A Cosmological Controversy in the Renaissance: Marsilio Ficino’s and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Contrasting Views on the Animation of the Heavens

In the early 21st century, we often ask whether there is life—intelligent or otherwise—in the cosmos, but almost never whether the heavens themselves are actually alive or animated, that is, infused somehow with a soul, the anima mundi or some such entity. This was not the case in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance or the Early Modern period. Although Aristotelians normally answered no to this question, Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) took a decidedly Platonic turn when he answered the question positively, insistently and consistently in a broad range of works over his entire philosophical career. By contrast, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-94), Ficino’s younger contemporary, began by embracing the new Platonic position, but joined the Aristotelian fold in his later works. In this essay, I will briefly compare and contrast Ficino’s solid and consistent position with the changing trajectory of Pico’s views over the course of his short but intense career. This essay is an exploration of central themes and some preliminary reflections thereon. These essentially Platonic views of a living universe provide the conceptual and literary foundations for understanding this issue in the early modern period.