Marsilio Ficino's De stella magorum and Renaissance Views of the Magi
REFERENCES TO THE MAGI WHOSE veneration of the infant Christ is recorded in the second chapter of the gospel of Matthew are frequent in the writings ofMarsilio Ficino, especially his letters. The clearest expressions of his interest and faith in the Magi can be found in the Apologia,I accounting for the more magical elements in the De vita, and in a praedicatio on the topic of the star that guided the Wise Men. That sermon, De stella magorum,2 helped to shape the perception and treatment of the Magi not only in the Neoplatonic tradition but in broader Christian and literary traditions as well. In Ficino's presentation, the Magi are active participants within the prisca theologia, a body of knowledge and practice amounting to a parallel revelation vouchsafed the gentiles before the coming of Christ. The Magi are, therefore, worthy inheritors, as well as direct recipients, of some awareness of the truly divine, as were many of the pagan philosophers and seers who preceded them. Hermes Trismegistus and Zoroaster were sometimes regarded as gentile Moses figures--or, alternatively, as students of Moses himself--and their supposed philosophic progeny, from Orpheus to Pythagoras to Plato, were accordingly compared with the Old Testament prophets. Ficino continues the parallel successions into the Christian age, with the Magi comparing quite favorably with Simeon and Anna, two ofJudaea's earliest witnesses of the Messiah's arrival. Through these comparisons and parallels, a case can be made that the wisdom of the prisca theologia is as valuable-and as deserving of study-as are the truths revealed in the Hebrew scriptures. Arguments or even implications along these lines were, certainly, re*An early version of this paper was delivered at the I986 Southwest Regional Meeting hosted by the Renaissance Conference of Southern California. All translations and paraphrases from the De stella which follow have profited greatly from the kind, constant, and learned assistance of MichaelJ. B. Allen. I am also grateful to an anonymous reader for Renaissance Quarterly for several insightful comments and useful suggestions. IMarsilio Ficino, Opera (Basel, 1576); rpt. ed. M. Sancipriano and P. 0. Kristeller