Şölen Şerhi: Aşk Üzerine

Plato, the father of philosophers, born on the seventh day of November, having reached the age of eighty-one, expired while reclining at a banquet on the day of his birth. This banquet, in which both the birthday and the anniversary of Plato are contained, all the ancient Platonists up to Plotinus and Porphyry used to celebrate every year. After Porphyry, however, these solemn feasts were neglected for twelve hundred years. At length, in our own times, the most illustrious man, Lorenzo de' Medici, intending to renew the Platonic banquet, appointed Francesco Bandini as the master of the feast. Bandini, having instituted the celebration of the seventh day of November, received nine Platonic guests with royal splendor in the villa at Careggi. When the dishes had been removed, Bernardo took up the book of Plato which is inscribed with the banquet On Love. He read all the speeches of this symposium; having read them, he asked the remaining guests that each one should expound upon one speech. All assented. And lots having been cast, that first speech of Phaedrus fell to Giovanni Cavalcanti to expound.