Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.
A DIOTIMOS BILINGUAL EDITION
MARSILIO FICINO
Platonic Theology
On the Immortality of Souls
VOLUME II
Books V-VIII
Latin reading text with an independent English translation
DIOTIMOS EDITION PROJECT
Florence 1482 base witness | Paris 1559 collating witness
Production text organized by stable comparison units
Edition and source statement
This volume contains Books V-VIII of Marsilio Ficino's Platonic Theology. The Latin source work is in the public domain. No modern copyrighted edition, translation, apparatus, or paragraphing is used as production text.
The Latin reading text is independently established from the Florence 1482 editio princeps (M1482), collated against the Paris 1559 printing (G1559). The Paris 1641 Opera printing is used only as a late control. Abbreviations are expanded, routine orthography and punctuation are conservatively normalized, and consequential readings are recorded in the apparatus. The English translation is independently worded in the Diotimos Volume I voice.
The English preserves Ficino's argumentative sequence, metaphors, technical distinctions, repetitions, conditions, purposes, and qualifications while smoothing syntax only where clear modern English requires it. Stable comparison anchors are editorial and appear on both sides of every synchronized spread.
DIGITAL SOURCE RECORDS
M1482 https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00066894-9
G1559 https://patrimoniodigital.ucm.es/s/patrimonio/item/645358
P1641 https://archive.org/details/BIUSante_01177x01
Volume II contents
Book V · 7
V.1 Every rational soul is immortal. First argument: because it moves itself and moves in a circle. · 8
V.2 Second argument: because it stands firm in its substance. · 12
V.3 Third argument: because it cleaves to divine things. · 14
V.4 Fourth argument: because it rules over matter. · 16
V.5 Fifth argument: because it is free from matter. · 26
V.6 Sixth argument: because it is indivisible. · 32
V.7 Seventh argument: because it has its being in its own essence. · 34
V.8 Eighth argument: because it has a being of its own and never departs from its form. · 38
V.9 Ninth argument: because being belongs to it in its own right. · 46
V.10 Tenth argument: because by its own nature it is related to God. · 54
V.11 Eleventh argument: because it is not composed of any potency into which it could be resolved. · 60
V.12 Twelfth argument: because it has within itself no potency toward non-being. · 68
V.13 Thirteenth argument: because it receives its being from God without an intermediary. · 78
V.14 Fourteenth argument: because it is life in itself. · 94
V.15 Fifteenth argument: because life is more excellent than body. · 104
Book VI · 127
VI.1 The views concerning the soul are reduced to five principal positions. · 128
VI.2 Philosophers of the common sort, persuaded by no argument but misled by corrupt habit, held that the soul was corporeal. · 134
VI.3 The soul is neither a body nor a form divided within a body, as its natural power shows. · 168
VI.4 First argument: because the soul is the principle of nourishment and of every other mode of action. · 170
VI.5 Second argument: the soul is neither an animate body nor an inanimate one. · 174
VI.6 Third argument: the soul is neither a gross body nor a subtle one. · 178
VI.7 Fourth argument: a body is composed of matter and form. · 182
VI.8 Fifth argument: a body is by nature dispersed. · 186
VI.9 Sixth argument: two bodies do not occupy the same place. · 190
VI.10 Seventh argument: a body is not wholly present in several places at once. · 196
VI.11 Eighth argument: the soul is life or the source of life. · 198
VI.12 Ninth argument: a body does not move itself. · 202
VI.13 Tenth argument: the soul does not increase with the growth of this body. · 222
Volume II contents continued
Book VII · 231
VII.1 First argument. A body does not receive images suited to sensation. · 232
VII.2 Second argument. The five senses must be brought together at a single center. · 238
VII.3 Third argument. The more confined the sense, the keener it is. · 242
VII.4 Fourth argument. If the faculty of sensation is divisible, the sensible image within it will be divided. · 244
VII.5 Fifth argument. The soul as a whole senses everywhere. · 248
VII.6 Sixth argument. The soul is not necessarily acted upon in sensing. · 256
VII.7 Seventh argument. Arguments drawn specifically from the soul's natural and sensitive power show that the soul is not a divisible form, since a quality has a single operation. · 262
VII.8 Eighth argument. A bodily constitution acts through the power of its qualities. · 264
VII.9 Ninth argument. A bodily constitution is an accidental form. · 266
VII.10 Tenth argument. The harmony of a bodily constitution produces no effect upon the body. · 270
VII.11 Eleventh argument. There is harmony in every composite body. · 272
VII.12 Twelfth argument. Harmony is understood either as the composition of the parts itself or as some proportion within that composition. · 274
VII.13 Thirteenth argument. A harmony of the humors receives nothing apart from matter. · 276
VII.14 Fourteenth argument. The greater a thing's concord, the more fully it is a harmony. · 278
VII.15 Fifteenth argument. Harmony admits nothing discordant. · 280
Book VIII · 283
VIII.1 The soul ascends through four stages to spirit. First argument. · 284
VIII.2 The soul is nourished by truth. Second argument. · 294
VIII.3 Third argument. Because the soul's virtue is indivisible, it cannot be a quality of a body. · 306
VIII.4 Fourth argument. Neither an intelligible form nor an intelligible conception can be received by a body. · 316
VIII.5 Fifth argument. If the mind is a body, it understands by touching things and by traversing them. · 338
VIII.6 Sixth argument. Whatever the intellect receives, it receives with its whole self; it would not do so if it were bodily. · 342
VIII.7 Seventh argument. In receiving the forms of things, the intellect does not lose its own form; bodies do. · 344
VIII.8 Eighth argument. A form in the mind is universal; such a form cannot exist in a body. · 346
VIII.9 Ninth argument. Minds embrace one another; bodies do no such thing. · 348
VIII.10 Tenth argument. The mind acts through all bodies and beyond them. · 350
VIII.11 Eleventh argument. The mind advances through stillness, the body through motion. · 354
VIII.12 Twelfth argument. Things contrary in matter are not contrary in the mind. · 356
VIII.13 Thirteenth argument. The mind is not changed when it receives forms. · 358
VIII.14 Fourteenth argument. A body's activity tends toward a composite thing; the mind's activity, toward simple things. · 362
VIII.15 Fifteenth argument. The mind's action has its end in action; a body's action, in a body. · 364
VIII.16 Sixteenth argument. A bodily form does not possess infinite power; the mind does. · 370
Text translation and anchors
Facing pages
Latin appears on the verso and the corresponding English on the facing recto. Matching anchors identify the same comparison units across each spread.
Editorial divisions
Units ordinarily follow paragraph signs in the 1482 base witness. A source paragraph is divided only at a genuine logical joint when necessary for accurate comparison, and every such division is disclosed in the locator register.
Translation
The English follows the voice established in Diotimos Volume I: dignified and readable, faithful to the full logical sequence, imagery, technical vocabulary, qualifications, and rhetoric of the Latin.
Apparatus
The closing pages record consequential witness readings, interpretive notes, and a source locator for every comparison unit.