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 37 of 174
Book I · Chapter 5 · §§ 22–24
Latin
p. 76Quasi qui suspicabatur ne forte mentes illae secundum actionem suam propriam praecipuamque, id est intelligentiam, potius quam secundum actionem communem atque posteriorem, id est motum, essent dinumerandae. Praeterea cum illae sint motionum fines, forte vaticinabatur non esse ad motionum numerum numerandas. Atque posse mentes esse quam plurimas quae non sint movendis corporibus distributae.
Quamobrem non iniuria angelos esse paene innumeros et supra significavimus et in praesentia sic ostendimus. Si species rerum naturalium in materia, quamvis in subiecto angusteque sint, tamen inter se non per subiectum sed per se distinguuntur, atque in numerum quam plurimum dilatantur, multo magis substantiae ipsae quae super materiam in se ipsis vivunt per se ipsas distinctae sunt, atque mira quadam absoluti generis sui fecunditate in species quasi innumeras prorsus amplificatae.
Praeterea intelligibile genus suapte natura magis multiplicabile quam corporeum esse videtur. Siquidem numeri, dimensiones, figurae, proportiones, raritas corporum, velocitas motionum in ipsis corporibus semper terminata sunt, in mente tamen absque termino pro arbitrio protenduntur. Rursus quae in materia particularia sunt in mente universalia fiunt. Denique intellectus ultra corpora cuncta alia pro arbitrio innumera tam incorporea quam corporea cogitat.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book I
p. 77He was like one who suspected that those minds ought perhaps to be numbered according to their own proper and principal activity—that is, understanding—rather than according to their common and secondary activity, namely motion. Moreover, since they are the ends of the motions, perhaps he foresaw that they should not be numbered according to the number of motions, and that there could be a great many minds not assigned to the task of moving bodies.
For this reason it was not without cause that we indicated above that angels are almost innumerable, and we now demonstrate it as follows. If the species of natural things in matter, although they exist in a subject and in a restricted way, are nevertheless distinguished from one another not through their subject but through themselves, and extend into the greatest possible number, then all the more are those very substances which live above matter in themselves distinct through themselves and enlarged into virtually innumerable species by a wondrous fecundity belonging to their absolute kind.
Moreover, the intelligible kind appears by its own nature to be more capable of multiplication than the corporeal. Numbers, dimensions, shapes, proportions, the rarity of bodies, and the speed of motions are always bounded in bodies themselves, yet in the mind they are extended at will without limit. Again, things that are particular in matter become universal in the mind. Finally, beyond all bodies the intellect thinks at will of countless other things, incorporeal as well as corporeal.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book I · I.5.22–I.5.24
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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.