|
|
Article: Plato's Third Eye: Studies in Marsilio Ficino's Metaphysics and Its Sources.
- Article from:
- Renaissance Quarterly
- Article date:
- March 22, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 The Renaissance Society of America. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
"Plato's third eye," according to an ancient anecdote, was an eye Plato dreamt he had grown after he had discovered the theory of ideas. In Marsilio Ficino's reinterpretation of it, it was an eye located in the center of Plato's forehead by which he perceived divine things - the eye of the mind, in other words. But we might, by a sort of postmodern allegory, identify Allen himself as Plato's Third Eye. For Allen has devoted the best part of his scholarly endeavors to interpreting a great interpreter of Plato, Marsilio Ficino. No scholar has penetrated so deeply and so learnedly into Ficino's vast project to revive the philosophy of Plato; no scholar has done so much to help ...