PLATO, THE FATHER of philosophers, died at the age of eighty-one, on November 7, which was his birthday, reclining at a banquet, after the feast had been cleared away. This banquet, in which both the birthday and the anniversary of Plato are equally contained, all of the ancient Platonists down to the times of Plotinus and Porphyry used to celebrate every year. But after Porphyry these solemn feasts were neglected for twelve hundred years. At last, in our own times, the famous Lorenzo de' Medici, wishing to renew the Platonic banquet, appointed Francesco Bandini master of the feast. Therefore, since Bandini had arranged to celebrate the seventh day of November, he received with regal pomp at Careggi, in the country, nine Platonic guests: Antonio degli Agli, Bishop of Fiesole; Ficino, a physician; Cristoforo Landino, a poet; Bernardo Nuzzi, a rhetorician; Tommaso Benci; Giovanni Cavalcanti (our friend, whom the guests named Hero because of his virtue of soul and handsome appearance); and the two Marsuppini brothers, Cristoforo and Carlo, sons of the poet Carlo Marsuppini. Lastly, Bandini wanted me to be the ninth, in order that, with Marsilio Ficino added to those already mentioned, the number of the Muses might be achieved.
