Diotimos Library · Renaissance Collection · Bilingual Edition
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Proem and Books I–IV · Latin with an independent English translation
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English Page · Branch 117 of 174
Book II · Chapter 13 · §§ 29–30
Latin
p. 236Bonum enim necessario volunt omnia, cuius ratione volunt quicquid volunt, sicut necessario malum ipsum nolunt, cuius ratione nolunt quicquid nolunt. Nam si adaequatum appetitus obiectum est ipsum bonum, certe bonitas est ratio ipsa appetitui appetendi quicquid appetat, ita ut in omni re quam appetit non aliter bonum appetat quam visus in omni colore videt lumen. Ac si appetat ulterius nihil appetere, hanc quoque appetendi vacationem eligit tamquam bonam. Animus igitur necessario fertur ad bonum. At quia Deus debet naturam animo propriam reservare,
Ideo iudicium ipsi relinquit liberum, per quod de agendis suo more consultet, atque e multis sibi propositis aliud alio melius iudicet, et quod aptius ad bonum consequendum censuerit eligat.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book II
p. 237All things necessarily will the good, for it is under the aspect of good that they will whatever they will; just as they necessarily reject evil itself, for it is under the aspect of evil that they reject whatever they reject. If the adequate object of appetite is the good itself, then goodness is the very reason why appetite desires whatever it desires. In everything it desires, appetite seeks the good, just as sight sees light in every color. Even if appetite should desire to desire nothing further, it chooses that very freedom from desire as something good. The soul, therefore, is necessarily borne toward the good. But God must preserve the nature proper to the soul.
God therefore leaves the soul's judgment free. By that judgment the soul deliberates in its own manner about what is to be done, judges one of the many alternatives before it to be better than another, and chooses whatever it has deemed more apt for attaining the good.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book II · II.13.29–II.13.30
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology places the immortality of the soul at the center of an extended philosophical ascent through body, soul, angel, and God. This exact page-aligned Renaissance edition presents the authorial Proem and Books I–IV in a newly established Latin reading text with an independent English translation prepared by Diotimos Editions.
Historical Text and Translation
The Latin reading text is based on the Florence editio princeps printed by Antonio Miscomini on 7 November 1482 and principally collated against the Paris 1559 printing, with a 1641 Opera printing used only as a late control and OCR aid. Abbreviations are expanded, spelling and punctuation are conservatively normalized, and substantive departures among the witnesses are documented in the edition’s apparatus.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this independently worded English translation in house. It aims for a dignified but readable modern register while preserving Ficino’s argumentative sequence, metaphors, technical distinctions, repetitions, conditions, purpose clauses, and direct appeals; long periods are divided only where clarity requires it.
Rights
Ficino’s Latin source work is in the public domain. The 2026 English translation and Diotimos editorial matter are original to this edition and remain © 2026 Diotimos.