Tra Atene e Alessandria. Origene nella Theologia Platonica di Marsilio Ficino

The revival of Origen’s work was a crucial step for Renaissance attempts to reconcile Platonic philosophy and Christian tradition. The rediscovery of his texts in the fifteenth century allowed scholars to better understand his words, despite the problematic nature of Rufinus’s version, and to move away from the reductio of St. Jerome. During the second half of the century the circulation of Origenistic ideas was increasing: the article shows significant examples of the uses of Origen’s ideas at that date, particularly in Florence. My aim, therefore, is to demonstrate the fruitful manipulation by Ficino of Origen’s thinking, in particular on the subject of the ascent and descent of the soul, on the Platonic and Pythagorean idea of the transmigration of the soul, and on the description of hell’s pains. The use of Origen is problematic and subterranean, and deals with the complex Christianity of the Alexandrian church father, and with the intersection of orthodoxy and heterodoxy in Ficino. Though not as daring as Pico, Ficino also used profitably some of Origen’s ideas on the common Platonic pattern.