Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

6Or lastly, the human soul is something divine: an indivisible reality, present as a whole to every part of the body, and produced by an incorporeal author in such a way that it depends solely upon the power of the agent, not upon any beginning, capacity, or tinder within matter. So the ancient theologians teach us—Zoroaster, Hermes, Orpheus, Aglaophemus, Pythagoras, and Plato—whose footsteps Aristotle the natural philosopher follows for the most part. Beyond these five positions no others are to be found. Only when you have rejected the preceding four and approved the last will you have shown that immortality belongs to us. For then it will be established that our soul is placed in the order of the third essence. Nor does this seem so to me alone. You will remember, I think, that some days ago, when we reclined at dinner in the home of your Bernardo Bembo, a distinguished knight and at present an orator of the Venetian senate, the same conclusion commended itself to Antonio Cronico of Venice and Demetrius of Attica, two exceedingly acute disputants. It was soon afterward reached in the same way by Richard Angellerius of Anghiari and Oliviero Arduino of Florence, eminent Peripatetics, in the presence of three learned friends: Naldo Naldi, Bartolomeo Fonzio, and Giovanni Battista Boninsegni. It is also the judgment of our Pier Leone of Spoleto, who has most brilliantly joined Platonic teachings to Peripatetic ones.’ Thus Giovanni spoke, and I answered him as follows.