Ficino, Pico and Savonarola : the evolution of humanist theology 1461/2-1498 / / by Amos Edelheit.

• Superior document: The medieval Mediterranean, v. 78
• Author: Edelheit, Amos
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Medieval Mediterranean ; v. 78.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (513 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

This book presents a study of humanism, theology, and politics in Florence during the last decades of the fifteenth century. It considers the relations between humanists and theologians and between humanism and religion. Modern scholarship on humanism has not taken sufficient account of the deep interest shown by Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) in theology and religion. This book presents a detailed and innovative account of Ficino’s De Christiana religione (1474) and of Pico’s Apologia (1487), in the context of explaining the evolution of a humanist theology. The book ends with a consideration of the stormy events of the 1490's, when Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) became a leading spiritual and political figure in Florentine public life.

Table of Contents

Giovanni Caroli, the conduit of the sense of spiritual and political crisis in Florence -- Introduction: Giovanni Caroli and his times -- Liber dierum lucensium : Prooemium and book one -- Liber dierum lucensium, book two -- Liber dierum lucensium, book three -- Humanist theology in practice -- The historical context -- Declamationum liber -- The Turkish danger and its religious connotations -- Classical, biblical, and patristic allusions : the disappearance of the doctors -- The attitude to rhetoric -- Ficino's praedicationes -- Poliziano's sermons -- Rinuccini's sermons -- Nesi's sermons -- Other sermons -- Marsilio Ficino and the conditio religionis : quandiu duram et miserabilem hanc ferrei seculi sortem sustinebimus? -- Some general introductory remarks -- De christiana religione : the "manifesto" of the new humanist theology -- Prisca religio and its divine inspiration : religion as the characteristic of man -- Praeparatio evangelica -- The incarnation as an intervention of the eternal in the temporal -- The teachings of Christ -- The apostles and the propagation of Christianity -- The decline of the Christian world and Ficino's proposals for renewal -- Giovanni Pico della mirandola and his theological method : between Opinio and fides -- The theological crisis -- Quia errare in opinione thomae, non est errare in fide-the dispute in Rome 1486 and the Apiologia -- Pico's attitude to philosophy : between academic skepticism and religious certainty -- The Savonarola affair-the government of God as republican practice -- The Savonarola a'air : a case-study in the history and in the historiography of the Renaissance -- Savonarola : an anti-humanist or a pro-humanist? -- Savonarola and politics -- The notion of reform : the transition from theology to politics -- Spiritual and political vision : the preaching prophet and his slogan.