MEDICAL ASTROLOGY IN GALEOTTO MARZIO’S TREATISE DEDICATED TO LORENZO IL MAGNIFICO

Enikő Békés

Galeotto Marzio’s De doctrina promiscua, dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, is a treatise dealing with medical astrology, astronomy, herbs, and medi- cines. I will examine in this paper how the idea of a human life determined by the stars is related to contemporary Florentine intellectual life.1 First of all, I would like to outline the main phases of Galeotto’s life: the Umbria-born humanist studied in Ferrara, in Guarino Guarini’s school from 1445. Later on, he was educated in medicine at Padua where he simultane- ously gave lectures on literature. From 1461 onwards, he frequently stayed at the Buda court of King Matthias Corvinus, where, so he claims, he was very popular due to his erudition and witty manners. In the 1460s-70s, he gave lectures on poetics in the Studio of Bologna. In 1477, he was accused of heresy and arrested on his estate of Montagnana by the Venetian Inquisition because of the doctrines he put forth in his treatise entitled De incognitis vulgo, where, among other things, he claimed that the immortal- ity of the soul cannot be proven through rational arguments.2 I emphasise this statement of Galeotto here because the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is a key element in the works of Ficino, whose importance in contemporary Florentine intellectual circles is well known. After his release from prison, he resided again for a short time at the court of Buda, and subsequently returned to Italy. Here he completed his De doctrina in 1489 and dedicated it to Lorenzo de’ Medici. Since Galeotto’s earlier friends and patrons in Hungary had died following the failed conspiracy against King Matthias in 1472, and since the conflict with the Ottomans

1 The author of this article is working on a complete critical edition of the De doctrina promiscua. A selected edition was published, with Italian translation, by Mario Frezza.: Galeotto Marzio, Varia dottrina, a cura di Mario Frezza (Napoli, 1949). Other studies have analysed this work of Galeotto in the context of the history of philosophy or history of ideas, but they did not take into consideration how the text is related to the intellectual life and arts around the dedicatee himself. For a general overview on the ideas of the work see: Cesare Vasoli, “L’immagine dell’uomo e del mondo nel De doctrina promiscua di Galeotto Marzio” in L’eredità classica in Italia e Ungheria fra tardo Medioevo e primo Rinascimento, ed. Sante Graciotti, Amedeo di Franceso (Roma, 2001), 185–205. 2 Galeotto Marzio, Quel che i più non sanno, ed. Mario Frezza (Napoli, 1948). 212 enikő békés and Emperor Frederick III took up most of the time and attention of the king, who, furthermore, resided more often in the newly occupied Vienna after 1485 than in Buda, Galeotto had to look for a new patron. Therefore it seems plausible that Galeotto intended to obtain some position (per- haps a professorship) with the help of Lorenzo de’ Medici in Italy.3 Galeotto had contacted Lorenzo previously: in 1478, he wrote a letter from the prison of the Venetian Inquisition, asking for Lorenzo’s help.4 Pope Sixtus IV had released Galeotto soon afterwards, but we have no evidence whether Lorenzo actually interceded or not on Galeotto’s behalf. Since Galeotto addressed his petition to Lorenzo right after the repres- sion of the Pazzi Conspiracy, we may presume that it was, rather, King Matthias who mediated between Galeotto and the Pope, since, owing to his military actions against the Ottomans, he enjoyed a good reputation at the papal court whereas Lorenzo did not. Galeotto’s other influential Hungarian acquaintances might also have come to his aid. Lorenzo’s intercession seems all the more unlikely as Galeotto makes no reference to this event in his De doctrina that he dedicated to Lorenzo, although he frequently praises him and his family in the text. Moreover, in the same work, he lays emphasis on Lorenzo’s role in releasing Giovanni Bentivoglio, captured after his daughter Francesca had murdered her husband, from the prison of the Faenza family.5 A copy of Galeotto’s De doctrina had also reached Lorenzo’s library; its reception among contemporary Florentine humanists, however, cannot be traced. The first edition of the work was published relatively late, in 1548, in Florence.6 An intriguing aspect of the relation between Galeotto’s treatise and the dedicatee is the fact that the author’s doctrines often contradict the ideas generally held by leading Florentine intellectuals around the Medici fam- ily. For instance, he mockingly calls “dead” the Neoplatonist philosophers who, as he puts it, desired to break away from their bodies already in

3 For more on the life and works of Galeotto see: Gabriella Miggiano, “Galeotto Marzio da Narni. Profilo biobibliografico,” Il Bibliotecario, 32 (1992): 45–96; 33–34 (1992): 67–156; 35 (1993): 61–108; 36–37 (1993): 83–191; 38 (1993): 27–122; idem, “Galeotto Marzio”, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, ed. Massimo Bray (Roma, Enciclopedia Italiana, 2008), LXXI, 478–484. 4 Edited in Galeottus Martius Narniensis, Epistolae, ed. Ladislaus Juhász (Budapest, 1930), 9. 5 Cap. VI. 6 All’ombra del lauro. Documenti librari della cultura in eta laurenziana (Catalogo della mostra, Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, 4 maggio–30 giugno 1992), a cura di Anna Lenzuni (Firenze, 1992), 2.96. Quotations are taken from this editio princeps, hence- forth abbreviated as ed. princ.