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 99 of 174
Book II · Chapter 11 · §§ 37–38
Latin
p. 200Cum vero et Deus sit intellectualis et bonitas eius intelligibilis, intellectuali dilectione diligit eam. Dilectio huiusmodi in voluntate versatur. Deus igitur vult se ipsum. Vult, inquam, se tamquam finem sui ipsius et omnium. Ex voluntate autem finis provenit operatio circa illa quae diriguntur ad finem.
Quapropter divina voluntas, ut Plato in Timaeo inquit, creaturarum omnium est initium. Idem apud Mercurium Trismegistrum saepissime legitur. Putat enim principium universi perfectissimum actionis modum habere debere, id est, ut voluntate sua omnino sit effectionis dominus, qui omnino est dominus effectorum, dominus, inquam, libera voluntate disponens. Nam si necessitate vel naturae vel intelligentiae ageret, ageret simul omnia atque infinita simul, singula quoque cogeret et momento raptaret.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book II
p. 201Since God is intellectual and his goodness intelligible, he loves it with intellectual love. Love of this kind belongs to the will. Therefore God wills himself. He wills himself, I say, as the end of himself and of all things. From the willing of an end comes activity concerning the things directed toward that end.
Therefore the divine will, as Plato says in the Timaeus, is the beginning of all creatures. The same is very often read in Mercury Trismegistus. For he holds that the principle of the universe must possess the most perfect mode of action: namely, that through its own will it be entirely master of production, since it is entirely master of its effects—master, I say, disposing them by free will. For if it acted by the necessity of either nature or intelligence, it would produce all things at once and infinitely many things at once; it would also compel each thing and sweep it along in an instant.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book II · II.11.37–II.11.38
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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.