GIROLAMO BENIVIENI (1474)

Poet of interest because of his connection with the great men of Renaissance Florence and of literary importance because his versification of the philosopher Marsilio Ficino´s translation of Plato´s Symposium influenced otrer writers during the Renaissance.

As a member of the Florentine Medici circle, Benivieni had contact with some of the greatest minds of his time: the Reinassance Humanist Ficino, pIco della Mirandola, and Angelo Poliziano.

Ficino translated the Symposium in c. 1474 with his own commentary, which Benivieni summarized in the canzone De lo amore celeste, and this in turn became the subject of an extensive commentary by Pico della Mirandola.

Thus, through all these sources, Platonism, wich describes the ascent from appreciation of human beauty to contemplation of ideal or divine beauty, reached many other writers. Among them were the Italians Pietro Bembo and Baldassare Castiglione and the English poet Edmund Spenser.

Benivieni fell under the spell of the fiery Renaissance religious reformer Girolano Savonarola. After his conversion, Benivieni rewrote some of his sensual poetry, translated a treatise of Savonarola´s into Italian (Della semplicità della vita cristiana), and wrote some religious poetry.

He also produced many occasional poems and a study of Dante´s Inferno.

Benivieni was buried in the church of S. Marco, Florence, next to his closest friend, Pico della Mirandola.

His Opere or Works were published in 1519.