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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Latin Page · Branch 42 of 174
Book I · Chapter 6 · §§ 7–9
Latin
p. 86Praeterea quemadmodum se habet tuus oculus ad corpus tuum, sic tua mens ad animam tuam. Est enim mens tua animae tuae oculus. Rursus quemadmodum se habet lumen solis ad oculum corporis, sic veritatis lumen ad animae oculum. Itaque sicut oculus corporis non est lumen, sed virtus luminis capax, ita mens quae est oculus animae non est veritas, licet capiat veritatem. Mens enim tua veritatem quaerit. Non tamen quaerit se ipsam veritas, neque admittit veritas falsum, per quod saepe tuus animus fallitur.
Finge animo oculum tuum usque adeo excrescere, ut totum occupet tuum corpus et, sublata varia membrorum specie, universum corpus unus sit oculus. Si amplus hic oculus videbit quicquam, non aliud certe videbit quam lumen idem solis quod angustus dum erat prospiciebat. Verum accipiet lumen idem uberius et colores corporum in ipso lumine conspiciet undique, uno prospectu simul omnes, neque vertetur huc aut illuc ut videat, sed quiescendo omnes pariter contuebitur. Aliud tamen adhuc lumen erit, aliud oculus. Si enim visus ad lumen comprehendendum est institutus, aliud visus est, aliud lumen. Et lumini nihil est opus visu, cum ipsi lumini nihil sit luminis capiendum.
Finge iterum mentem tuam usque adeo super animam invalescere, ut deletis reliquis animae partibus ad phantasiam, sensum, generationemque pertinentibus, tota anima mens una sit atque sola. Haec mens sola puraque relicta angelus erit. Haec, inquam, mens ampla eandem veritatem intuebitur quam angusta mens viderat, sed accipiet illam uberius, atque in ea res omnes veras unico intuitu conspiciet, ut Platonice loquar, neque modo unam aucupabitur, modo aliam. Aliud tamen adhuc mens erit, aliud veritas. Quod sic aperit Zoroaster: μάνθανε τὸ νοητὸν, ἐπεὶ ἔξω νόου ὑπάρχει, id est: scito intelligibile ipsum esse extra mentem.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book I
p. 87Moreover, as your eye is related to your body, so your mind is related to your soul; for your mind is the eye of your soul. Again, as the light of the sun is related to the bodily eye, so the light of truth is related to the eye of the soul. Thus, just as the bodily eye is not light but a power capable of receiving light, so the mind, which is the eye of the soul, is not truth, although it apprehends truth. Your mind seeks truth; yet truth does not seek itself, nor does truth admit the falsehood by which your soul is so often deceived.
Imagine your eye growing until it occupies your entire body and, once the varied form of its members has been removed, your whole body becomes a single eye. If this vast eye sees anything, it will surely see nothing other than the same light of the sun that it beheld while it was narrow. Yet it will receive that same light more abundantly and will see the colors of bodies everywhere within the light itself—all of them at once in a single view. It will not turn this way or that in order to see, but, remaining at rest, will behold them all together. The light will nevertheless still be one thing and the eye another. For if sight was instituted to comprehend light, sight is one thing and light another. Nor does light have any need of sight, since light itself has no light that it needs to receive.
Imagine again your mind growing so powerful over your soul that, once the soul's other parts—those belonging to imagination, sense, and generation—have been removed, the whole soul becomes one mind and nothing else. This mind, left alone and pure, will be an angel. This vast mind, I say, will behold the same truth that the narrow mind had seen, but it will receive that truth more abundantly and behold within it all true things in a single intuition—to speak as a Platonist—rather than hunting now for one, now for another. Mind will nevertheless still be one thing and truth another. Zoroaster makes this plain: μάνθανε τὸ νοητὸν, ἐπεὶ ἔξω νόου ὑπάρχει—that is, ‘Know that the intelligible itself exists outside the mind.’
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book I · I.6.7–I.6.9
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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.