Ever since Della Torre posited in 1902 that Ficino had undergone a religious crisis that led him to abandon the pagan beliefs of his youth and take holy orders, scholars have wrestled with how to ...explain the seeming inconsistencies in his thought. Though they downplayed Della Torre's notion of a specific crisis of faith, the next generation of scholars, including Thorndike, Sarton, Kristeller, Garin, Walker, and Yates, still labeled Ficino inconsistent, or at best, melancholic, wavering, and anxious.
References to the Magi whose veneration of the infant Christ is recorded in the second chapter of the gospel of Matthew are frequent in the writings of Marsilio Ficino, especially his letters. The ...clearest expressions of his interest and faith in the Magi can be found in the
Apologia
, accounting for the more magical elements in the
De vita
, and in a
praedicatio
on the topic of the star that guided the Wise Men.
