The Argumentum of Ficino to the Pimander of Mercurius Trismegistus
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34019/2237-6151.2017.v14.26971Keywords:
Pimander, Ficino, Prisca Theologia, RenaissanceAbstract
In this article we present Marsilio Ficino’s Argumentum his translation of Theoretical Hermetica, entitled by him of Pimander De Potestate et Sapientia Dei, modernly known as Corpus Hermeticum. We seek to understand Ficino’s view of these writings and their assumptions. We can see in this short text how Ficino organizes his whole argument around ancient theology or prisca theologia, and what are this sources. Mercury Trismegistus is placed as the ancient theologian and divinely inspired. In this text Ficino presents us with one of the versions of the genealogy of the ancient theologians that culminate in his divine Plato. This composition is fundamental so much to understand the form that the prisca theologia conforms among the mens of the renaissance, as well as to realize the importance assumed by Mercury Trismegistus in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Ficino’s sources in this brief enterprise are Plato, Lactantius, Cicero and Augustine of Hippo.
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