Book One

...they looked at us, expecting no such thing: moved by sudden joy they immediately rose and after those words which the most intimate friends are accustomed to say at a first meeting:

"O Landino," Laurentius Lorenzo de' Medici (1449–1492), the de facto ruler of Florence and a patron of the arts. said, "nothing more desirable could have happened to us than for you to find us in this kind of solitude; for since for these several days—in which everything is scorched by the most intense heat—we had fled from urban cares and weariness into this pleasant place with the intention of enjoying the most temperate climate of these mountains and engaging in some pleasure of the mind, I hope that if I join you to these philosophers, we shall miss no kind of joy or sweetness."

Marsilio To which, when I had already begun to respond, a sudden event interrupted the speech. For it was announced that Leo BAPTISTA Alberti Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), the famous Renaissance polymath, architect, and philosopher. would arrive shortly after. For he had recently come from Rome; and when he had detoured on the Aretine way at Figline to visit Marsilio Ficino Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), the leader of the Platonic Academy in Florence and a central figure of the Renaissance., a man who is easily the prince among the Platonists of our time, they decided by common counsel not to go to Florence before they had avoided the entire dog days original: "caniculam"; the "dog days" refer to the hottest period of summer when the Dog Star, Sirius, rises with the sun. within the Casentino valley. These men, therefore, had now reached the monastery; and having sent away their horses, they were ascending to us with a slow step along with Mariotto the Camaldolese abbot Mariotto di Alessio, the superior of the monastery at Camaldoli., a man proven in both religion and learning. At this news, everyone was moved by sudden joy, and at the same time, inflamed with the highest ardor for meeting and conversing, we went out to meet them; we came together, we greeted one another. The rest of that day—for the sun was already descending toward its setting—we spent in the conversations of Baptista. For he was a man most accomplished in every kind of humanity and every branch of the arts of all those whom many centuries have produced. For why should I speak of letters, when absolutely nothing exists that it is permitted for a man to know, in which he was not skillfully and prudently engaged?

Therefore, on the following day, when we had all risen and attended the sacred rites The morning Mass., it was decided for the sake of health and pleasure to walk through the upper woods reaching toward the mountain ridge; and little by little we came to that place where a spreading beech tree covered a clear spring with its outstretched branches in a flowery meadow.

Socratic Here Baptista said:
"Behold for you, best of men, the tree itself and the stream running down from the spring with a sweet murmur reflects the image of the plane tree and the Socratic water A reference to the Phaedrus, a dialogue by Plato where Socrates and Phaedrus sit under a plane tree by the Ilissus river to discuss love and rhetoric.. Moreover, the seats which you see on every side, begun by nature but slightly refined by pastoral labor, will receive us most comfortably, so that after this little walk through the sloping ground we may rest quite conveniently."

And after we sat down:
"Indeed," he said, "I think those men are very blessed who, since they are men of letters, even if not always, yet often—either by settling their public and private cares or putting them off to another time—betake themselves to some solitude in this way: so that just as among our theologians Martha Martha is left behind, and from those waves in which she always seethes, one rests in the safe and tranquil harbor of Mary Mary In Christian tradition, the sisters Martha and Mary represent the "Active" and "Contemplative" lives respectively. Martha is busy with chores, while Mary listens to Christ.. From her high rocks, as if from some tall watchtower, one may not only look down upon the lands and seas, but much more ardently look up at the heavens themselves. And like those other Platonists, having recovered, one may fly around this whole upper world like Zethus a second Zethus In classical mythology, the brothers Zethus and Amphion represent the conflict between the practical/active life and the musical/contemplative life.. And although this must often be done by all men of letters, it is most just that you, LORENZO and Giuliano, do it very often. For you see..."