The Letters of Marsilio Ficino represent an essential core of his thought and influence as a chief architect of the Platonic and Hermetic revival, the philosophical and revelatory center of the new learning that was revamping religious vision and humanistic enquiry Italian Renaissance.

Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), the great Florentine translator of Plato and a central figure of Renaissance humanism, left behind not only his philosophical works but also a vast correspondence. His Epistolae (Letters), first published in 1495, circulated widely and gave voice to the intellectual, spiritual, and cultural concerns of the fifteenth century

525J Marsilio Ficino 1433-1499


Epistolae Marsilii Ficini Florentini.

[Nuremberg] : Per Antonium Koberger impræsse,  1497

Title page of Epistolae Marsilii Ficini Florentini, featuring handwritten notes and inscriptions, showcasing historical significance and antiquity.

Price $25,000

Imprint from colophon. 

Illuminated initial in 1497 edition of Marsilio Ficino’s Letters

Chancery quarto 15 x 10cm. . Signatures: π¹⁰,A-Z⁸ a-g⁸ h⁴(lacking blank leaf h4); Errors in folation: D2 signed C2; G2 unsigned, G4 and G5 signed G3 and G4. Final leaf blank and wanting. Colophon reads: Marsilii Ficini Florentini eloquentissimi viri epistolae familiares per Antonium Koberger impraesse anno incarnate deitatis Mccccxcviixxiiii Februarii finiunt foeliciter./ Place of publication suggested by ISTC.

This copy is bound in seventh century, full vellum. With filled initial spaces, printed guide letters, foliation, without catchwords, The first initial letter is Illuminiated with colours on gilt background with tendrils and an arabesque on margin, red and blue initial letters. There is quite a bit of contemporary  marginalia and underlining. Probably by Symb(olum) And(reae) Vasc(i / us / quez). “The motto of Andreas Vascus” (or Vascos, Vasquez, Vascensis

There is also an ownership  note from the XVI century handwritten on title and crossed through. Ex libris Thoma [Cantuar?] Universit[atis] [Sigmunt?] 13. 6. Maij and finally a seventeenth century : Ex libris Matth[iae] ?? Lipsky 1647. That is a lot of names but Through all my searching I find nothing?

Restoration on foot of spine, some damp staining. This copy is better than most of the copies that I have seen in person or online.

Here is my take on the title page.

A vintage bookplate featuring handwritten Latin inscriptions and ownership details, associated with the work of Marsilio Ficino.

I.D.C. = In Domino Christo (“In the Lord Christ”). N.E.C. = Non Est Confusio (“There is no shame / confusion”). D.I.V.M. = Deo In Vita Mea (“To God in my life”).

Christe, triumphales tua sunt mihi signa tropaea = “O Christ, your triumphal standards are my trophies.”
Tua fides cordis nenia voces divinas = “Your faith is the song of my heart, raising divine voices.”

                   Paul Oskar Kristeller makes clear below that the Letters of Marsilio Ficino represent an essential core of his thought and influence as a chief architect of the Platonic and Hermetic revival, the philosophical and revelatory center of the new learning that was revamping religious vision and humanistic enquiry Italian Renaissance.

Excerpt from Paul Oskar Kristeller Preface to volume 1 of the Letters of Ficino:   

 “The Letters occupy in fact a very important place in Ficino’s work. As historical documents, they give us a vivid picture of his personal relations with his friends and pupils, and of his own literary and scholarly activities. As pieces of literature, edited and collected by himself, the letters take their place among other correspondences of the time and are a monument of humanistic scholarship and literature. Finally, the letters are conscious vehicles of moral and philosophical teaching and often reach the dimensions of a short treatise. 

Ficino began to collect his letters in the 1470’s, gradually arranged them in twelve books, had them circulated in numerous manuscript copies, and finally had them printed in 1495. The first book contains letters written between 1457 and 1476, and its manuscript tradition is especially rich and complicated. These letters derive great interest from the time of their composition, for they were written at the same time as some of the commentaries on Plato and as the Platonic Theology, Ficino’s chief philosophical work. The correspondents include many persons of great significance: Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici, and members of other prominent Florentine families, allied or hostile to the Medici at different times: Albizzi and Pazzi, Soderini and Rucellai, Salviati and Bandini, Del Nero, Benci and Canigiani, Niccolini, Martelli and Minerbetti. There are two cardinals, Francesco Piccolomini, the later Pius III, a famous patron and bibliophile, and Bessarion, the great defender of Platonism. There is Bernardo Bembo, Venetian patrician and ambassador, Giovanni Antonio Campano, bishop and humanist. Francesco Marescalchi in Ferrara, and Giovanni Aurelio Augurelli from Rimini. There are the friends of Ficino’s youth, Michele Mercati and Antonio Morali called Serafico, and his favourite friend, Giovanni Cavalcanti. There are philosophers and physicians, and there are numerous scholars, of different generations, who occupy a more or less prominent place in the annals of literature: Matteo Palmieri and Donato Acciaiuoli, Benedetto Accolti, Bartolomeo Scala and Niccolò Michelozzi, all connected with the chancery, Cristoforo Landino, Bartolomeo della Fonte and Angelo Poliziano, Francesco da Castiglione, perhaps Ficino’s teacher of Greek, and Antonio degli Agli, bishop of Fiesole and Volterra, Jacopo Bracciolini the son of Poggio, and Carlo Marsuppini, the son of the humanist chancellor of the same name, Benedetto Colucci and Lorenzo Lippi, Domenico Galletti and Francesco Tedaldi, Antonio Calderini and Andrea Cambini, Cherubino Quarquagli and Baccio Ugolini, known for their vernacular verse, and a number of Latin poets: Peregrino Agli, Alessandro Braccesi, Amerigo Corsini, Naldo Naldi and Antonio Pelotti.

ISTC,; if00155000; GW; 9874; Goff; F-155; IGI,; 3864; BM 15th cent.,; II, 443; BSB-Ink,; F-120 Walsh 

  • Locations : if you are not on this list you might want to be! Just contact me.
  • Boston Public Library
  • Harvard Library, Countway Library of Medicine (2)
  • Bryn Mawr 
  • Claremont Colleges
  • College of Physicians of Philadelphia
  • Cornell Univ. 
  • Free Library of Philadelphia
  • Library of Congress, 
  • Columbia University, 
  • The Morgan Library 
  • Pennsylvania State Univ.
  • Sacramento Public 
  • Smithsonian Institution, 
  • Stanford Univ. 
  • Newberry Library
  • Univ. of California, 
  • Univ. of Chicago 
  • Univ. of Florida 
  • Univ. of Kansas, 
  • Univ. of Michigan, 
  • Univ. of North Carolina Library
  • Yale University.
  • University of Toronto

1Marsilio Ficino as a Man of Letters and the Glosses Attributed to Him in the Caetani Codex of Dante, Paul Oskar Kristeller. Renaissance Quarterly Vol. 36, No. 1 (Spring, 1983), pp. 1-47 

Ficino Annotated Rubricated illuminated initial incunabula

If you are interested in acquiring this volume, or would like a full condition report with additional photographs, please contact me directly at:

JAMESGRAY2@ME.COM

617•678•4516

https://jamesgray2.me/marsilio-ficino-letters-1497


Explore the 1497 Nuremberg edition of Marsilio Ficino’s letters: binding, marginalia, provenance, and its significance in Renaissance humanism.

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