In the last 30 years or so there has been a flourishing of scholarly works on Plotinus, above all in the form of commentaries on each single treatise of the Enneads. This has deepened our knowledge of one of the greatest thinkers not only of antiquity, but of the history of philosophy. That this statement is not a hyperbole is shown by the esteem in which thinkers such as Hegel and Bergson held Plotinus. It was, therefore, a dutiful task of scholars to elucidate and study in detail the works of such a great mind; a task, as everybody who has engaged with the Enneads knows, most difficult, given the unsystematic nature of Plotinus’ exposition topped with his often cryptic, if not altogether obscure, style.

However, as great and praiseworthy the efforts of scholars have been, and as deeper an understanding of Plotinus’ thought, of its sources and of its problems we have reached, the Enneads continue to be an unknown work for the larger public of cultivated and informed readers. It is not uncommon, at least in my experience, that during a conversation on philosophy with other colleagues, well versed in ancient thinkers besides the modern authors on whom they specialise, any mention of Plotinus provokes surprise and the not always so shy acknowledgement of ignorance regarding his work. ‘Plotino … chi era costui?’ one could say, paraphrasing Manzoni's famous sentence.

The Enneads of Plotinus series, edited and directed by J.M. Dillon and A. Smith, to which this commentary belongs, aims precisely at making Plotinus known to the wider public of cultivated readers, thus undertaking a task whose importance cannot be stressed enough. This, and the series published in French by Flammarion under the direction of L. Brisson and J.-F. Pradeau, represent the only attempt at fulfilling this task in a systematic way. In both series the only limitation is the fact that the original Greek text is not provided and by the peculiar habit, in fashion both in the English-speaking world and in France, to transliterate Greek words when it is necessary to refer to them. The lack of a facing Greek text makes it difficult for the reader who knows some Greek to check on the original to assess the soundness of the translation, while the transliterated Greek words do not help in any substantial way those who do not know Greek. I stress this point, because the series is not only very useful for those who are new to Plotinus, but it is equally useful and important for experts, given the fact that it approaches the text from a genuinely philosophical point of view. This helps to clarify and bring into focus the problems that underpin the entirety of philosophy in its historical unfolding, making explicit the position that Plotinus took in relation to these problems.

The present work is divided into three parts. A brief introduction highlights the fundamental problems that chapters 30–45 of IV.4 and chapters 1–8 of IV.5 deal with, while at the same time providing a clear schematisation of the arguments. A translation of the text follows, which distinguishes itself in its clarity and readability. Whoever is acquainted with Plotinus knows how difficult, at times baffling, his prose can be, which not even Porphyry's editing could fully tame. At times G.’s translation differs significantly from A.H. Armstrong's, either for the sake of clarity or more radically for different choices regarding the reading of the Greek text. In the latter case, the reading followed by G. is always signalled and discussed in the commentary: in such cases, as already noted, the inclusion of the Greek text would have been an indispensable tool. After the text there comes a commentary, which follows the sequence of the chapters, while at the same time highlighting the themes that link together some of the chapters. An appendix provides a translation of chapters 1–2 of IV.1 and the whole of IV.2, along with an introduction to these texts, a thorough synopsis and a commentary.

This work, then, does not focus on one treatise of the Enneads, but rather on a particular theme, namely the topic of memory in the souls of the planets and the stars, their actions in relation to human life and finally the nature of vision and light. The texts presented in the appendix are linked to this theme because they treat the problem of sensibility of the souls once embodied. This approach allows G. to bring better into focus a distinctly philosophical problem and to show how it unfolds in the Enneads, giving the reader a more articulate and organic view of it. The immediate benefit of such an approach is the clarity that results from it. Thanks to this, it is possible for G. to stress and for the reader to appreciate some central assumptions in Plotinus’ understanding of the whole. These assumptions may be obvious to experts, but for this reason their challenging difference from assumptions and views by modern philosophers slips into a sort of oblivion, thus de facto neutralising a possibly refreshing contribution of Plotinus’ voice to the philosophical discourse. On the other hand, these assumptions are unknown to the cultivated reader who is not acquainted with Plotinus and his thought. An example can be found at p. 119, where G. underlines that Plotinus’ view of the universe and of the working of Nature is far removed from the modern image of it as a machine, and thus far removed from the anthropocentric assumption underpinning this image – the latter being an assumption that is constantly attributed to the ancients. Understanding and focusing on this point is extremely important, as it is central not only to Plotinus but also to the entirety of ancient philosophy. By stressing this, which G. reiterates at p. 121, he provides access to a thought more remote from the modern point of view than the cultivated reader would suppose. In other words, a remark like this helps those who know little or nothing about Plotinus and ancient philosophy in general to grasp one of the most central, although concealed, assumptions of ancient thinkers; while at the same, it reminds experts to stay clearly focused on pivotal differences between ancient and modern thought. After all, the assumption that the world as a whole and thus the celestial bodies in it are inanimate, central as it is to both Christianity and to its shadowy twin Gnosticism in all its forms, was precisely the point of scandal and contention for Plotinus in his lifelong struggle against these new world views, as shown particularly in what can somehow be referred to as the Großschrift.

This volume is highly recommended for its precision and its clarity, which allow a deeper and more focused understanding of Plotinus’ thought and a sharper philosophical dialogue between it and modern thought in all its forms. It is to be hoped that this will set an example for future works on Plotinus: for the history of philosophy cannot and must not be reduced to be a collection of the various opinions of the different philosophers, a sort of more detailed, more informed doxography, but, because of its intrinsic nature, it is and must be approached as the very unfolding of the life of thought.