His mystical teachings drew artists and scientists from miles around to a sprawling estate in the hills outside Florence. In a castle-like villa that still stands at Careggi, Ficino headed a centre of learning modelled after Plato’s ancient Academy.

Set in a garden of orange and olive trees, this Medici villa doubled as a healing retreat, specializing in Ficino’s esoteric music therapy. (Today, we’d call it “woo-woo.”)

Villa Medici at Careggi, Florence. Site of the neo-Platonic Academy headed by Marsilio Ficino, who died here in 1499. Photo credit: I, Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7430861

An enchanting male voice beckoned visitors to an inner chamber perfumed with frankincense.

There, seated near a bust of Plato, Ficino would strum a lyre (a U-shaped harp) while singing the Orphic Hymns—sacred texts uncovered in Constantinople (Istanbul).

Modern historians have dated these texts to around the start of Common Era. But Ficino believed them to be magical incantations penned by the demigod Orpheus himself.

In the famous Greek myth, Orpheus poured his anguish into his lyre after losing his bride, Eurydice, to a fatal snake bite. Hades, King of the Underworld, was so touched by the grief-stricken songs that he allowed Orpheus to return his wife to the world of the living, on one condition: he must walk in front of her and not look back. But Orpheus snuck a peek and lost Eurydice forever.

Ficino, taking cues from the Greeks, regarded illness as a form of discord between the soul and the heavens. Like Plato before him, he saw music as the ticket to inner harmony. 

For patients with low moods, Ficino recommended melodies that evoked the mellow or upbeat planets: Venus was soft and yielding. Mercury vigorous and gay. With practice, Ficino said, music could open one’s spirit to the gifts freely offered by the heavens.

“We play the lyre,” Ficino wrote, “precisely to avoid becoming unstrung.”

Bust of Marsilio Ficino by Andrea Ferrucci, in the Cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Ficino himself suffered bouts of depression. “We play the lyre,” he wrote, “precisely to avoid becoming unstrung.”

(Numerous studies have shown that music really does improve depressive symptoms. But astrology has nothing to do with it.)

Ficino’s unique blend of music, mysticism and medicine captivated Italy’s brightest minds

Ficino’s unique blend of music, mysticism and medicine captivated Italy’s brightest minds for decades. After centuries of dogma about inescapable sin, Ficino offered something fresh: a sensuous Catholicism in which art, music, fragrances and original thought ignited love in the human soul, amplifying love for God.

Scholars have argued that Ficino, more than anyone else, summoned the return to beauty in the Italian Renaissance.

But the tides turned.

At age 64, Ficino saw Dominican friar Savonarola’s “bonfire of the vanities” destroy thousands of exquisite costumes, books, artworks and musical instruments.

In this assault on beauty, wrote Ficino scholar Angela Voss, “the brilliant vision of Florentine Platonism itself was hurled into the depths of Hades by the forces of ignorance and fear.”

Ficino died two years later. His fascination for the mythical past fell out of fashion. And his heavenly voice—unlike Botticelli’s paintings—was forever lost.

Sources

Biographical details and scholarly achievements:

Celenza, Christopher S., "Marsilio Ficino", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/ficino/>.

Description of Ficino’s physique and inner sanctum at Careggi:

Walker, D.P. Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000.

Ficino’s influence on Renaissance art and philosophy:

Michael J. B. Allen and Valery Rees, eds., with Martin Davies. Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy. Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002. 

Snow-Smith, J. The Primavera of Sandro Botticelli: A Neoplatonic Interpretation. New York: Peter Lang Inc., 1993.

Kristeller, P. The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino. New York: Columbia University Press, 1943.

Also see writings of the late Clement Salaman, editor of a 7-volume translation of the letters of Marsilio Ficino (previously unpublished in English).

Ficino’s Renaissance music therapy and Orpheus nickname:

Voss, Angela. “Marsilio Ficino, the Second Orpheus.” In Music as Medicine: The History of Music Therapy Since Antiquity, edited by Peregrine Horden, 154-172. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000.

Ammann, Peter. “Music and Melancholy: Marsilio Ficino’s Archetypal Music Therapy.” In Florence 98, Destruction and Creation: Personal and Cultural Transformations: Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Congress for Analytical Psychology, edited by Mary Ann Mattoon, 118-129. Daimon, 1999.

Source of “Florentine Platonism hurled into the depths of Hades” quote:

Voss, Angela. “Orpheus Redivivus: The Musical Magic of Marsilio Ficino.” In Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy, edited by Michael J. B. Allen and Valery Rees, with Martin Davies, 227-241. Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002.

Many have stories of artist Gordon Smith's famous generosity. Here's mine.

I met Gordon Smith for the first time on a tour of his West Vancouver home, set on a craggy slope overlooking the steely Pacific.

Gordon Smith at 90, in his West Vancouver studio. The B.C.-based painter and philanthropist died on January 18, 2020, at age 100. To the right is the chair that inspired the artwork he gave me. Photo: courtesy Martin Tessler

Smith’s studio was the tidiest I’d ever seen. White walls, white floor, with nary a scuff mark or paint splatter. A trolley held brushes and jars of pigments arranged in rows. Other materials, from staple guns to canvas, were stowed behind closet doors, out of sight.

“Amazing,” I thought. Detritus from the creative process, cleaned up after the fact? (My mother’s studio never looked like that.)

But I could see why Smith kept his work space shipshape. The room itself was a work of art—part of an architectural masterpiece designed in 1964 for Smith and his wife, Marion, by their friend, Arthur Erickson.

Smith died in this home last week, at age 100.  

Over the course of his triple-digit life, he earned many accolades, including the Governor General’s Award for visual and media arts.

But beyond his glorious paintings, Smith’s support for future generations may prove to be his greatest legacy.

Beyond his glorious paintings, Smith’s support for future generations may be his greatest legacy

The Smiths never had children. Instead, they dedicated much of their resources to art education. Smith worked hands-on with children through Artists for Kids, an organization that later expanded into The Gordon and Marion Smith Foundation for Young Artists.

Smith was a spry octogenarian when he showed me his house. Arranged around a concrete courtyard, this Erickson marvel of window-wrapped geometry won the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s Prix du XXe siècle for “enduring excellence of nationally significant architecture.”

Smith’s studio had high ceilings and oodles of natural light. The room’s footprint was on the small side, but Smith found a spot for the things he loved most. The paintbrushes of his mentor, Lawren Harris, dangled from a wooden beam.

At the side of the studio, a wrought-iron chair caught my eye. Its curvy design seemed out of place next to the Smiths’ modernist furnishings. “I rescued it from an old ice cream parlor at UBC,” Smith explained, referring to the university where he used to teach.

Chair crafted from the wire of a champagne stopper by my friend, Andrée Pouliot

I told him I’d seen a similar chair in miniature. A family friend crafted them with pliers, using the wire from stoppers of champagne.

The next day, I sent one of these tiny chairs to Smith as a thank-you for the tour. I thought he’d get a kick out of it. He did.

Writing by email, he invited me to the opening of his next exhibition. “I have something for you,” he added mysteriously.

I didn’t expect him to remember me at the crowded opening. But when I paid my respects, he told me to wait a moment. He reappeared with a cardboard tube in his hand and a twinkle in his eye.

Inside was a large etching entitled, “Chair and Bag,” signed Gordon Smith.

I chuckled. Smith had one-upped me in the furniture exchange.

(Staff reporters are not allowed to accept gifts, but I was a freelancer back then and not working as a critic.)

Over the years, I spotted Smith’s artworks in the homes of many journalist friends. This didn’t make his gift any less special. On the contrary, I felt part of a larger Smith circle of kindness.

His art touched me in other ways, too.

In 2004, I had an assignment to write about a new art collection at Four Seasons Whistler. Suspended in the grand stairwell was the showstopper: “Spring Thaw,” by Gordon Smith. At 10 by 18 feet, this acrylic on canvas was his largest creation.

I must have gazed at this immersive snowscape for half an hour before climbing the stairs to my room. The next day, the wonderful man accompanying me popped the question. We’ve been married for 15 years now.

Smith’s chair hangs in our kitchen across from the stove, next to a wily fox painted by our son when he was 5. I have a feeling Smith would approve.

“Chair and Bag,” by the late Gordon Smith, hanging in my kitchen next to a fox painted by my son at age 5