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 wordReferre carries or refers something back; reducere leads back; redigere brings into a state or reduces to a principle.
- In the Platonic TheologyThe Proem tells the reader that the mind should refer to God all that it receives from God, and depicts Plato as leading every subject back to divine contemplation and worship.
- In this edition“Lead back,” “reduce,” “return,” “reproduce” and “turn” must be read with their objects.
- A place to readReference back to God governs the programme of philosophy
Meaning
Referre carries or refers something back; reducere leads back; redigere brings into a state or reduces to a principle. Reverti returns, and converti turns toward. “Reduction” here usually concerns explanatory order, not destruction or a reduction in physical size.
Use in the book
The Proem tells the reader that the mind should refer to God all that it receives from God, and depicts Plato as leading every subject back to divine contemplation and worship. Later the argument “reduces” each kind to an indivisible principle, connects lower movers to higher stable ones, and returns from an excursus to the immediate question. These are different operations joined by a directional vocabulary. At the close of Book I, all things’ conversion toward the Good supplies evidence, according to Ficino, of their procession from that same source: origin and goal are coordinated. This theological claim should not be inferred from every ordinary referre. In I.2.12, effects “reproduce” their causes through qualities: here referunt concerns resemblance, not a spiritual return.
Places to read
- Proem.1–323Reference back to God governs the programme of philosophy
- I.2.12Referunt describes qualitative likeness of effects to causes
- I.3.14Reduction identifies principles within different kinds
- I.4.3Revertamur signals a return to the question after a supporting argument
- I.6.16Conversion toward the Good is correlated with procession from it
Translation in this edition
“Lead back,” “reduce,” “return,” “reproduce” and “turn” must be read with their objects. A single invariant translation would conceal the differences between worship, resemblance, explanatory ordering and argumentative navigation.
reducere / redigere
reducere / redigere. Printed forms: redigatur; reducatur; reducuntur.
To refer or reduce to a principle. Different kinds are led to their indivisible limiting principle; reduction here does not mean eliminating the things explained. References: I.3.14. See Returning, referring and reducing.
revertamur ad quaestionem
revertamur ad quaestionem. Printed forms: ad quaestionem hic propositam revertamur.
Let us return to the question proposed here. The phrase returns from the persistence test to whether the immediate cause of moving qualities is wholly immobile. References: I.4.3. See Returning, referring and reducing.