Plato's nectar: entranced poet-philosophers and the making of New Jerusalem in quattrocento Florence

This chapter examines Plato’s use of nectar (rather than wine) in the Symposium and the Phaedrus as a symbol of philosophical ecstasy and its reception from antiquity to the Latin Middle Ages. First, I point out the longstanding connection of nectar with inspiration and its ecstatic nature. Then, I examine the reception of Plato’s references to nectar by later Platonists, like Plotinus and Proclus, who appreciate nectar as a pathway to expand consciousness and achieve union with the One. At the same time, Hermias draws on the metaphor to reaccommodate divinely inspired poetry as a means of approximating the divine. Subsequent readers working in the Platonic tradition, including pagans like Cicero and Vergil, and Christians, like Origen and Ambrose, pave the way for Petrarch and Dante who defend poetry as the purest way of engaging in philosophical and/or theological enquiry. Finally, I examine the profile of the charismatic poeta-theologus which undergoes a powerful revamp in the hands of quattrocento Christian intellectuals like Landino and Ficino, who insist that nectareous poetry is the only means of conveying us to Heavenly Jerusalem. Their vision is in stark contrast with Savonarola’s emphasis on bitter-tasting severity as the way of averting divine wrath. Thus, Plato’s nectar is transformed in quattrocento Florence into a defence of poetic and intellectual pleasure in the ideal Christian city.