128 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



fident. The Ideas, it is true, were materialised and 

 personified in the transition through Neoplatonism, 

 and it was as spirits of the stars and worlds, demons of 

 the earth and sea, the living souls of plants and stones, 

 that they appealed to minds fed on the grosser fare of 

 mediaeval superstition. Plethon's lectures, uncritical as 

 they were, ensured the spread of Platonism in Italy. 

 Bessarion of Trebizond, Marsilio Ficino, who became 

 head of the Platonist Academy at Florence, and Pico 

 of Mirandula followed in his steps. Both Ficino and 

 Pico are mentioned by Bruno, and his knowledge of 

 Plato, as of Plotinus, Porphyry, and other Neoplatonists, 

 was derived, almost certainly, from Ficino's translations. 

 The teaching of Plato was interpreted in the light of, 

 and confused by admixture with, the mystical ideas of 

 Philo and Plotinus, of Porphyry and lamblichus, of the 

 Jewish Cabala, and the mythical sayings of Egyptian > 

 Chaldean, Indian, and Persian sages. The new world 

 was struggling for light, and it rushed towards every 

 gleam of brightness, however feeble. Thus in the 

 address to the senate at Wittenberg before leaving the 

 university, Bruno named the foremost of those whom 

 he regarded as Builders of the Temple of Wisdom : 

 the list begins with the Chaldeans among the Egyptians 

 and Assyrians ; there follow Zoroaster and the Magi 

 among the Persians, the Gymnosophists of India , 

 Orpheus and Atlas among Thracians and Libyans, 

 Thales and other wise men among the Greeks, and 

 so down to Paracelsus in Bruno's own century. The 

 fantastic grouping is characteristic of the uncritical 

 syncretism of this last phase of Neoplatonism : Plethon 

 had conjoined the dogmas of Plato with those of 

 Zoroaster, and had confirmed both by illustrations 

 from Greek mythology. Among the most widely read 



