Between Leonardo and Ficino: the way of the soul and the crossroads of knowledge at the end of the 15th Century

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on an indication of Massimo Cacciari with respect to the passage-and-break that he identifies between the Ficino’s and Pico’s Florence, and Bruno. The author points it out but does not give it a name, which here we try to indicate in Leonardo. By comparing Leonardo with Ficino, in the fundamental theoretical places of their reasoning with respect to the relationship of man and his soul with the natural environment in which he is thrown, the intention is to manage to identify ways and measures in which precisely in the Artist of Vinci the passage intuited by Cacciari is consummated, so as to open the way to more adequate studies of Leonardo's thought in the humanistic context – and in particular in the new perspectives of humanistic studies  –, of which he is a leading exponent.