The Galenic Roots of Marsilio Ficino’s Theory of Natural Changes

Abstract

Historians of Renaissance and early modern philosophy have traditionally assigned a straightforward medieval hylomorphism to Ficino. These descriptions, however, fail to fully capture the peculiarities of Ficino’s view of matter, and the function that it performs in natural changes. This essay argues that: (1) the Renaissance Platonist Marsilio Ficino has a distinctive theory of matter and natural change according to which matter is “pregnant” with form and, further, that natural changes emerge “from within” its depths; (2) this philosophical view specifically resonates with the “two seed” theory of reproduction discussed in Galen of Pergamon’s medical texts, as opposed to Aristotelian reproductive theory; and (3) that this may be attributed to the prevalence of Galenic sources in medical curricula through the fifteenth century and to both his physician father’s and his own familiarity with these texts.