mentaries, but his interest in mysticism, first manifested
in his work on the Hermetic Pimander (1471), continued
to play a major role in his thought; in his later years he
translated PLOTINUS(1492), (pseudo-)Dionysius the Are-
opagite (1496/97), and Iamblichus (1497). The mystical
strain in his philosophy led in 1489 to his being accused
of the practice of magic, but his influential friends saved
him from the usual consequences of such a charge. The
bulk of his Epistolae, published in 1495 and covering the
period 1473–94, formulate his official pronouncements
on Platonic questions.
See also: NEOPLATONISM, RENAISSANCE
Further reading: Konrad Eisenbichler and Olga Zorzi
Pugliese (eds), Ficino and Renaissance Platonism (Toronto,
Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1998); Paul Oskar
Kristeller, Marsilio Ficino and his Work after Five Hundred
Years (Florence, Italy: Olschki, 1987); Christine Raffini,
Marsilio Ficino, Pietro Bembo, Baldassare Castiglione: Philo-
sophical, Aesthetic, and Political Approaches in Renaissance
Platonism (New York, Peter Lang, 1998).
Field of the Cloth of Gold The field near Calais where
FRANCIS Iof France met HENRY VIIIof England in June
- Public and private negotiations were accompanied
by a lavish court spectacle and show of friendship between
the two monarchs. Henry VIII was able to display himself
as a great and powerful European monarch, but the meet-
ing had little real significance. WOLSEYwas already nego-
tiating with CHARLES V and England soon joined the
emperor’s anti-French alliance in 1521.
figura serpentinata See CONTRAPPOSTO
Filarete (Antonio Averlino) (c. 1400–1469) Italian
sculptor and architect
Filarete was born in Florence. His nickname is derived
from the Greek, meaning “lover of virtue,” and is typical
of his rather clumsy and pedantic attempts to emulate the
sculpture and architecture of antiquity. His masterpiece is
the huge west door of St. Peter’s, Rome, cast in bronze,
with enameled and gilded decoration, about 1445. A re-
duced version of the Roman statue of Marcus Aurelius is
the earliest datable bronze statuette of the Renaissance
and was presented in 1465 to Piero de’ Medici, to whom
in the same year Filarete dedicated one copy of his imagi-
native Treatise on Architecture. This was devoted to an ideal
city named Sforzinda, after a prominent Milanese patron.
His principal surviving building is the hospital in Milan
(1456–65), where Lombard ornamented brickwork is
combined with Brunelleschian Renaissance forms.
Filelfo, Francesco (1398–1481) Italian scholar, teacher,
and rhetorician
Born at Tolentino, he studied at Padua, where he was ap-
pointed professor at age 18. In 1419 he traveled to Con-
stantinople to learn the language and acquire Greek man-
uscripts. There he married Theodora, daughter of his
teacher John Chrysoloras. He returned to Venice (1427)
with over 40 manuscripts, but was dissatisfied with his re-
ception there and moved on, first to Bologna, then to Flo-
rence. He quarreled with the Florentine humanists and
Cosimo de’ Medici and had to leave the city (1434) for
Siena; eventually he reached Milan (1440) where he re-
mained, apart from a visit to Rome (1475). In 1481 he was
invited back to Florence, but died there soon afterwards.
Filelfo’s quarrelsome temperament made him highly un-
popular. Nevertheless, at the time of his death his reputa-
tion as a scholar was deservedly known throughout Italy.Finiguerra, Maso (1426–1464) Italian goldsmith,
designer, and engraver
Born in Florence, Maso was praised by VASARIand Ben-
venuto CELLINIas a print maker and a master of niello, a
type of decorative silverwork in which silver is incised
with a black metallic compound. As a young man he may
have assisted GHIBERTIon the east door of the Baptistery in
Florence and he was later associated with Antonio POL-
LAIUOLO, several of whose paintings Maso may have re-
produced in a series of copperplate engravings (1459–64).
Although Maso did not actually invent the process of cop-
per engraving as Vasari claimed, he was instrumental in
developing its use as an extension of niello work. Few
works by Maso survive; among those that are often attrib-
uted to him are the Thewalt cross (c. 1464; Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York) and a series of engravings, the
Seven Planets.Fioravanti, Aristotele (c. 1415–c. 1485) Italian architect
and engineer
Born in Bologna into a family of architects, Fioravanti is
remembered chiefly for his spreading of Renaissance ideas
throughout Europe in the course of his many travels. After
work in Rome, Bologna, and Milan, and other major Ital-
ian artistic centers, Fioravanti was invited to Hungary in
1467 where he worked for a short time for King MATTHIAS
CORVINUS. In 1475 he was summoned to Russia to build
the cathedral of the Assumption (Uspenskii Sobor) on the
Kremlin, combining elements of conventional Russian
church architecture with features of Renaissance design.
He died in Moscow.Fiori da Urbino See BAROCCI, FEDERICOfire For Aristotle fire was one of the four elements. Com-
bined from the hot and the dry, it was as much a substan-
tial part of the universe as the other elements; earth, water,
and air. The assumption, however, began to be questioned
by the chemists and alchemists of the Renaissance.
PARACELSUS, for example, held that matter was composed
of the three elements, salt, sulfur, and mercury, with sul-118800 FFiieelldd ooff tthhee CCllootthh ooff GGoolldd