Michael J. B. Allen is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. James Hankins is Professor of History at Harvard University and founder and General Editor of the I Tatti Renaissance Library. He is the author of Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy, winner of the Marraro Prize and a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year; Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy: The Virtuous Republic of Francesco Patrizi of Siena; and Plato in the Italian Renaissance; and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy. Widely regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on Renaissance philosophy and political thought, he is a Corresponding Member of the British Academy.
Ficino set out to show that the ancient Neoplatonic philosophy
embodied a "gentile theological tradition," one that complemented
the Mosaic revelation to the Jews and prepared its devotees for the
final truths of Christianity. Ficino worked in full knowledge of
the internal complications of Neoplatonism. He wrote and argued in
styles that ranged from the logical and synthetic to the poetic and
evocative, as he struggled to find ways to prove that the universe
was orderly and governed by a Creator and to lay out the place
within it of the immortal human soul.
*New York Review of Books*
The editing and translation of Ficino's text has been done superbly
well. Allen and Hankins have begun a work of scholarship of the
highest calibre, whose continuation is eagerly awaited.
*British Journal for the History of Philosophy*
An aristocratic devotion to our culture continues to manifest
itself even today in the most prestigious centers of study and
thought. One has merely to look at the very recent (begun in 2001),
rigorous and elegant humanistic series of Harvard University, with
the original Latin text, English translation, introduction and
notes.
*Il Sole 24 Ore*
The Loeb Classical Library...has been of incalculable benefit to
generations of scholars...It seems certain that the I Tatti
Renaissance Library will serve a similar purpose for Renaissance
Latin texts, and that, in addition to its obvious academic value,
it will facilitate a broadening base of participation in
Renaissance Studies...These books are to be lauded not only for
their principles of inclusivity and accessibility, and for their
rigorous scholarship, but also for their look and feel. Everything
about them is attractive: the blue of their dust jackets and cloth
covers, the restrained and elegant design, the clarity of the
typesetting, the quality of the paper, and not least the sensible
price. This is a new set of texts well worth collecting.
*Times Literary Supplement*
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