Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

10Almighty God commands this above all. The human condition absolutely demands it. The heavenly Plato once readily accomplished it for his own people, with God inspiring him. At last we too have undertaken it for our own people in this laborious work, imitating Plato indeed but relying solely upon divine aid. May we have brought it to completion with truth equal to the reverence for divine truth with which we have treated it, so that we wish nothing whatsoever to be approved by us except as divine law approves it.

11Yet I judged that the work itself should be dedicated above all to you, magnanimous Lorenzo—not that I might disclose philosophical matters to you, matters you have long discussed so ably that I seem about to publish the secrets of the ancients not so much for you, who by a marvelous power of mind have already seen and mastered them, as for others. Rather, I dedicate it because through your beneficence we too have obtained the leisure in which we could philosophize more readily, and because our Plato seems likely to rejoice greatly in this duty of ours toward you: for you have yourself united philosophy with the highest authority in public affairs, the very union that he once desired above all in great men.