Introduction

Peter Adamson: No one has written greater footnotes to Plato than Marcellio Ficino. In 1464, the year after Cosimo de Medici's gift to Ficino of a villa on the outskirts of Florence. He had his stuff for a young scholar who was still in his early 30s and planned to become a doctor like his father before him. But Platonism was always at the core of his scholarly career; he completed his Latin version of the dialogues in 1468.