From neoplatism to Marsilio Ficino the updating of humanism through laughter

Abstract

The paper’s main goal is to analyse the role of laughter in a very specific period in the history of Western thought in order to update what has been considered a fringe element of Renaissance humanism. To this end, a path that begins with the approaches to laughter from Neoplatonism and ends with the reintegration of laughter into Ficino’s theological-aesthetic theory is proposed. Furthermore, the phenomenon of laughter in scholasticism and its instrumentalization by preachers and saints in the Middle Ages will be reviewed.