Ghirlandaio, Ficino and Hermes Trismegistus: the Prisca Theologia in the Tornabuoni Frescoes

Abstract

The study offers a Neoplatonic reading of certain iconographic elements of Domenico Ghirlandaio’s frescoes in the Tornabuoni Chapel in Florence. It focuses on the nude figure sitting on the steps in the “Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple” as well as the group of four listeners gathered on the right in the “Preaching of St. John the Baptist”. Following an investigation of the relationship between these figures and Marsilio Ficino’s philosophical ideas and the apocryphal gospels the author suggests that the nude represents Saturn and that the four men are Ficino’s famiglia filosofica: Hermes Trismegistus, Moses, Aristotle and Plato. This analysis therefore attempts to show that the decoration not only expresses the political supremacy of the Medicean faction but also conveys Ficino’s ideas about the prisca theologia.

Keywords

• D. Ghirlandaio
• Tornabuoni Chapel
• Neoplatonism
• Marsilio Ficino