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Marsilio Ficino's Commentary on Plato's Gorgias Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on Plato’s Gorgias Leo Catana Abstract: Plato’s Gorgias sets out to discuss the nature translated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but, and aim of rhetoric. The dialogue was held in high esteem apart from the Meno, none of the dialogues conveyed among late ancient Platonists and it resurfaced in Renais- much about ancient sophists. In the Timaeus we find the sance discussions about ethics. Olympiodorus (6th cen- speaker Critias, whose relation to the speaker with the tury) produced an extensive commentary on the dialogue, same name in the Plato dialogue entitled Critias is dis- emphasising its ethical content. In 1409, Leonardo Bruni puted, but the central point is that Critias in the Timaeus (1369-1444) provided the first complete Latin translation did not convey theories under the banner of sophistry.1 In of the Gorgias with preface and annotations. Later in the Meno 93c, Meno had related that sophists (sophistai) Renaissance we find direct and indirect commentaries by promised to teach virtue (aretē), adding that he admired George of Trebizond (1395-1472/1473) and Marsilio Fi- Gorgias (probably a reference to Gorgias of Leontini), for cino (1433-1499). I argue that Ficino’s translation of, and his refusal to make such a promise; all he did was to teach commentary to, Plato’s Gorgias was a significant, but oratory. Gorgias of Leontini (485-380) was a historical perhaps also unintended, contribution to the dissemination figure, who went to Athens on a diplomatic mission in of ancient sophists in the Italian Renaissance. Ficino’s 427, and Plato’s Gorgias was clearly a reaction to his in- commentary to the Gorgias defends a legitimate and fluence on Athenian rhetoric and politics.2 In Meno 75e, philosophical use of rhetoric, including the one we find in Socrates had referred to Prodicus, but without linking his Plato’s own writings. Furthermore, Ficino treats the char- name to the sophists. In short, in the Medieval period acter Callicles – together with several other sophists in there was no Plato dialogue available in Latin in which a Plato’s dialogues – as an enemy of the Platonic- sophist featured as a speaker, incarnating and articulating Pythagorean ethical ideal, maintaining that the sophists sophistic theories and arguments in a elaborate manner. were wrong. Moreover, he treats ancient sophists as a This situation meant that little, apart from names and brief fairly homogeneous group, unlike some of the ancient assertions, were known about the ancient Greek sophists sources. in the Medieval period through the texts of Plato, the chief exponent of ancient Greek sophists. Keywords: Plato’s Gorgias, sophists, Marsilio Ficino, It should be noted, however, that even though Plato’s rhetoric, philosophy. dialogues offered the most elaborate (though biased) ac- count of ancient sophists and sophistry available to pos- terity, non-Platonic accounts of ancient sophists and soph- 1. Ficino and Renaissance sophistry istry existed in antiquity, and some of these were trans- mitted to the Latin Medieval tradition well before Fi- This article examines the Florentine humanist and phi- cino’s 1484 translation of Plato’s works. Notably, Aris- losopher Marsilio Ficino and his contribution to Renais- totle had dealt with sophistry and sophisms in his logical sance sophistry. At first sight this may appear as an un- as well as in his non-logical works, and these works had promising topic, since Ficino, an important Plato transla- been available in Latin translation for several centuries tor and Platonist, generally sided with Plato in his criti- before Ficino’s Plato translation came out.3 It should be cism of ancient sophistry: How could Ficino possibly observed, however, that Aristotle rarely referred to indi- have made a contribution to Renaissance sophistry? vidual sophists, so even though Medieval, Latin transla- The writings of ancient Greek sophists were lost in tions of Aristotle’s works proceeded Ficino’s Latin trans- antiquity, and their ideas were mainly known through re- lation of Plato’s dialogues and letters, these translations of ports made by a variety of ancient authors. Plato was one Aristotle’s works conveyed very little about the ancient of these authors, and he was the most important one, since sophists themselves, implying that to Medieval authors he portrayed several sophists and their ideas in a series of the ‘sophist’ was a virtually empty category, whereas his dialogues. As is well known, Plato did not do so in ‘sophistry’ and ‘sophism’ denoted fairly well-known order to provide a detailed and objective account of the logical categories. Albert the Great (ca. 1200-1280), for sophists’ ideas, but in order to refute their ideas. Hence instance, was familiar with the sophist name Gorgias we have good reasons for believing that his account was through Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations (183b37), biased. where Aristotle had criticised Gorgias for not conveying To the Medieval Latin tradition, Plato’s works were the art (technē) of rhetoric itself to his pupils, only its re- inaccessible with the exception of his Timaeus (up till sults; Albert’s knowledge about Gorgias did not transcend 53b), which was available in Latin throughout the Medi- these and other scattered notes found in Aristotle’s work.4 eval period. His Meno, Phaedo and his Parmenides were There is, however, another important source to an- University of Copenhagen Philosophical Readings XI.2 (2019), pp. 68-75. Copenhagen, Danmark DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.2554108 email: [email protected] MARSILIO FICINO’S COMMENTARY ON PLATO’S GORGIAS cient sophists that pre-dated Ficino’s Latin translation of authors, including Ficino, the tag ‘sophist’ denoted a bat- 1484, namely ancient doxographer Diogenes Laertius. In tle field rather than a well-defined profession. For this 1433, the Florentine humanist Ambrogio Traversari com- reason my second question — were ancient sophists a pleted a Latin translation of Laertius’ Lives, which subse- unified group – becomes even harder to answer, and I quently circulated in manuscript form before it was shall leave it open. printed in Rome in 1472. In general, this work became a The present article is on Ficino’s commentary on major source of information of ancient Greek philosophy Plato’s Gorgias. Was the protagonist Gorgias regarded as in the Renaissance, but it was almost silent as regards the a sophist by Plato and Ficino? Let me first turn to Plato. ancient sophists. In 9.50-56, Laertius presented a short In his Gorgias, the character Gorgias presents himself not entry on the life of one prominent ancient sophists, as a ‘sophist’ but as an orator (rhētōr) (449a6) mastering namely Protagoras. In 8.58, in the section on Empedo- rhetoric (rhētorikē), whose status as a craft (technē) is cles, he made a brief note on another ancient sophist, subsequently contested by Socrates. The fact that Plato Gorgias of Leontini: Laertius claimed that Gorgias was a has Gorgias presenting himself as an “orator” (rhētōr) pupil (mathētēs) of Empedocles, an accomplished orator, does not exclude, of course, that he is regarded as a soph- and the author of a manual on the art of rhetoric.5 ist in other of Plato’s dialogues. Besides, the orator and In 1484 Ficino published the collected works of Plato, the sophist may well co-exist in one person. This possi- containing a number of dialogues portraying some of the bility is affirmed in some of Plato’s other dialogues. In most influential ancient sophists. Given the restricted the Apology 19e, Socrates groups Gorgias of Leontini to- knowledge about sophists in the medieval period, this was gether with other sophists (sophistai) like Prodicus of a major event. We normally think of Ficino as the one Ceos and Hippias of Elis: They were itinerant teachers of who transmitted Plato’s ideas to the Latin tradition, but young people. In the Meno 95c, Meno asserts that Gorgias we should reckon that by doing so Ficino also played an differs from (other) sophists by not promising his pupils important role in the transmission of ancient sophistry. that he can teach virtue; he only teaches rhetoric. In Ficino did so by providing Latin translations of Plato’s (pseudo-)Plato’s Greater Hippias 282b4-5, Gorgias of dialogues discussing sophists and by writing commen- Leontini is spoken of as “Gorgias of Leontini, the famous taries to these dialogues — commentaries, that were sophist” (Gorgias te gar houtos ho Leontinos sophistēs). printed together with the dialogues themselves in the Now let me turn to Ficino: Did he regard Gorgias as a 1484 publication and in many subsequent publications of sophist? Plato’s collected works. Even though Ficino by and large Ficino, in his Gorgias commentary, describes soph- sided with Plato in his rejection of the sophists, he inad- ists as those who, under the guise of truth, divert men to- vertently promoted their ideas in the Renaissance. For this wards what is false.8 Gorgias of Leontini, the portrayed reason I think Ficino’s translations of, and especially his speaker in Plato’s Gorgias, did not aim at truth and jus- commentaries to, Plato’s dialogues on the sophists is a tice, but conformed with popular opinion, which prefers promising topic, if we want to understand the uses of the what has the appearance of truth and likelihood, Ficino ancient sophists in the Renaissance. It may be useful to says.9 In his Phaedrus, Ficino continues, Plato criticised clarify the historiographical concept of sophists before I Lysias, in the Gorgias he criticised Gorgias of Leontini.10 examine Ficino’s discussion of ancient sophists. Ficino affirms in his Protagoras commentary that Plato has Socrates criticising the “sophists” in the dialogue Gorgias, though in an elegant manner.11 The sophists re- 2.
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