  Ficino also taught occasionally in a more formal sense. Early in his career, he lectured publicly on Plato’s Philebus, though where and in what context precisely is unknown. He taught very briefly at the Florentine studio, or university (see Davies 1992). He also instructed youths at the Camaldolese convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli, and he probably taught privately at various times to supplement his income. But what exactly he taught remains uncertain (even as what exactly Plato taught within the confines of the Academy is uncertain). One compelling source, the Declamationes of the little-known humanist Benedetto Colucci, represents Ficino presiding in 1474 over a group of five well-born youths (see Colucci 1939). All of them (students contemporaneously of his humanist friend Cristoforo Landino at the Florentine studio) are given the task, supervised by Ficino (referred to as the “Academiae princeps”), of delivering a speech exhorting Italian leaders to fight against the advancing Turks. Here Ficino seems to have been teaching rhetoric and the art of declamation. Other instances in his writings appear to indicate that one meaning he and others associated with the word “academia” was something close to “gymnasium,” or elementary school.