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 140 of 174
Book IV · Chapter 1 · §§ 1–4
Latin
p. 282Tres sunt animarum rationalium gradus. In primo est anima mundi. In secundo animae sphaerarum. In tertio animae animalium quae in sphaeris singulis continentur.
Principio quinque gradus accepimus ascendendo; deinde eos descendendo invicem comparavimus; tertio in eorum medio rationalem animam collocavimus. Deinceps animae huius gradus, sicuti solent Mercuriales theologi, perscrutabimur. Generatio principium est nutritionis et augmenti. Nusquam enim aut nutriri aut augeri absque partium quarundam generatione quicquam potest. Exploratum autem habemus, ubi generationem nutritio et augmentum sequitur, ibi vitam animamque inesse. Terram vero videmus seminibus propriis generare innumerabiles arbores animantesque et nutrire et augere.
Augere etiam lapides quasi dentes suos et herbas quasi pilos, quamdiu radicibus haerent; quae si evellantur et extirpentur e terra, non crescunt. Quis feminae huius ventrem vita carere dixerit, qui tam multos sponte sua parit fetus et alit, qui sustinet se ipsum, cuius dorsum dentes promit et pilos? Eadem est de aquae corpore ratio. Habent igitur animam aqua et terra.
Nisi forte quis dixerit viventia illa, quae nos, cum seminibus propriis carere videantur, ab anima terrae fieri dicimus aut aquae, non ex tali anima nasci, sed ex influxibus caelestium animorum. At vero Platonici negabunt influxus illos, cum sint accidentia quaedam a suis vitalibus substantiis longe seiuncta, posse vitalem hic substantiam generare, quia nequeat accidens generare substantiam, nisi tamquam instrumentum substantiae subiciatur, substantiae, inquam, proximae. Nam instrumentum seorsum ab artifice non movetur ad artis formam. Sic influxus ille vitae caelestis ab ipsa vita remotus vitalem formam non generabit.
Merito caelestis instinctus, quia communis est cuilibet elemento, in quolibet determinatur ad vitam aliquam in ipso elemento gignendam a communi totius elementi vita, eique subditur ut instrumentum.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book IV
p. 283There are three grades of rational souls: first, the soul of the world; second, the souls of the spheres; third, the souls of the living beings contained within each sphere.
At the outset we adopted five grades as we ascended; then, descending, we compared them with one another; third, we placed the rational soul in their midst. Next we shall investigate the grades of this soul, as the Hermetic theologians are accustomed to do. Generation is the beginning of nourishment and growth, for nothing anywhere can be nourished or grow without the generation of certain parts. We have established that wherever nourishment and growth follow generation, life and soul are present. We see the earth bring forth innumerable trees and living creatures from its own seeds, nourish them, and make them grow.
It also makes stones grow like its teeth and plants like its hairs, so long as they cling by their roots; if they are torn up and wrenched from the earth, they do not grow. Who would say that the womb of this female is devoid of life—a womb that of its own accord brings forth and nourishes so many offspring, supports itself, and sprouts teeth and hairs from its back? The same reasoning applies to the body of water. Water and earth therefore possess a soul.
Perhaps someone will say that the living things which seem to lack seeds of their own, and which we say are produced by the soul of earth or water, do not spring from such a soul but from influences of the celestial souls. The Platonists, however, will deny that those influences—being accidents far removed from their own living substances—can generate a living substance here. An accident cannot generate substance unless it is subordinated, as an instrument, to a substance, and I mean a proximate substance. An instrument separated from its craftsman is not moved toward the form conceived by the art. In the same way, an influence of celestial life removed from that life itself will not generate a living form.
Accordingly, because the celestial impulse is common to every element, within each element it is directed toward generating a particular life by the common life of that whole element, to which it is subordinated as an instrument.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book IV · IV.1.1–IV.1.4
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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.