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 145 of 174
Book IV · Chapter 1 · §§ 20–24
Latin
p. 292Quod absque virtute animi, et quidem potentioris, effici nequit. Virtute enim naturae vivacis et sapientis, quae his ipsis est infusa corporibus, herba hierobotanum, ut magi inquiunt, confert divinationibus medicorum. Achates fovet visum, obtundit venenum, praestat vires atque fecundiam; praesens adamas magneti quod rapit aufert.
Corneola sanguinis sistit fluxum et mitigat iras. Onyx accendit iras, terret in somnis. Corallus denique, ut testantur Metrodorus et Zoroaster, insanos terrores amovet, fulgura repellit et grandinem. Animis certe nostris tempestatibusque natura illa praestat, cuius virtute talia fiunt.
Quam esse oportet infusam et corpusculis infimis, ut infima secum praeter ipsorum naturas ad supernorum elevet actiones. Esse vitam huiusmodi mundo infusam Strato et Chrysippus confitebuntur, sed ipsam esse summum Deum asseverabunt. Platonici id negabunt, quia super eam vitam quae alicuius est et in aliquo esse decet eam vitam quae sui ipsius est et in se ipsa consistit. Vita vero mundanae alicuius sphaerae non minus familiaris est sphaerae suae quam humano corpori animus sit humanus. Quapropter vita sphaerae, sive alicuius sive totius, neque prima est vita neque Deus.
Deus enim summus summa est unitas. A summa unitate secundum Platonicos multitudo forsitan aliqua statim proficisci potest; non tamen tanta debet diversitas discordiaque sese invicem corrumpentium qualitatum.
Rursus summae bonitati pulchritudinique nihil mali et deformis est proximum. Mala vero multa deformiaque contingunt circa materiam.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book IV
p. 293This cannot be accomplished without the power of a soul, and indeed of a more powerful one. For by the power of a living and wise nature infused into those very bodies, the herb hierobotanum, as the Magi say, aids the divinations of physicians. Agate strengthens sight, blunts poison, and bestows strength and fertility; a diamond placed nearby deprives a magnet of what it attracts.
Carnelian checks the flow of blood and calms anger. Onyx kindles anger and causes terror in dreams. Coral, finally, as Metrodorus and Zoroaster attest, banishes mad terrors and repels lightning and hail. That nature whose power produces such effects surely has command over our souls and over storms.
Such a nature must be infused even into the lowest little bodies, so that it may raise the lowest things along with itself, beyond their own natures, to the activities of higher things. Strato and Chrysippus will admit that a life of this kind is infused into the world, but they will assert that it is the highest God. The Platonists will deny this, because above that life which belongs to another and exists in another there ought to be a life which belongs to itself and subsists in itself. The life of any cosmic sphere, however, is no less bound to its own sphere than the human soul is to the human body. Therefore the life of a sphere—whether of some particular sphere or of the whole—is neither the first life nor God.
For the highest God is supreme unity. From supreme unity, according to the Platonists, some multiplicity may perhaps proceed immediately; yet so great a diversity and discord of mutually destructive qualities ought not to proceed at once.
Again, nothing evil or deformed lies nearest to supreme goodness and beauty; yet many evils and deformities arise around matter.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book IV · IV.1.20–IV.1.24
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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.