Francesco Cattani da Diacceto

Francesco Cattani da Diacceto (16 November 1466 – 10 April 1522) was a Florentine Neoplatonist philosopher of the Italian Renaissance. Born in Florence, he was the son of Zanobi Cattani da Diacceto and Lionarda di Francesco di Iacopo Venturi. In his nineteenth year, he married Lucretia di Cappone di Bartolomeo Capponi, with whom he had seven sons and six daughters. From 1491 to 1492, he studied philosophy under Oliviero Arduini at the University of Pisa. Upon returning to Florence, he became a disciple of Marsilio Ficino and a member of the intellectual group known as the Platonic Academy. He is sometimes considered Ficino's successor. Diacceto differed from Ficino by attempting to reconcile the philosophies of Aristotle and Plato. Furthermore, he was less concerned with Christianizing Plato or Plotinus, thus offering a more direct exposition of Neoplatonic magic and astrology, though his interest in these subjects was seemingly less than Ficino's. Diacceto died in Florence on 10 April 1522. His works were collected and published posthumously, with his grandson commissioning Benedetto Varchi to write his biography, which was published together with Diacceto's "Tre libri d’amore e un panegirico all’amore" in Venice in 1561. His collected Latin works, "Opera Omnia," were edited by Theodor Zwinger and published in Basel in 1563. His work "De Pulchro" explored his Neoplatonic theory of magical and astrological effects.