Introduction

Peter Adamson: Marcellio Ficino would approve of our using the phrase platonic love for affection that does not involve sex. He made a case that this author of several sexually suggestive dialogues about the erotic life was actually encouraging us to turn away from the body. Like Cardinal Bessarion before him, Ficino was concerned to rebut charges brought by critics of Plato. The high point of this bolderizing project comes in Ficino's de amore, or on love, the commentary he devoted to Plato's symposium.