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Chapter 14 - Pico della Mirandola on Platonic Love

from Part IV - Platonic Love during the Renaissance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 August 2022

Carl Séan O'Brien
Affiliation:
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Germany
John Dillon
Affiliation:
Trinity College Dublin
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Summary

This essay undertakes a study of the views of Pico della Mirandola on Platonic love, stimulated as they are by the publication of a poem on the subject published in the mid-1480s by Girolamo Benivieni, a friend of his and of Marsilio Ficino. In a discussion of the Renaissance background, the essay emphasizes the importance of defusing the homosexual element of Platonic love by substituting maidens for boys. It then provides an extended discussion of Pico’s commentary on Benivieni’s poem, in which he draws on, not only the Symposium and Phaedrus of Plato, but also Plotinus’ Ennead III 5: On Love, and Hermeias’ commentary on the Phaedrus. A number of passages from the poem itself are also quoted and discussed.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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