The notorious Florentine politico Cosimo de Medici founded a Platonic Academy wherein the most famous alumnus, a philosopher called Marsilio Ficino, wrote a volume called the Platonic Theology. Ficino argued that Plato was a kind of pagan saint, a heathen harbinger of the Christian principles that were to follow. This is similar to the writings and teachings of St. Augustine, another formidable Plato-phile. The Catholic Church has a tradition of sanctifying mere mortals. People are posthumously made saints and prayed to as if they were demigods. So it is not surprising that a Renaissance Catholic might want to ascribe an otherworldly quality to one of the great thinkers of the classical age.