Observations placeholder
Bishop Campano – On the ecstasy of Marsilio Ficino
Identifier
022285
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
From Marsilio Ficino, the Second Orpheus – Dr Angela Voss
In a rare eye-witness account, one admirer, Bishop Campano, enthuses about Ficino's performance: ' ... then his eyes burn, then he leaps to his feet, and he discovers music which he never learnt by rote'.
Like that of the lover, Ficino's song causes a sympathetic reaction in his audience. But what is this frenzied inspiration which enables him to improvise with such skill and achieve such an effect?
It is the Platonic furor divinus of the poet, the state of spiritual possession which is a prerequisite for the communication of divine truth, the experience of the flooding of the soul in the act of reconnection with its source.