Professor Michael Allen FBA

Michael J. B. Allen is a Distinguished Research Professor of English and Italian Renaissance Studies at UCLA where he has taught since 1970. He is the former Director of UCL's Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies; past Editor of Renaissance Quarterly; and past President of the Renaissance Society of America. His honours include Italy's Commendatore decoration in 2007 and the Premio Internazionale Galileo Galilei in 2008 for his work on Florentine Platonism. His primary interests are in Renaissance philosophy, drama, poetry, magic, mythology, iconography & hermeneutics; and more especially in the Platonism of Marsilio Ficino & Pico della Mirandola.

Principal Publications 1989: Icastes: Marsilio Ficino's Interpretation of Plato's Sophist. University of California Press (UCP) 1994: Nuptial Arithmetic: Marsilio Ficino's Commentary on the Fatal Number in Book VIII of Plato's Republic. UCP 1998: Synoptic Art: Marsilio Ficino on the History of Platonic Interpretation. Olschki Press 2001-2006; Marsilio Ficino: Platonic Theology, 6 vols. with James Hankins. Harvard University Press (HUP). 2008: Marsilio Ficino: Commentaries on the Phaedrus and Ion. HUP 2015: Marsilio Ficino: Commentaries on the Mystical Theology and the Divine Names of Dionysius the Areopagite, 2 vols. HUP.