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Ficino's Platonic Theology

Platonic Theology by Marsilio Ficino, [Theologia Platonica. English & Latin]Englishtranslation by Michael J.B. Allen with John Warden; Latin text edited by James Hankins withWilliam Bowen. Includes bibliographical references and index (The I Tatti Renaissancelibrary; 2: Harvard University Press) Contents:Volume 1. Books I–IV .Volume 2. Books V–VIII .Volume 3. Books IX–XI .Volume 4. Books XII–XIV . Volume 5 Books XV–XVI .

Volume 6. Books XVII-XVIII .

This is six-volume edition and translation of Ficino's eighteen-book Platonic Theology. Thefinal volume includes Ficino’s brief Introduction or argumentum which was probably writtenas a report about the work in progress (see Note on the Text). As in the previous volumes,Michael Allen is responsible for the English translation and notes, and James Hankins for editing the Latin text, though each has gone over the other's work. While some corrections tothe first five volumes have come to their attention and are listed in the Corrigenda in the finalvolume, it is predictable that other scholars will eventually enrich our understanding of thismonumental work's varied sources and debts, particularly, one suspects, to Aristotle,Augustine, Proclus, Averroes, and the Scholastics, as they look beyond the network of

identifications attempted here.

They gave us the courage to begin what we knew would be a long and arduous climb up oneof the loftiest peaks of Renaissance thought. The result for us at least has been an alpine viewof horizons as far as Mt. Ventoux, of reasoning's escarpments and faith's plunging ravines.Our hope now is that others will explore this whole magnificent terrain.

As the structure of the Platonic Theology is only partly reflected in its book and chapter divisions, so the translators provided an outline of the work's overall plan in the 6 th finalvolume, following for the most part cues given in the text itself.

Review of volume one

This present volume of PLATONIC THEOLOGY is the first of five planned volumes:Volume 2 will contain books 5-8; Volume 3, books 9-12; Volume 4, books 13-15; andVolume 5, books 16-18, along with some attendant texts. Each volume will contain its ownnotes and index of names, and the final volume will include a comprehensive index of namesand subjects, an index of sources, and a concordance to the Basel edition of 1576 and theedition of Marcel.

Platonic Theology: Books 1-4 is a visionary work of the Florentine scholar-philosopher-

magus, Marsilio Ficino, who was largely responsible for the Renaissance revival of Plato. Astudent of the Neoplatonic schools of Plotinus and Proclus, Ficino was committed to

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reconciling Platonism with Christianity, in the hope that such a reconciliation would initiate aspiritual revival and a return of the golden age. Of all of Ficino's writings, none had a greater impact than PLATONIC THEOLOGY , which contains Ficino's philosophy of the soul in its

purest form.

The great philosopher and "doctor of souls" Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) was the mostimportant intellectual figure in the circle of Lorenzo de'Medici during the apogee of theFlorentine Renaissance. After studying medicine and philosophy and preparing for the

priesthood, he undertook to learn Greek. With encouragement from the Italian banker andstatesman Cosimo de'Medici, Lorenzo's grandfather, Ficino made the first completetranslation of Plato's writings into Latin (1463-69) and translated as well other central worksof ancient Platonism, including the works of Plotinus and Dionysius the Areopagite. Ficinodevoted his life to reviving the philosophy of Plato and gathered around him a group of distinguished disciples and devotees sometimes referred to as the "Florentine Academy." He

believed that study of the writings of Plato would lead to a renewal and transformation of Christianity, and would help individuals acquire greater awareness of the soul within themand a deeper connection to the world of nature without.

Of all of Ficino's writings, none had a greater impact than PLATONIC THEOLOGY . Writtenin the early 1470s, it was the first major system of theology in the Western traditionconstructed primarily around the study of the soul. A product of its Renaissance Italian and, in

particular, Florentine context, it is a bold, sophisticated attempt to appropriate the therapeutictradition in ancient philosophy for the intellectuals, the forward wits of the FlorentineRepublic, and its governing elites. In forming an extended argument for the immortality of thehuman soul, Platonic Theology is a complex blend of medieval scholastic philosophy,Augustinianism, and late ancient Platonism, and draws as well upon more esoteric magicaland astrological sources such as Hermes Trismegistus. Ficino considered Platonic Theologyto be his magnum opus and it is considered by many modern scholars to be the mostcharacteristic work of Renaissance philosophy.

The turn to metaphysics thus made Florentine Platonism a phenomenon unique in the historyof philosophy. Of the factors that led to this development, the weightiest was perhaps the needto formulate a religious creed which was broader than that of medieval Latin Christianity.This need was felt at Florence in a special way. From the time of Cosimo de' Medici thehorizons of the city were no longer limited to the Italian peninsula. Her growing fleet and

profitable Turkish trade made her increasingly a challenge to the interests of Venice in theLevant. The Council of Florence had made the city the meeting-place of eastern and western

religious convictions - as Cosimo had foreseen when he brought ought the Council to the city.The sight - in the streets and squares of the c it -of richly attired eastern dignitaries and bearded Byzantine prelates attended by by Moslem and Moorish servants gave the question of the agreement between philosophy and religion a new urgency.

The traditional scholastic metaphysics of being, which had experienced a rebirth because of the outcome of the Council of Basle, was incapable of meeting this challenge. The victory of the papacy over conciliarism was accompanied by a narrowing of the Catholic vision and areturn to an official metaphysics meant to supply a guarantee for the Latin clergy, view of itself as the unique interpreter of revelation. On the other hand, the nominalism whichflourished in northern universities, by denying the possibility of man's knowledge of universal

concepts, rendered any port philosophical justification of revealed doctrines - doctrines likethat of t immortality of the human soul -impossible. At the same time, t Averroist

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Aristotelianism that had grown up in Italy had a secular character and tended to disregard thereligious dimension in philosophical problems. Although the professors in the arts facultieshad come increasingly to concern themselves with questions like that of man's immortality,the orientation of their teaching was towards the study of medicine and paid little attention toecclesiastical concerns. Furthermore, their treatment of the problem of the soul was not able

to meet the exalted demands of the Renaissance idea of man's transcendent dignity since thedoctrine of the soul belonged, in accordance with the Aristotelian classification of thesciences, not to the science of immaterial reality but to physics.

An approach was needed which avoided the fideism of the nominalists, the secularism of theAverroists and the clericalism behind the Christian Aristotelianism of the Thomists. Becauseof the notion that the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle were opposed, Ficino sought analternative to these Aristotelianisms in Platonic metaphysics, he proposed a very subtlereading of Plato, a reading that not only insisted - as Pletho and Bessarion had done - on the

basic agreement between Christian theology and the philosophical tradition to which Plato belonged, but also stressed in accord with the Hermetica - the harmony of cosmic processesand the animate nature of the universe. For Ficino God is the One beyond being. He is the

perfect Truth who collects into the ineffable simplicity of his own nature the endlessmultiplicity of the ideal archetypes of things. He is the infinite Good who diffuses himself inall things and remains present, more interior to them than they are to themselves. The universethat emanates from God constitutes a hierarchy in which each being has its place according toits degree of perfection, a hierarchy descending through the orders of angelic minds andrational souls to corporeal forms and unformed matter. God pours the ideas of all things intothe angelic mind. Mind generates the reasons for governing things in soul. Soul generatesforms in matter. The entire cosmos is an active, living being. Its Soul possesses as manyseminal reasons as there are ideas in Mind. By way of these reasons Soul generates the formsof material things. The world-soul is united to the body of the world by spirit, a fifth, etherealessence, containing all the qualities of the four elements. Through spirit the divine power

passes from the celestial spheres to the sublunar world. The human soul, thus situated between time and eternity, participates in the nature of the universal soul. Like the world-soul,it is joined to a corruptible body by the unifying power of spirit, the soul's ethereal vehicle andimmortal garment, the seat of imagination and the instrument of perception and bodilymovement. Man is a microcosm, imitating God with unity, the angels with mind, soul withreason, brute animals with sensation, plants with nutrition and inanimate things simple being.He is the true bond of all things, the knot tying the world together, who can ascend in thoughtfrom the forms evident to the senses to the world-soul, from the seminal reasons in Soul toMind and from the ideas in Mind to the Good itself.

Ficino's attempt to formulate a Platonic metaphysics which would support the Christiandoctrine of God ran counter to the Thomistic apologetics which the papacy had made its ownafter the Council of Basle, Ficino's diffidence saved him from condemnation. In spite - or

perhaps because - of the originality of his project, Ficino seems to have been very hesitantabout the reception his ideas would find. Not only did he take a great deal of time to completehis translations and commentaries, but the publication of his works was often long delayedafter their completion. He seems especially to have wanted to have his project seen not assomething new, but rather as continuing a long tradition of Platonism. Towards the end of hislife, in a letter to a friend who had requested instruction about Platonic philosophy, he soughtto relate his writings to a distinguished line of Latin Platonists: Augustine, Boethius,

Chalcidius and Macrobius in the patristic period; Henry of Ghent and Duns Scotus among themedievals. He presented his versions of Plato and Platonist authors as supplementing the

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medieval translations of Pseudo-Dionysius, the Liber de causis, Avicebron and Avicenna, aswell as the translations of Proclus made by Moerbeke in the thirteenth century. In his list of Platonic works he included both Bessarion's In calumniatorem and `quaedam speculationes' of

Nicholas of Cusa, wanting apparently to have these two cardinals appear as underwriting theorthodoxy of his own approach. The omissions he makes in the letter lead to the same

conclusion. No mention is made of Origen or Pletho, of Lull or the writers of the School of Chartres, no doubt because of scholastic reservations about their teaching.

It was certainly for a different reason that Ficino made no reference to Thomas Aquinas inthis history. In his Theologia platonica he had used Thomas' Contra gentiles extensively andextended, as Thomas had done, the Aristotelian notions of act and potency to explain thefinitude of participated being. Both he and Thomas wanted to show the fundamentalagreement between philosophy and Christian doctrine, but their approaches differed radically.Although Thomas had made much use of Neoplatonic sources, he tended increasingly todistance himself from the platonici as the incompatibility between Platonic philosophy andthe apologetics he had based on Aristotle became clear to him. He had sought to show thatrevelation was necessary because, although philosophy could demonstrate the existence of God and man's immortality, knowledge of God's essence and man's true destiny was beyondits comprehension and belonged to the realm of supernatural theology. It was this separationof philosophy from theology that had made scholasticism abstract and intellectualistic and ledto the introduction-so repugnant to the Byzantines at the Council of Florence-of `cosmic' or worldly questions into the salvific science of theology.

Ficino's intention was to substitute `Platonic theology' for this `Christian philosophy'. Againstthe Thomists of the period following the Council of Basle, whose Aristotelianism was aimedat supplying reasons for submission to papal authority, he sought to provide `Platonic reasons'supporting Christianity, for those-not only Latin and Byzantine Christians, but also TurkishMoslems - who could not accept a religion on authority alone .59 He saw the Platonictheology he proposed as a pre-Christian adumbration of supernatural revelation. Just as Godhad granted to the Hebrews the wisdom which Moses brought down from Sinai, so also heraised up among the pagans philosophers like Hermes Trismegistus, Orpheus, Zoroaster andPythagoras who had anticipated-however partially-the truths of the Christian faith. Plato wasthe Attic Moses who inherited this pristine theology. Far from separating philosophy andreligion, Plato brought together in his own person both the philosopher and the priest.Although he remained on the level of the Mosaic law, his teaching foreshadowed Christianrevelation. He was able, moreover, to support his teaching with Pythagorean and Socraticreasons accessible to all men. The Platonic theology was therefore a religious doctrine

inherent in man's nature. Although it had - like Judaism - been irrevocably superseded byChristianity, it offered the best introduction to the religion which had been supernaturallyrevealed to man in Christ. Its true heirs were John the Evangelist, Dionysius the Areopagiteand Augustine. The later platonici Plotinus in a preeminent way -had penetrated into many of the secrets of Plato's text, but, in the final analysis, they represented a heretical current inPlatonism that left the main stream after it had become Christian. Because they did notrecognize the equality of the word with God, they were unable to understand the myth of thePhaedrus. Behind Plato's charioteer was Christ himself, leading angels and men to God. Christis the world-soul in whom all individual human souls participate. It is his Incarnation thatmakes man the knot, the link, holding the world together. Ficino concluded with a newdynamic understanding of the idea that man is the imago Dei: God became man so that man

might become God.

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The Neoplatonic inspiration of this world-view is evident. Following Plotinus’ division of reality into a hierarchical series of realms or spheres of being emanating from a transcendentOne, Ficino proposed a set of five ontological hypostases: the One, Mind, Soul, Quality(forms in matter) and Body. As in Plotinus, Ficino's metaphysics centred on the relationshipof man to the divine, that is, of Soul to the One, a relationship mediated by the

intelligible-intellectual world of the ideal archetypes of things, that is, by Mind. Nevertheless,Ficino made profound changes in this Platonic theology. His God is not the absolutelyimpersonal One, who, blessed in his solitude, cares not for the world which proceeds fromhim. Ficino's God is a personal God who knows himself and all things in himself as their firstcause. Although he saw an anticipation of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity to Plato's triadof unity, truth and goodness in the act of creation, Ficino rejected any attempt to assimilatePlotinus' first three hypostases to the Father, Son and Spirit of Christian theology. BecauseMind, which is the corner-stone of Plotinus' metaphysics, is not of the same substance as theOne, but rather subordinate to it-as is also Soul to Mind -Ficino broke with the Plotinianconcept, assigning some of Mind's attributes to God, others to the angels. In his view, thestatus of Mind as supreme thinker and supreme thought and as creator of the universe belongsto the One. Moreover, Ficino does not devaluate finite being as Neoplatonic metaphysicsdoes. Although he speaks of things as emanating from God, he thinks of emanation as an actthat has its roots in God's free goodness. God has created the world not by necessity of nature,

but in accordance with a certain purpose of his will. God's relationship to things is not subjectto the determinism implied by emanation, but is contingent on his love of the world. Love notonly ascends from man to God, but also descends from on high. God loves the world as hiscreature and, as such, the world is worthy of love. Ficino's hierarchy of being is, accordingly,not static in the sense that an ontological gulf separates its spheres. For the philosopher of theFlorentine Academy, all things are interrelated. The universe has a dynamic unity and itsvarious degrees and parts are bound together by active affinities.

The specifically humanistic character of Ficino's approach-setting it off from that of theancient Neoplatonists-appears most clearly in his doctrine of Soul. Whereas in Plotinus theworld-soul is simply the prime individual instance in the generic category of soul, Ficinoidentified Soul with the world-soul and maintained that individual human souls participated inits nature. As the universal bond of things, Soul has the role of mediating between the idealand material worlds. The world-soul impresses the seminal reasons which it possesses asforms on the corporeal world. The forms are conveyed from the celestial spheres to thesublunar world by the spirit of the world. The seminal reasons in things are conceived asactive powers, as individual spirits or deities ruling the celestial signs. The signs are thereservoirs in which these powers are stored . Man's task - the task of the human soul - is to

perfect himself and the world in which he lives. To this purpose, he can make use of theseminal powers in things. The arts he has invented are founded on the universal harmony thatexists in the world. They seek to exploit the natural affinities and occult qualities in things.The physician, for example, seeks to bring together celestial influences in the medicines he

prescribes in order to effect favorable physical dispositions in the human body. The influencestransmitted by the signs and planets can Also work on man's imagination and enable him to

produce poetry, music and works of art. The arts thus give man magical power over nature.They have been bestowed on him by the spirits ruling the heavens. By listening to God's voicein the seminal powers of things, man is able to transform the world. This type of magic worksthrough the spirit of the world and is good. There is another magic that is illicit, because itseeks to operate through the soul of the world and involves demons. But natural magic

ministers to the powers of nature and wants to assist the world in its tendency to perfection. Itis, therefore, the most sublime part of natural philosophy.5 n

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Ficino's conception of the power of Soul over nature enabled him to give a systematic place tothe Renaissance theme of man's dignity. Like that of Nicholas of Cusa, his praise of man isfounded on human creativity. But whereas Nicholas stressed man's intellectual inventiveness,Ficino appealed to the miracles man has worked in the arts and in government. Man does notonly use nature, but adorns, beautifies and transforms it. The great cities, the wonders of

sculpture, painting and architecture, the endless tools and instruments that man has broughtforth prove that he is not the subject of nature, but rather its master. Man is not like theanimals dominated by the one element in which they live; he uses all the things of the world,as lord of all. He is able to unfold his potentialities in all the spheres that that make up reality.He lives the life of plants by cultivating his body, that of animals by sharpening his senses,that of man by living in accord with reason, t that of the t of the angels by his penetration intothe divine mysteries. Referring to the planetarium of Archimedes, Ficino exclaimed thatman's genius approaches that of the creator of the heavens because, having observed theregularity and order reigning in the spheres, he could, given the necessary materials, bringthem forth himself. Man's creativity situates him at the center of the universe, betweenspiritual and sensible reality. In spite of his corporeality, his mind is divine. It is because-as agod on earth-he cares for all things that he is the knot holding the parts of the world together.

Ficino thus anticipated a concept - that of genius - which would gain increasing importance inthe late sixteenth century. But this positive vision of man was, at the same time, tempered byart opposed concept which he could have found in Augustine and the medieval mystics - thatof alienation. For Ficino, there is a latent absurdity in man's condition. Immutable like higher things, but subject to change like inferior ones, he is at once the most and least perfect of creatures. Through his intelligence, he is able to dominate temporal things and is open toeternal realities. Not satisfied by dominion over the world, he sees restlessly the reasons for things. Compelled ceaselessly to pursue potentialities, he is the most wanting and the mostunhappy of creatures. His constant struggle to transcend himself situates him on the horizon

between eternity and time and makes his nature a historical one, always projected into thefuture. In this inguietudo animi Ficino finds the proof of the divinity of man's soul. It is

because he possesses the divine fire that man is --like Prometheus-unable to find repose. Hislonging to be united with all reality can be stilled only by God's own infinity. But if man isdestined for the infinite, his desire can only find definitive fulfilment beyond death. If manwere not immortal, he would be an incomplete nature - which would be contrary to God'swisdom and goodness and to the place he has assigned to man at the center of creation.

The human soul is an immaterial reality, using a body. As such, it is not confined to adetermined sphere of being. Man. has no fixed essence, but can descend to the level of the

beasts or ascend in thought to the sphere of the angels or even to that of God himself. Ficinoused Neoplatonic terminology, but gave it a dynamic turn by emphasizing the circularity inPlotinus' scheme. The One goes out to Mind and Soul, but Soul returns to Mind and Mind tothe One. Soul seeks to become the plenitude of all the species, by turning back to the one actof mind. Mind seeks to become all things in act, to comprehend the highest One in all thespecies, by turning back to their one act. In speaking of ascending in thought to the One,Ficino distinguished - in a way similar to that of Lull and Nicholas of Cusa between logicalunderstanding and dialectical contemplation. The thought by which the human soul is able totranscend itself is not the process of discursive reasoning based on the abstraction of universalideas, but rather an intuitive vision of intelligible reality that ascends in stages from forms inthings and innate ideas to the eternal ideas and ultimately to the idea of the Good itself. Ficino

regarded the contemplation of immaterial things to be the proper task of the metaphysician.

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The soul is led to this science by ascending from moral to natural philosophy and thence tomathematics before arriving at this supreme form of contemplation.

The dignity of man is founded on his innate desire for this highest degree of contemplation.This desire is not purely intellectual, but has also a voluntary component. Turning to

Augustine and the Christian tradition, Ficino went beyond the Platonic notion of eros. Just asthe act of creation requires the union of the divine intellect with the divine liberality, so alsoman's innate desire to comprehend the One forms one act with his free choice of the One. Thecontemplation to which Ficino refers involves not only the thought that actively constitutes itsobjects, but also the love which actively binds them together. The innate attraction and occultqualities that were encountered on the level of natural philosophy become, in metaphysics, thedesire for transcendence, the intellectual love of God. In the highest act of contemplation, theknowledge of the divine truth coincides with the enjoyment of the divine goodness. In one of his last works, Ficino interpreted the myth of the Phaedrus in accordance with this vision.Plato's charioteer is the youth at the foot of Diotima's ladder, intent on leading the individualsoul by divine inspirations to the notion of Soul's immortality, so that Jove, the celestialworld-soul, might conduct it thence together with all human souls as a company of gods

beyond the intellectual heaven, to the gates of the transcendent One, to God himself.

New reviews of volumes one- six with outline:

I. Volume 1. Books I–IV .Ficino's Platonic Theology: A Renaissance humanist and leader of the Florentine PlatonicAcademy whose wide-ranging interests encompassed philosophy, music, medicine, astrology,and magic, Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) is best known for having initiated the Renaissancerevival of Plato. The Platonic Theology, in which Ficino reconciles Platonism with

Christianity, was written during the early 1470s when he was completing his translation of Plato's works, during which time he was also preparing for the priesthood, which he enteredin 1473. In their introduction to the volume, Michael Allen and James Hankins providecompelling commentary on the philosophical and political contexts of the Platonic Theology,together with incisive analyses of the text's structural and rhetorical features. The work, theyargue, represents Ficino's 'mature attempt to sketch out a unitary theological tradition, and

particularly a theological metaphysics' that he firmly believed could be traced from Orpheusto Hermes Trismegistus and Zoroaster, 'even as it had culminated in the Christian revelationmost luminously articulated for him by the Areopagite, Augustine, and Aquinas.' Ficinothought of the Platonic Theology as his most inspired and independent work. At the heart of itlies not only his affirmation of the soul's immortality, but also his redefinition andreconceptualization of 'the figura, of the human entity.' A text of deeply 'personal if notautobiographical apologetics,' the Platonic Theology is also the product of its 'RenaissanceItalian, specifically Medicean, context' in that it represents 'a bold, albeit problematic, attemptto appropriate' late classical philosophy 'for the ingeniosi, the intellectuals, the forward wits of the republic and its governing elites.' The work's dense philosophical and politicalorchestrations may account for the complexity of Ficino's style, which on one handconceptualizes sublimity, after Plotinus, 'in an unadorned and apparently artless way' at thesame time as it is 'rhetorically challenging, with its frequent asyndeton (making the reader work it out), its unbalanced periods (drawing the reader into the mazes of the argument) ...and its intermittent flights of poetic imagery contributing to a sense of allocutionary trance.'Modelled after the Harvard Loeb Classical Library series, the I Tatti translations are in dual-language format (with the Latin text on the left page and the translation on the right),facilitating comparison. Michael Allen's translation of the Ficino volume is careful and

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meticulous, as is the editorial apparatus. In addition to the critical introduction, the volumeincludes two sets of explanatory notes (to the text and to the translation respectively), aselected bibliography of secondary sources, and a valuable author and subject index. Thevolume promises to become indispensable to Renaissance scholarship in general.

Ficino's immortality proofs and answers to questions in the later books of the Theology presuppose and are founded upon his general systematic account in these first four books of God, creation and the place of the soul within creation. These reverse the usual order of themedieval summa, itself founded on Neoplatonic models. The medieval summa generally dealsin hierarchical order beginning with God and moving down through creation in general,angelic and human nature; it then follows the flow of the divine creative act back to its source

by treating the redemption of human nature, understood as that nature's return via reason,love, and grace to the source of its being. Ficino begins instead with what is known quoadnos, i.e. with the material world known to the senses, and ascends through the five grades of reality to God. He then descends again to the level of soul and discusses its nature andspecies. His system thus follows a psychological or heuristic rather than an ontological or generative order.Volume 1. Books I–IV .

A. Book I. Ascent to God through the four created substances: body (inert extended matter),form divided in body or quality (an active principle of change), rational soul (active, bothdivided in body and undivided, mobile), and angel (active, undivided and immobile). See i.i.z.The ascent is also a philosophical itinerary, from pure corpuscularism (as in theDemocriteans, Cyrenaics and Epicureans), to a higher awareness of an active shaping power in bodily nature (as in, for Ficino, the Stoics and Cynics), to recognition of the existence of amore excellent form beyond body which is the seat of the rational soul (as in Heraclitus,Varro, Manilius), to realization of an unchangeable mind beyond changeable soul (asinAnaxagoras and Hermotimus), and finally to the light of truth itself, God (as in Plato andthe Platonists).B. Book II. God. i. The divine essence: God is unity, truth, and goodness.2. What God is not. Why there is not an infinity of equal gods on the same metaphysical level;why there is not an infinity of gods arranged hierarchically.3. The divine attributes: God's power is infinite; He is everlasting; omnipresent; the source of motion and the immediate cause of all change; God acts by His being; He understands infinitethings; His understanding is infinite; He has will and acts through will; His will reconcilesfreedom and necessity; God is loving and provident.

C. Book III. Descent through the grades of being and comparison of the grades amongthemselves. Ficino establishes the soul's status as the third and middle essence, "the link thatholds all nature together," giving life to things below it, and knowing itself and things bothabove and below it.D. Book IV. The three species of soul: the world soul; the souls of the twelve spheres,including planetary and elemental spheres; the souls of living creatures within and distinctfrom those spheres. The souls of the spheres cause circular motion in accordance with thelaws of fate.II. Volume 2. Books V–VIII .This second volume of edition and English translation of Marsilio Ficino's Platonic Theologycontains books five to eight. Five volumes are expected, so as to cover the whole Ficino's

work. Principles of edition and general introduction are to be found in the first volume. Thisedition, made by James Hankins, with William Bowen, depends on that of Raymond Marcel

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(Paris, 1964-1970). As the authors explain in the introduction to the first volume, there areonly two independant witnesses to the text: the editio princeps, published in Florence in 1482(= A), which Ficino himself corrected, and the manuscript dedication copy written for Lorenzo de Medici (Florence, Laurenz., Plut. LXXXIII, 10) (= L). These two witnesses have

been entirely collated again by Hankins and Bowen. Marcel's edition is mostly reliable, yet

the authors suppressed most of Marcel's conjectures, for they were not necessary to thecomprehension of the text. These conjectures are not to be found in the apparatus of the newedition, and the authors are right doing so, because most of Marcel's conjectures consisted inadditions of several "ergo" or "autem" into the Latin text, often even not translated intoFrench. For example, in Book V, 1, 3, in the sentence "non secundum, quia spontaneus motusassiduus comes est eius", Marcel adds "non" before "assiduus", yet he does not translate it: "nila seconde, parce que le mouvement spontane/ est le compagnon assidu de..." In Book V, 14,4, Marcel omits "non", as Allen-Hankins's apparatus shows, in the sentence "ut calor nonsuscipit frigus", yet he does translate it: "par exemple, la chaleur ne rec,oit pas le froid."Latin text and English translation lie on opposite pages, and all the notes are relegated to theend of the volume. In both Latin and English texts, each chapter is divided into paragraphs,which make the text easier to read and refer to. The "notes to the text" are readings or conjectures which have been rejected by the editors, indicated by reference marks within thetext. The "notes to the translation" are other possible translations, needed explanations of thetext, sources of quotations or allusions. Those notes are always short, precise and clear.Although a general index of sources will come only with the last volume, there is an usefulindex of names, after the bibliography.Although fewer witnesses were used for this edition, the Allen-Hankins apparatus is morecomplete (notably giving variants of A before correction) and more precise than that of Marcel. Here are a few examples.Book V, 1, 2: ... numquam desinit vivere. Si enim quod movetur... moveri desinit numquam.Allen-Hankins, Book V, n. 3: "A omits Si enim -- numquam before correction".Marcel, p. 174, n. 1: "A: Ubi scribitur: desinit vivere, subiunge haec Si enim... desinitnumquam. Sequitur: Praeterea..." By these unclear words, Marcel means that A (but he omitsto say "before correction") made a "saut du me^me au me^me", but we would haveunderstood this without help.2) Book V, 4, 2 (last line): ...et, si humiditas, quomodo siccitatem?Allen-Hankins, Book V, n. 7: "A omits si before correction". Marcel, p. 177, n. 2: "si add. A." I must say that I don't understand what Marcel means here.3) Book V, 7, 3:Allen-Hankins, p. 38-39: "atque illas in esse perducit" (translated:"and brings them forth into existence"), and n. 19: Marcel corrects

silently to producit, perhaps correctly.Marcel, p. 186: " atque illas in esse producit" (translated: "et les ame\ne a\ l'existence"), butthe correction is not silent, since he writes n. 1: "perducit LHABC". From that we mustunderstand that"perducit" is the reading of A and L, of the second manuscript of thetext, Haleianus 3482 (H), and of the two Venice editions (published in 1491 and 1524) (B andC). So, it is not necessarily a correction either, but, if the apparatus is correct, "producit"might be the reading of four more recent editions, published in Paris and Bale, between 1559and 1650 (D, E, F and G). This is doubtful though, and I would rather believe that "producit"is a conjecture of Marcel, as Allen-Hankins think.It was necessary to have a revised edition and English translation of Ficino's Platonic

Theology in a more accessible publication. This work is important not only to those who areworking on Ficino and Italian Humanism, but also to anyone dealing with Platonic revival in

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the middle ages and renaissance. The translation has been made by probably the mostcompetent specialist of Ficino nowadays, Michael Allen, with the collaboration of JohnWarden. The translation is absolutely necessary to give to those who don't know Latin anaccess to this very important text, and also it helps those who know some Latin, for the text issometimes difficult and elliptic. To sum up, it is quite rare nowadays to see such a fine,

accurate and ascetic piece of philology.***Immortality proofs. See 1.1.3: After describing the nature of soul and its place in creation,

Ficino says that he is going to seek to establish that the condition and nature of the soul issuch as he has described, "firstly by general arguments (rationes communes), secondly byspecific proofs (argumentationes propriae), thirdly by signs (signa), and lastly by resolvingquestions (solutiones quaestionum)."Volume 2. Books V–VIIIA. Book V. The rational soul's immortality is shown from rationes communes—i.e., thegeneral metaphysical principles and characteristics of soul as third essence. These include: thefact that it is capable of self-induced circular motion but is unchanging in its substance; itsnatural attraction both to divine and material things; its ability to rule matter while remainingindependent of it; its indivisibility; the relation of essence and existence in soul; the nature of soul as pure form; the self-subsistence of soul; its dependence on and resemblance to itsdivine cause; the fact that the soul is not potential with respect to existence and is directlydependent on God for its existence; the fact that it is the principle of life, and a power inher-ently superior to body.B. Books VI-XII. The rational soul's immortality shown from rationes propriae, i.e. particular arguments. These rationes propriae consist of more detailed demonstrations of some of therationes communes in II.A.Book VI.i Introductory interlude. This takes the form of a dialogic intervention by GiovanniCavalcanti, the only one in the Theology, revealing for the first time that the previous five

books had been a disputation held at the country home of Giovanni Cavalcanti in the presenceof Cavalcanti, Cristoforo Landino, Bernardo Nuzzi and Giorgio Antonio Vespucci. Cavalcantilays out five possible views of the nature of soul and demands that Ficino explain why thePlatonic one is correct. These views include various Presocratic and Stoic views, i.e., that thesoul is a pneumatic or a fine-material substance or that the soul is a quality dependent onmaterial potencies. The fifth and highest view is that of Plato and the ancient theologians, "inwhose footsteps Aristotle, the natural philosopher, for the most part follows" : namely that thesoul is divine, i.e. "something indivisible, wholly present to every part of the body and

produced by an incorporeal creator such that it depends only on the power of that agent," andnot on any material potency. Ficino is challenged to refute the four materialists and prove the

view of Plato.2. Book VI.2. Ficino's response: Refutation of the materialists by analysis of the soul's threeofficio or roles: acting in the body (the vegetative power), acting through the body (thesensitive power) and acting through itself (the intellective power). Ficino argues that the"vulgar philosophers" who hold to materialism have been misled by "perverse custom" andthe influence of the body, and he devises educational thought-experiments drawn fromAvicenna, Plato's analogy of the Cave in Republic 7 and other sources to reveal the truenature of the soul as "invisible, life-giving, sentient, intelligible, intelligent, independent of

body, active of its own accord, heat-giving, life-giving, sentient, capable of attaining thingsabove, a substantial unity." The argument in II.B.2 is described as a "first foray, a sort of

prelude" or protreptic to purge the mind of the vulgar of their "wretched lack of trust" which

keeps them from acknowledging the realm of immaterial spirit.3. Books VI.3-VIII. Return to the main argument of the Theology. Ficino takes up in turn the

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rationes propriae which will demonstrate the rationes communes in greater detail, beginningwith the ratio communis of the soul's indivisibility in body. Other rationes are then addressedin ascending hierarchical order. The soul's indivisibility in body (and therefore itsimmortality) is demonstrated from its three officio (or virtutes, powers) as described in II.B.2,arranged hierarchically from lowest to highest.

a. Book VI.4–13. The soul's lowest or vegetative powers, of nutrition, locomotion and growth,already show why the soul cannot be material or be form-in-matter: soul is a principle of activity that applies to all bodily parts; it is not spatially divided.

b. Book VII. Proofs that the soul is not divisible from the power of sensation: general proofsfrom the nature of sensation itself and specific proofs from the soul's complexions and theharmony of its humors.c. Book VIII. Proofs that the soul is not indivisible as inferred from the nature of intellection.Topics include the intellect's relation to truth; the nature of the intellective power in itself; itsinstruments (i.e., intelligible species); its operations; the objects of intellection (i.e.,universals); the possibility of communication as such; the incorporeal way the mind is modi-fied by form; the goals of intellection; the infinite force of the intellective power.

Volume 3. Books IX–XI .4. Book IX. Immortality proofs based on a second ratio communis: the soul's independence of

body.5. Book X. Immortality proofs based on general structural or aesthetic principles, i.e. thefitness of immortality, given the soul's relationship to the things below and above it in theorder of nature. Answers are given to objections from Epicurus, Lucretius, and the StoicPanaetius.6. Book XI. Immortality proofs based on the soul's eternal and immaterial objects, i.e., theIdeas. The nature of the Ideas. Confirmation of their nature by signs. Answers to Epicureans,Skeptics, and Peripatetics.Volume 4. Books XII–XIV . This is the fourth volume of the I Tatti Renaissance Library

project of reediting Marsilio Ficino's Platonic Theology, thus superseding Raymond Marcel's pioneering edition and French translation published in 1964-1970. In addition, this newedition provides for the first time an English translation facing the Latin text, making Ficino'sPlatonic Theology available to a wide readership. It also includes, at the end of the volume,two sets of explanatory notes (to the text and to the translation), a selected bibliography of secondary sources, and an author and subject index.Volume IV of the I Tatti edition contains Books XII-XIV of Ficino's Platonic Theology. Itincludes some of the most important Renaissance texts on the immortality of the soul and onthe concepts of theurgy, phantasy and vacatio. Book XII demonstrates that the soul is

immortal because it is formed by the Divine Mind, and deals with the soul's ascent to thedivine ideas. Book XIII demonstrates the soul's immortality by four signs : phantasy, reasonand prophecy, arts, and miracles. Book XIV demonstrates the soul's immortality from the factthat the soul strives to become God.1) The text:The text incorporates several significant improvements to Marcel's edition, avoidingnumerous misprints and unnecessary conjectural emendations. At the end of the volume the"notes to the translation" include the variant readings of the different witnesses and indicatedepartures from Marcel's edition.As previously shown by Marcel (Marsile Ficin. Théologie Platonicienne. Tome I. Livres I-VIII, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1964, pp. 17-30), the text of Platonic Theology is preserved in

two manuscripts, the London manuscript Harleianus 3482 (the personal copy written for KingFernando the First), and the Florence manuscript Pluteus 83.10 (the dedication copy written

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for Lorenzo de' Medici). Harleianus 3482 derives from the second edition printed in Venice in1491 and can therefore be eliminated from the apparatus. Laurentianus Pluteus 83.10,however, contains a text that is independent of the editio princeps (Florence 1482). There aretherefore two primary witnesses, which probably derive independently from the samearchetype: the editio princeps, printed in Florence in 1482, which Ficino saw through the

press and probably corrected himself (= A), and the Florence manuscript Pluteus 83.10 (= L).The text is also preserved in five early modern editions, including the famous Basle edition of 1576 of Ficino's complete works. Excerpts of the text are to be found in other works byFicino: the Disputatio contra iudicium astrologicum (preserved in the codex unicusMagliabechiano XX, 58), as well as his Letters, his Compendium Platonicae Theologiae, andhis De Christianae Religione.As stated in the first volume of the edition (p. 315), the I Tatti editors have drawn fromMarcel's edition, which is based upon the collation of the two manuscripts (H and L), the firsttwo editions printed during Ficino's lifetime (A and B), and the five other early moderneditions. However, they have completely re-collated the text's two primary witnesses and, as aresult, they have been able to emend Marcel's collation, which was not always accurate. Theyalso tend to adopt, when possible, the text as it is preserved in the manuscripts/editions andsensibly delete Marcel's sometimes unnecessary corrections and conjectural additions. For example, in XIII, 4, section 16, the editors have avoided Marcel's conjecture illa, preferringAL's reading ille (si quando anima hominis ita fingat aciem suam in deum divinoque lumineimpleatur rapiaturque ut ILLE tunc aeque coruscat, ...). In one place (XIV, 10, § 11),however, the editors follow Marcel's excellent conjecture delebit instead of A's debebit andL's habebit (itaque si deum colere cogit certa quaedam positio siderum, brevi positio contrariae memoria hominum divinos DELEBIT honores).Hankins' re-collation of the two primary witnesses (A and L) also indicates that Marcel's textfollowed sometimes too readily that of the Basle edition (which had itself been unnecessarilycorrected by its editor) in places where A and L offer a better reading (e.g. converso : econverso Marcel, Op; suppliciter : simpliciter Marcel, Op; appetant : appetent Marcel, Op;quid mirum : quid mirum est Marcel, Op; appetit : petit Marcel, Op.).2) The translation:The I Tatti Renaissance Library also provides for the first time an English translation of Ficino's Platonic Theology, facing the Latin text. It is divided into chapters and paragraphsand annotated. Michael J. B. Allen, who has already edited, translated and commented uponseveral works of Ficino (including Ficino's commentaries on Plato's Sophist, Philebus,Phaedrus), provides here an altogether elegant and readable translation.The "notes to the translation" include Ficino's sources for quotations and allusions. Althoughthey follow closely Marcel's references, Allen's notes are more complete and accurate (e.g. the

reference in XII, 1 is to Psalm 4, 6 and 36, 9 and not, as indicated by Marcel, Psalm 4, 7 and25, 10). One will also find useful explanations to the text and alternative translations of difficult passages, as well as some basic information concerning the sources used by Ficinoand the broader context in which these sources are used.A very short bibliography at the end of the volume lists secondary sources on Ficino andRenaissance humanism, including two bibliographies (Kristeller's Marsilio Ficino and HisWork after Five Hundred Years and the bibliography updated annually in the journalAccademia). To the works mentioned, however, the editors ought to have added major contributions by scholars in other languages than English, and in particular the seminal worksof Eugenio Garin and Cesare Vasoli.

Volume 4. Books XII–XIV .

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7. Book XII.1-4. Immortality proof based on relationship of the mind to God; its being formed by God. The general structure of the argument is as follows: if the mind is formed by theDivine Mind, it is immortal; but it is in fact formed by the Divine Mind for suchand-such areason, therefore etc. Ficino then answers a possible objection: why are we nor ordinarily

conscious of being formed by the Divine Mind?8. Book XII.5-7. Three confirmations of the arguments in II.B.1-7 derived from aconsideration of sight, hearing, and the mind. These confirmations take the form of extensivequotations from Augustine. This provides a bridge to the next section on signs.C. Books XIII-XIV. Immortality shown by 'signs' (rather than reasons)1. Book XIII. The soul shown to be immortal by signs of the soul's power over things beneathit and its own body, for example in psychosomatic phenomena, in phantasy, prophecy, thearts, and in the performance of miracles. The magical powers of the soul.a. Book XIV. Twelve signs from the soul's imitation of what is above it: i.e. the soul's desireto be like God. Remarks on the nature and universality of religion. Answer to the Lucretians.Volume 5 Books XV–XVI .

III. Books XV-XVIII. Resolution of five questions relating to the soul's immortality.A. Book XV. Question Is there one soul for all mankind? This book contains an exhaustiverefutation of Averroes, and is in a sense the centerpiece of the entire work, in that it drawsextensively on Ficino's prior exposition and argumentation.B. Book XVI.1-6. Question 2: Why then did God put souls in bodies at all? Answers toEpicureans.C. Book XVI.7. Question 3: Why do rational souls experience tumultuous emotions?D. Book XVI.8. Question 4: Why do rational souls depart unwillingly from bodies? I.e., whyis there fear of death if souls are just returning to their true home, and departing from themiseries of this life?Volume 6. Books XVII-XVIII .E. Books XVII-XVIII. Question 5: What is the status of soul before entering the body andafter leaving it? The creation and composition of souls; their kinds and their circuits (i.e., their descents and ascents).I. Book XVII. Excursus on issues of interpretation: what is the true Platonic position ontransmigration?a. Book XVII.2-3. The interpretation of the last two ancient Platonic academies.

b. Book XVII.4. The interpretation of Plato of the first four academies, and the two better academies. The doctrine of the transmigration of souls is condemned.

2. Book Excursus on the nature of creation in general, presenting and defending "the theologycommon to the Hebrews, Christians, and Arabs," i.e. (a) that the world was created at acertain moment of time; (b) that angels were created from the beginning; (c) that newimmortal souls are continuously created in time. Ficino's goal is to establish a wider theological framework, creation in general, for his discussion of point (c): the continuous or sequential creation of individual souls in time.XVIII.1. Arguments that the world was created in time. XVIII.2. Arguments for the creationof angels and souls in time.3. Book XVIII.3. The creation of human souls in time. Arguments for the continuous,sequential creation of souls by God. The creation of souls is regulated by Providence, not bychance sexual unions. Why souls had to be created successively rather than all at once.

4. Book XVIII.4-7. The descent of souls.a. Book XVIII.4. The descent of the soul into the body. The aethereal vehicle of the soul. The

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theory that the soul has three vehicles, celestial, aerial, and elemental. b. Book XVIII.5. In what part of heaven souls are created. The influence of the stars and their configurations on the soul in its descent.c. Book XVIII.6. Physical generation in the body; the soul's attendant genius; our souls' needfor the protection of higher powers.

d. Book XVIII.7. Infusion of the soul into the mid-point of the body, the heart, and the soul'srelation with the body's heat, its spirit, its humors and heavier members.5. Book XVIII.8-12. The ascent of souls, or more broadly, what happens to the soul and its

body after death.a. Book XVIII.8. The state of pure souls after separation from the body, i.e., the souls of the

blessed. The capacity of the rational soul to see the light of God; capacity of the soul to loveGod's light. The ninefold degrees of blessedness; the changelessness of the pure soul; thenature of its union with God; that even the lowest species of soul—the human rational soul — is capable of union with God; ranking of souls in heaven; rest of reason in the vision of God;rest of the will in the love of God.

b. Book XVIII.9. On the bodies of pure souls after death, i.e. the resurrection of the body, prefigured in pagan religion and confirmed by the three modern religions, Christianity,Judaism and Islam. Four proofs of the Resurrection from "Christian theologians", i.e. ThomasAquinas. Further arguments from the order of nature.c. Book XVIII.10. The state of the impure soul. Platonic and Christian doctrines of rewardsand punishments compared; the four ways of living life; the possibility that impure soulswithout fixed habits of evil can attain blessedness after death; the doctrine of the afterlife andhell in the ancient theologians.d. The middle state of rational souls that are neither pure nor impure. What happens tochildren who die before they are capable of making a choice of life; what happens to personswho are mentally defective.e. Concluding exhortation to live for eternity, not for this life.

Other Studies

Plato's Third Eye: Studies in Marsilio Ficino's Metaphysics and Its Sources (CollectedStudies, No CS483) by Michael J. B. Allen (Variorum) A collection of essays by Michael J.B. Allen before 1995.

Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy (Brill's Studies in IntellectualHistory) by Michael J. B. Allen, Valery Rees, and Martin Davies (Brill Academic) Thisvolume consists of 21 essays on Marsilio Ficino (1433-99), the great Florentine scholar,

philosopher and priest who was the architect of Renaissance Platonism and whose long-lasting influence on philosophy, love and music theory, medicine and magic extended acrossEurope. Grouped into three sections, they cover such topics as priesthood, the influence of Hermetic monism, Plotinus and Augustine, Jewish transmission of the prisca theologia , the15th c. Plato-Aristotle controversy, the soul and its afterlife, the primacy of the will, theriac and musical therapy, the notions of matter, seeds, mirrors and clocks, and other fascinating

philosophical and theological issues. Also considered are Ficino’s critics, his relationship tothe Camaldolese Order, his letters to princes, his influence on art, on Copernicus, onChapman, and the nature of the Platonic Academy. All those interested in intellectual history,the Renaissance, Platonism; history and philosophy of religion (Christian and Jewish), historyof art, political theory, literature, early science, medicine and music.Introduction, Michael J. B. Allen PART I: 1. Ficino the Priest, Peter Serracino-Inglott 2. The Camaldolese Academy:

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Ambrogio Traversari, Marsilio Ficino and the Christian Platonic Tradition, Dennis F. Lackner 3. Marsilio Ficino as a Christian Thinker: Theological Aspects of his Platonism, Jörg Lauster 4. Late Antiquity and Florentine Platonism: The ‘Post-Plotinian’ Ficino, Christopher S. Celenza 5. Ficino, Augustine and the Pagans, Anthony Levi 6. Echoes of Egypt in Hermesand Ficino, Clement Salaman 7. Prisca Theologia in Marsilio Ficino and in Some Jewish

Treatments, Moshe Idel 8. Life as a Dead Platonist, Michael J. B. Allen PART II: 9. Marsilio Ficino and the Plato-Aristotle Controversy, John Monfasani 10. Intellectand Will in Marsilio Ficino: Two Correlatives of a Renaissance Concept of the Mind, Tamara

Albertini 11. Orpheus redivivus : The Musical Magic of Marsilio Ficino, Angela Voss 12.Ficino, Theriaca and the Stars, Donald Beecher 13. Concepts of Seeds and Nature in theWork of Marsilio Ficino, Hiroshi Hirai 14. Narcissus, Divine Gazes and Bloody Mirrors: theConcept of Matter in Ficino, Sergius Kodera 15. Ficino, Archimedes and the Celestial Arts,Stéphane Toussaint PART III: 16. Neoplatonism and the Visual Arts at the Time of Marsilio Ficino, Francis

Ames-Lewis 17. Ficino’s Advice to Princes, Valery Rees 18. The Platonic Academy of Florence, Arthur

Field 19. Ficino in the Firing Line: A Renaissance Neoplatonist and His Critics, Jill Kraye 20.Ficino and Copernicus, Dilwyn Knox; 21. ‘To rauish and refine an earthly soule’: Ficino andthe Poetry of George Chapman, Stephen Clucas Illustrations, Bibliography, List of Contributors, IndexContributors include: Tamara Albertini, Michael J. B. Allen, Francis Ames-Lewis, DonaldBeecher, Christopher S. Celenza, Stephen Clucas, Arthur Field, Hiroshi Hirai, Moshe Idel,Dilwyn Knox, Sergius Kodera, Jill Kraye, Dennis F. Lackner, Jörg Lauster, Anthony Levi,John Monfasani, Valery Rees, Clement Salaman, Peter Serracino-Inglott, M. StéphaneToussaint, and Angela Voss.

Marsilio Ficino: The Book of Life (Dunquin Series) by Marsilio Ficino, Charles Boer (SpringPublications) Charles Boer obviously put considerable effort into trying to make sense of afamous but difficult work, which had yet to be properly edited in its Renaissance Latinoriginal. His translation is quite pleasant reading. Unfortunately, the problems begin as soonas the reader tries to understand Ficino, instead of Boer. The "Three Books of Life" contain amixture of medicine, astrology, neo-Platonic philosophy, and more or less concealed magic,and Boer makes little effort to explain any of these; it is not clear how much of any of them herecognized in the text he was translating.

To anyone familiar with the discussions of the book in, for example, Walker's "Spiritual andDemonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella," or Yates' "Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic

Tradition," the translation could only be a source of frustration.

Basically, there seem to have been two sets of problems. First, the translation was based onunreliable versions of the Latin. The lack of a proper edition was not Boer's fault; professionalscholars of Renaissance Latin writings (Humanist Latin is a subject in itself) had never

published one. But it should have made him very cautious about trying to puzzle it out for himself. Second, Boer seems to have paid little, if any, attention to the vast scholarshipneeded to understand Ficino, which was available, if somewhat scattered through books and

journals.

Since Boer was dismissive of the existing Ficino scholarship, hostile reviews from scorned

specialists were perhaps to be expected. But I am not one of them, and I can testify fromexperience that Boer's work was more frustrating than useful.

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Fortunately, not too long after the appearance of Boer's version, Carole V. Kaske and John R.Clark's "Three Books on Life" was announced for publication. It has since appeared, and, withseveral reprintings behind it, is, at this writing, available. It has a full edition of the Latin textfacing the translation, an excellent introduction, and elaborate notes and index / glossaries. It

is not as fun to read as Boer sometimes is, but, despite the slightly higher price, it is a better bargain. You get useful historical contexts, advice on whether Ficino is making a pun, or iscompletely serious, even alternative explanations -- all the things I wondered about whentrying to read Boer's version.

Three Books on Life by Marsilio Ficino , translated and edited by Carol V. Kaske, John R.Clark (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies) In the second half of the twentiethcentury, readers of English who were interested in the Renaissance had their attention drawnto Ficino's "Three Books on Life" (known by various titles, such as "Liber de Vita" and "DeVita Triplici") by several influential books. Chief among them were D.P. Walker's "Spiritualand Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella" and Frances A. Yates' "Giordano Brunoand the Hermetic Tradition." The many readers of Robert Burton's seventeenth-centurymasterpiece "The Anatomy of Melancholy" had already encountered frequent citations of "Ficinus" on melancholy, its causes and cure. Any attempt to find an English translation, or even a good text of the Latin original, however, came up with nothing.

For a moment it seemed that Charles Boer had provided one with "The Book of Life,"originally published in 1980, and currently in print. It was an attractively printed andextremely readable translation. Unfortunately, it was not only based on unreliable versions of the Latin, but it paid little if any attention to the vast scholarship needed to understand Ficino.Since Boer was dismissive of the existing Ficino scholarship, hostile reviews were perhaps to

be expected, but I can testify from experience that Boer's work was more frustrating thanuseful.

Fortunately, a far superior translation, along with a carefully edited Latin text, usefulintroduction and helpful notes, and glossarial indexes, was already in progress. It appearedabout a decade later, and, like Boer's, has been reprinted several times. It is an impressiveaccomplishment, providing a rich source of information on Ficino's theological,

philosophical, medical, astrological, and magical readings and world-view, and how theyinteract.

Ficino, famous in his day and in histories of philosophy as the pioneering translator of Plato

and the Neo-Platonists (a distinction made long after his time), was the son of a physician,which in those days meant an astrologer. He was trained in his father's profession, but also asa priest, and read the Aristotle of the late Scholastics as well as Plato and his followers, andhis supposed source, the books attributed to the Egyptian sage, Hermes Trismegistus. Bits and

pieces of all of these interests, and others, appear in the "Books on Life," which are in largemeasure an attempt to avoid the negative implications of Ficino's own horoscope, which wasdominated by the influence of Saturn, seeming to doom him to lethargy and sickness.

In the process, he worked a minor revolution in European thought, which is still with ustoday. He did this by finding good aspects to melancholy, which in the tradition he hadinherited was a disease, combining aspects of depression and mania. He argued that it was

also a producer of scholarship and wisdom, helping to launch both the modern idea of "genius" and the suspicion that it has some connection with insanity.

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Ficino also argued for special diets to control the negative aspects (lots of sugar andcinnamon), and, in a controversial final section, for astrological talismans to concentrate goodforces and repel bad ones. This was dangerous ground, obviously shading into magic, and

protesting that he was vindicating Free Will against astrological determinism was not much of a cover.

Although a very high proportion of the thousands of websites mentioning Ficino seeminterested mainly in Ficino the Great Astrologer or Ficino the Renaissance Platonist, he was alot more complicated, as Kaske and Clark make clear. Nothing will make " "Three Books onLife" easy reading, but they have done everything possible to make it intelligible to modernreaders.