Neoplatonic Nature of Love

Abstract This essay has two sections. The first explores the origin of the universe, the four elements, the knot of love, the third essence, and ‘Primordial Vessel’ by the Florentine Neoplatonic philosopher Marsilio Ficino. The second part interprets Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus of 1485–1486, now at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, drawing upon Ficino’s Neoplatonic texts. Particularly some of Ficino’s Commentaries on Plato’s Dialogues (published in 1484), Symposium (completed in 1469), Philebus (completed in 1469), and Compendium on Timaeus (1480–1491). To this is added Ficino’s Theologia Platonica (published in 1482), his Letters (published in 1495), his Commentary on Proclus’s Alcibiades I (completed in 1488), and his translation of the Neoplatonic text Corpus Hermeticum , entitled Liber Mercurii Trismegisti de potestate et sapientia Dei (published in 1471). Botticelli’s beautiful painting captures the depiction of the goddess Venus’s birth as described in Hesiod’s Theogony , which Ficino recounted in his Philebus Commentary