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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Facing Pages · Branch 160 of 174
Book IV · Chapter 1 · §§ 76–80
Latin
p. 322Quae quoniam ab alio terminatur perque unicum semper dirigitur tramitem, liquido nobis ostendit elementorum partes ex se ipsis minime agitari. Nam et sponte quiescerent neque agerent viam semper eandem. Et aqua posset interdum aerem proximum non frigefacere.
Aut in praecipitium non defluere. Nam et si animae sphaerarum eundem semper tenorem servant, non tamen putandum est animulas, id est vires proprias elementalium partium, si tamquam motrices illis insint, talem ordinem servaturas, quandoquidem animae nostrae non servant.
Augmentum vero plantarum atque saxorum est ab anima terrae. Ideo solum quamdiu haerent terrae crescunt. Corpora brutorum et hominum seiuncta a sphaeris vivunt quia proprias habent animas.
Quod indicat illorum figura variis instrumentis munita, figurae sphaerarum penitus dissimilibus; indicat et complexio a sphaerarum complexione alienissima. Sicut se habet mobile ad mobile, ita motor ad motorem. Ergo ut corpus ad corpus, sic anima se habet ad animam. Itaque corpora seiuncta inter se per situm, naturam, figuram, quantitatem motumque et speciem seiunctam habent et animam; coniuncta vero, coniunctam. Una tamen est super singulas mundi anima. Unius enim viventis opificis unum debet esse opus vivens.
Non est unum vivens nisi per vitam unam. Non habet unam vitam nisi unam habeat animam.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book IV
p. 323Because this restoration is bounded by something else and always directed along a single path, it clearly shows us that the parts of the elements are in no way set in motion by themselves. For then they would also come to rest of their own accord, and would not always travel the same path. Water, too, could sometimes fail to cool the neighboring air.
Or it could fail to flow down a precipice. Even if the souls of the spheres always preserve the same course, we must not suppose that lesser souls—that is, the powers proper to the elemental parts, if such powers dwell within them as movers—would preserve an order of this kind, since our own souls do not.
The growth of plants and stones, however, comes from the soul of the earth; for that reason they grow only so long as they cling to the earth. The bodies of beasts and human beings live apart from the spheres because they possess souls of their own.
Their form shows this, furnished as it is with various organs wholly unlike the form of the spheres; so too does their constitution, which is altogether foreign to the constitution of the spheres. As one thing moved is related to another, so one mover is related to another. Thus, as body stands to body, so soul stands to soul. Bodies separated from one another by place, nature, form, quantity, motion, and species accordingly have separate souls; bodies joined together have a soul joined together. Yet above all the individual spheres of the world there is one soul. For one living maker ought to have one living work.
No living being is one except through one life; and it does not have one life unless it has one soul.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book IV · IV.1.76–IV.1.80
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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.