ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses that Salutati's, Pletho's and Marsilio Ficino's endorsements of pagan mythology dogmatics is at stake and the coherence of mythological imagery. Perhaps it was the Italian language that was perceived as dangerous, for Ficino's commentary on Symposium, Benivieni's poetic condensation of it, and Giovanni Pico's expansion of it all circulated in the vernacular, which certainly amounted to popularizing Platonism. A Neoplatonic philosophy in which human intellect is contiguous with the divine mind is frivolous in eyes of Pico and his friends. Perhaps it was Italian language that was perceived as dangerous, for Ficino's commentary on the Symposium, Benivieni's poetic condensation of it, and Pico's expansion of it all circulated in the vernacular, which certainly amounted to popularizing Platonism. More dangerous was probably the fact that ancient philosophy and mythology were interpreted there according to their internal logic. Petrarch's hope that the study of ancient mythology might enhance reverence for Christian truth was shared both by Ficino and Pico.
