Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), Italian humanist philosopher. Ficino was born near Florence into a physician's family. His father was under the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici and Marsilio also benefitted from the Medici family. Marsilio was a gifted classical scholar and made the first classic translation of Plato from Greek to Latin. Ficino attempted to create a synthesis of Christianity and Platonism, particularly in respect of the immortality of the soul. Some years after his death the Catholic Church accepted the natural immortality of the soul as dogma, one of the few dogmas later accepted by Protestant philosophers.However, Ficino's interests in astrology led to trouble with the Church, accused of heresy by Pope Innocent VIII he was fortunate to avoid conviction. This woodcut comes from Giovio's Elogia vivorum litris illustrium, published at Basel in 1577.