#renaissance Florence

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

This is something I can see Pico Della Mirandola doing but it’s about Marsilio Ficino

[larsdatter]

Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizi is at the Minneapolis Institute of Art through January 8, 2023.

[niamhthefae]

ive started watching medici recently and while all of the costumes (especially the womens and ESPECIALLY constentina's) make me want to cry it is making me so excited for my trip to italy in summer.

they also portrayed Brunalleschi PERFECTLY like yes he is that dramatic this is the same guy who threw a temper tantrum, left florence and swore to never sculpt again because he lost 1 competition

[learnelle]

As much as I love studying Psychology, my impulsive thoughts are telling me to learn Italian & then study art history in Florence instead. I love this city so much~

[raisunii]

Sweet New Style - A Web Weave

[huariqueje]

View of Florence Cathedral from Villa La Pietra - Francis Hamel

British , b. 1963 -

Oil on linen , 24 x 20 cm. 9.5 x 8 in.

[illustratus]

Detail of the Statue of Italian Condottiero Lodovico de' Medici, also known as Giovanni delle Bande Nere

“Non mi snudare senza ragione. Non mi impugnare senza valore.”

“Do not unsheathe me without reason. Do not wield me without valour.”

[wandering-jana]

Santa Croce, in Florence, Italy.

March 21, 2024

[emaadsidiki]

Neo Gothic Facade of Florence Cathedral 🏛️

[psykhet]

Pio Fedi (1885-1865)

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

so much on Ficino & Plato & Sex

your daily Marsilio blogging continues, this time with the gentle reminder of the deep misogyny of most homoerotic anything in the medieval and early modern period (among other times as well).

At the same time, I appreciate Marsilio being like: Fuck this, we can do the Petrarchan model of Ideal Love too. Just watch me and Giovanni yearn for twenty years.

I do appreciate that in the whole of Ficino's writing he rarely, if ever, refers to sex between men as sinful. He uses terms of disgraceful, filthy, worthy of disgust, ugliness etc. but he uses those terms equally for heterosexual sex conducted for pleasure alone with no intention of making the babies. Corporality on the whole - in all its forms - is the problem. (And the contemporary medical hang-ups around the expulsion of semen aside.)

But it's still not sinful, it just makes it harder to climb the ladder of love to salvation. Some might think this a small thing (he still reads it as bad!) but there's a huge gulf of difference between a priest from 1478 saying X is disgraceful but never using the language of sin around it.

Granted, Ficino doesn't harp too much on sin in general. I would be very curious to go back in time, get him a little wine drunk, and ask him his actual, not-Church approved views.

Ficino loves trying to reconcile everything through Plato. Marsilio "What if We Applied Plato to This Situation??" Ficino.

The desire/beauty thing - you can just see his struggle in trying to make it all work and never quite succeeding. It's one of the many things he and Pico debated with great animation. Pico was anti-the physical desire part of Ficino's formula while Ficino believed salvation/finding Philosophic Truth (i.e., God) required it.

I do really love Ficino's broadly positive read on humanity. He always goes in with a: People Are Good approach to a situation.

I love this little caveats he gives in his writings. The bit: "Love, even when mixed with an inderior appetite [for sex], does not cease meanwhile to raise the soul as far as it is able."

Giovanni having a panic about the state of their souls as they lie about in the grass and Ficino thinking fast on how to assuage him. "Umm, look, this isn't ideal, and we really should try harder to resist. But ... uh... Love is Good. Right? Our Love is Good and holds no Evil, correct?'

Giovanni, 'Yes, that is correct.'

Ficino, 'Great, so because our Love is Good and our Souls naturally desire Truth and Love is always working to help raise our souls up to Truth - even when we uhhhhh slip up, shall we say--'

Giovanni, 'We purposefully went into a remote field to commit sodomy. This wasn't an accidental slip up, Marsilio. You even checked to make sure you had time enough after this to confess and seek absolution so you can say mass on Sunday.'

Ficino, 'Slipped up. Could have happened to anyone. Anyway, even when that happens Love is still raising our souls up as far as it is able. So what I'm saying is, don't worry about it.'

the knots this man will tie himself in to try and make it ok to accidentally, whoopsie daisy, sleep with men. That full quote from him on how homosexual consorting (sex, that is what he means quite literally) is part of spiritual procreation is really something else.

I also think the caveat he includes of "of course, naturally, when you're horny you should go to your wife to make sure you're doing sex Properly" is doing a lot of interesting work there.

"Giovanni and I loving each other is necessary for OUR PHYSICAL HEALTH OK??"

Technically, he's not wrong. In the sense that being able to openly and honestly love/be loved by who it is you desire - regardless their gender - is incredibly important to mental health which impacts physical health.

mess! mess! mess!

this is super interesting. That Ficino was attempting to figure out how to guide people through reciprocal love in a world where that wasn't normal to navigate.

All of Ficino's back and forth on sex, desire, beauty, love is just so telling of how much he wanted to resolve the issue and how knotted everything was for him (and he wasn't alone, obviously).

--

ok I'm done inundating everyone for now.

[enjoyedbygod]

Florence Cathedral, Florence (1436)

While structurally belonging to the Gothic style, the dome of Florence Cathedral was a forerunner of Renaissance architecture.

Brunelleschi, who designed the dome, allowed for it to be vaulted entirely without scaffolding.

[conformi]

David "Chim" Seymour, Boy sitting on a mailbox, 1950 VS Michelangelo Buonarroti, Day | Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici, Sagrestia Nuova, Florence, Italy, 1526-1531

[learnelle]

I’ve made a little tradition of reading a Florence/Tuscany related book while I’m there! Last year I enjoyed the (very wholesome) Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop, and this year I debated between these two :’)

[fleursscaptives]

[didoofcarthage]

Initial G: Julius Caesar on Horseback (with detail of Caesar), from the beginning of a manuscript with De Bello Gallico

Italian (created in Florence), c. 1460-1470

tempera colors, gold leaf, gold paint, and ink

J. Paul Getty Museum