From the book
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordTrahere draws; rapere seizes or carries rapidly; revocare calls back.
- In the Platonic TheologyThe Platonist account attributes rising and falling elemental bodies to the soul of their proper sphere, which recalls its particles as a magnet draws iron.
- In this edition“Calls...
- A place to readdiamond and magnet occur in the separate mineral-power argument
Meaning
Trahere draws; rapere seizes or carries rapidly; revocare calls back. These verbs distinguish active attraction from the moved body's apparent self-motion. A magnes is the magnet and ferrum the iron drawn by it.
Use in the book
The Platonist account attributes rising and falling elemental bodies to the soul of their proper sphere, which recalls its particles as a magnet draws iron. The alleged increasing speed near the appropriate sphere is explained by stronger near attraction and by the cooperating world-soul. Ficino then changes from the physical analogy to an epistemic one: someone who saw moving iron but not its magnet would suppose the iron moved itself. Likewise, ignorance of sphere-souls invites a mistaken assignment of self-motion to bodies.
This analogy must not be confused with the earlier claim that a diamond defeats magnetic attraction. That is a natural-lore example of a mineral's extraordinary power; this is an account of the difference between an unseen cause and no cause. The comparison also preserves the distinction between the local soul of a sphere and the one world-soul, since both are named as drawing toward the same destination.
Places to read
- IV.1.20diamond and magnet occur in the separate mineral-power argument
- IV.1.74attraction explains the recall of elemental parts and the hidden-magnet thought experiment
- IV.1.75–7723fixed paths and limits are used to deny independent self-motion to elemental parts
Translation in this edition
“Calls... back,” “seizes,” and “draws” preserve the variety of the Latin verbs. “Would think” in the imagined observer's inference marks an error explained by incomplete evidence, not an endorsed account of iron's motion.
magnes / ferrum
magnes / ferrum. Printed forms: ferrum; magnes; magnetem.
Magnet and iron. Attraction illustrates the sphere's recall of parts and how an unseen mover can be mistaken for bodily self-motion. References: IV.1.74. See Hidden mover and magnet.
revocare / rapere
revocare / rapere. Printed forms: rapiat; revocat.
To call back; to seize or draw strongly. The sphere-soul recalls its parts, and greater near attraction is invoked to explain increased speed. References: IV.1.74. See Hidden mover and magnet.