From the book
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordCalefacere means to heat; calor is heat; praeparatio is a material’s preparation or disposition to receive an effect.
- In the Platonic TheologyFire supplies a deliberately limited agent.
- In this editionThe supplied English’s “same intensity” and “every degree” should be read with the qualification “so far as lies in it.”
- A place to readRecipient preparations account for unequal degrees of heating.
Meaning
Calefacere means to heat; calor is heat; praeparatio is a material’s preparation or disposition to receive an effect. Se toto says that an agent acts with its whole being, whereas quantum in se est means so far as depends on it.
Use in the book
Fire supplies a deliberately limited agent. Ficino says it heats with its available impetus and does not decide which recipient shall acquire which degree of heat. Different results arise from differences in materials or intervening media. With equal subjects it produces equal heat; without any diversity of medium or subject it would produce either one result or highly similar results. God, by contrast, produces the forms, subjects, differences, and their order. The inference requires this contrast between causing an effect and being author of the conditions that differentiate effects. Ficino does not argue that ordinary fires always make every encountered object equally hot. His own qualification assigns observed inequality to the prepared recipients. Heat and cold return in the providence chapter as powers whose dissolving and condensing do not by themselves explain useful, measured coordination.
Selected annotated passages.
Places to read
- II.11.8Recipient preparations account for unequal degrees of heating.
- II.11.9The equal-subject and absent-medium cases isolate the natural agent’s contribution.
- II.13.7Heat dissolves and cold condenses within the historical physical account.
- II.13.8Useful coordination requires a further source of order.
Translation in this edition
The supplied English’s “same intensity” and “every degree” should be read with the qualification “so far as lies in it.” These are Ficino’s causal and physical claims, not a modern experimental account of heat transfer. Praeparationes does not necessarily imply a human preparer.
comburere / calefacere
comburere / calefacere. Printed forms: calefacit; calefiat; comburendum.
Burn / make hot. The burning or heating example isolates a natural agent determined to its characteristic work. References: II.11.7, II.11.8. See Fire and variable materials.
dissolvere / condensare
dissolvere / condensare. Printed forms: condensat; dissolvit.
Dissolve / condense. The historical physical account assigns these opposing operations to heat and cold; their useful measure requires further explanation. References: II.13.7. See Fire and variable materials.
impetus
impetus. Printed forms: impetu.
Impetus or force of directed activity. Nature acts with its whole impetus, so differences of heat require differing recipients rather than decisions made by fire. References: II.11.8. See Fire and variable materials.
praeparatio
praeparatio. Printed forms: praeparationibus.
Preparation or receptive disposition. The differing preparations of materials explain unequal degrees of heating. The word does not require a human preparer. References: II.11.8. See Fire and variable materials.
se toto
se toto. Printed forms: se toto.
With the whole of its being. This describes the natural agent’s undivided exertion, not uniformity of every result regardless of the recipient. References: II.11.9, II.13.7. See Fire and variable materials.
sublatus
sublatus. Printed forms: Sublata.
Removed or taken away. Removing diversity of media and materials supplies a hypothetical test of the agent’s own contribution. References: II.11.9. See Fire and variable materials.
tenor
tenor. Printed forms: tenore.
A consistent course or manner. Eodem semper tenore describes fire’s uniform manner of heating in the limited causal model. References: II.11.8. See Fire and variable materials.