ABSTRACT
The diffusion of Neoplatonism in the sixteenth century was so enormous that it is not possible to estimate its direct influence on the artists of the age with anything approaching certainty. The letters of Castiglione, of Annibale Caro, of Pietro Aretino, for example, show this interest in all its intensity, sometimes in the form of general reflections and appreciation, sometimes in that of practical advice. The artist, instead of being a more excellent type of craftsman, with his “bottega” and his own fairly limited circle, was the friend of Popes and Princes, an integral part of learned and courtly society. Neoplatonism seems to have reacted on the arts principally in two ways: by its theory of ideal beauty and by that of the universality of man. The general principles of the theorists, if not the subtleties of their arguments, pass into common knowledge and play their part in shaping artistic development.
