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 128 of 174
Book III · Chapter 1 · §§ 28–31
Latin
p. 258Demonstratio huiusmodi et accensio actus quidem dici potest, quoniam agit aliquid; motus vero nequaquam, quia non peragitur paulatim. Motus enim est actus per temporis momenta discurrens. Actus vero considerandi atque pingendi qui in Apelle fit motus ideo dicitur, quoniam transigitur paulatim: modo enim alium florem inspicit, modo alium, pingitque similiter.
Pratum profecto facit ut anima Apellis videat ipsum et appetat pingere, sed ut subito. Quod autem per diversa temporis momenta nunc herba alia, nunc alia videatur et similiter exprimatur, non ipsum efficit pratum, sed Apellis anima, cuius ea natura est ut non simul inspiciat varia referatque, sed paulatim.
Ergo motionis huius quae in videndo est atque pingendo initium et finis est pratum. Inde enim pictoris coepit consideratio; eodem tendit et appetitio. Sed fons per quem talis actus paulatim fit et tempore, motusque dicitur, est pictoris ipsius anima.
Similiter apud Platonicos anima rationalis perpetuo quodam lumine Deum quodammodo et angelum cogitat sive auguratur, seque ipsam appetit ad eorum similitudinem pingere, tum speculatione, tum moribus atque actione. Sese paulatim formando se movet. Motio haec ex animae ipsius natura effluit proprie, tamquam fonte proprio motionis, operationis scilicet temporalis. Incitatur autem a supernis tamquam ab extrinseco initio atque fine. Infusio quae a supernis manat in animam una, stabilis, subita fit et aeterna. Et quantum in se est, similia quoque in anima operatur, id est subita et stabilia et aeterna. Quod autem operationes animae et opera paulatim tempore fiant atque mutentur, ex propria animae natura supernis imbecilliore procedit.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book III
p. 259This kind of manifestation and kindling can indeed be called an act, because it accomplishes something, but it cannot be called motion, because it is not carried out gradually. Motion is an act that runs through successive moments of time. The act of observing and painting that takes place in Apelles, however, is called motion precisely because it unfolds gradually: now he examines one flower, now another, and paints them in the same way.
The meadow certainly causes the soul of Apelles to see it and desire to paint it, but it does so in an instant. That one plant and then another is seen and likewise represented through successive moments of time is caused not by the meadow itself, but by the soul of Apelles, whose nature is to observe and reproduce diverse things not all at once, but gradually.
The meadow, then, is the beginning and end of this motion of seeing and painting. From it the painter’s contemplation began, and toward it his desire tends. But the fountain through which such an act comes about gradually and in time, and so is called motion, is the painter’s own soul.
In the same way, according to the Platonists, rational soul, by a kind of perpetual light, in some measure conceives or divines God and angel, and desires to paint itself in their likeness through contemplation, character, and action alike. By gradually forming itself, it moves itself. This motion flows properly from the soul’s own nature, as from the proper fountain of motion—that is, of temporal operation—yet it is stirred by higher things as by an external beginning and end. The influx that flows from above into soul is one, stable, sudden, and eternal; and so far as lies within it, it produces like effects in soul, effects that are sudden, stable, and eternal. But that the soul’s operations and works occur gradually in time and undergo change proceeds from the soul’s own nature, which is weaker than the higher things.
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Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book III · III.1.28–III.1.31
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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.