Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499)

LES 3 LIVRES DE LA VIE

LIVRE PREMIER

Comment se doit conserver et entretenir la santé
des studieux, ou de ceux qui travaillent aux lettres

CHAPITRE PREMIER
Des neuf Guidons des hommes studieux

Quiconque entre en ce chemin aspre, ardu et
de longue estendue, qui à peine en fin par continu
labeur conduit au temple sublime des neuf Muses,
certainement il semble avoir besoing de neuf Guidons et
conducteurs en ceste penible voye. Desquels les trois
premiers sont au ciel, les trois suivans en l'ame, et les
trois derniers en la terre. Premierement afin que par
recherche nous entrions au chemin des Muses, Mercure
nous pousse ou nous convie au ciel, car à Mercure est
attribué l'office et devoir de toute recherche.
Depuis Phebus luy mesme d'une fort ample splendeur
illustre tant les ames recherchantes, que les choses
recherchees, de sorte que ce qui estoit cherché est par
nous clairement trouvè. Apres vient la tresgratieuse
Venus mere des trois Graces, qui de ses rayons tous
pleins de nourrissement et liesse tellement confit et
orne toute la chose, que tout ce qui avoit esté recherché
à ce Mercure nous poussant, et ce qui ja estoit
inventé, Phebus le demonstrant, entouré de l'émerveillable
et salutaire grace de la gratieuse Venus tous jours delecte,
proffite, et agree. Ensuivent les trois
autreconducteurs de ce chemin en l'ame, à sçavoir...… (más)

PLATONIC THEOLOGY, VOLUME 3: BOOKS IX-XI

BOOK IX

To demonstrate more clearly its immortality, the soul is proved
by way of the rational power to be not only undivided but
independent of the body

First proof: that the mind reflects upon itself.

By way of the rational power we have thus far proved that the soul
is an undivided and immortal form. We must next prove that it
does not depend on the body: and from this we can properly
conclude its immortality.

Divisible things do not reflect upon themselves. But if someone
were to argue that some divisible thing does reflect upon itself, we
will immediately ask: Is one part of this object reflecting upon an
other, or a part upon the whole, or the whole upon a part, or the
whole rather upon its whole self? If the first, then the same part is
not reflecting upon itself, since parts differ among themselves. If
the second or third, the same conclusion follows, for a part is one
thing, the whole another. Apparently, the fourth possibility is the
only one left: that the whole is reflecting upon the whole. This is
tantamount to saying that all the parts are reflecting upon all the
arts. Grant this. But after such reflecting is complete, let us then
ask whether in the object some part remains outside another part
or differs from another, or whether no part does? If a part remains,
then one part will exist in this position or in this manner,
another part in that, and so they will not yet be reflecting in turn
upon each other. But if no part remains, then assuredly no one
part in that object will be separate, or be distinguished, from
another. This object is so entirely indivisible that it is constituted...… (más)

PLATONIC THEOLOGY. VOLUME 2: BOOKS V-VIII

BOOK V

Every rational soul is immortal
First proof: that rational soul moves of itself and in a circle.

We put all these souls at the level of the third essence! and hold
them to be immortal on the general principle that they are the first
to be moved; and because they are the first to be moved, they are
moved in a circle.

Because they are the first to be moved, they are moved for ever.
For where the first movement is, there is perpetual movement. For
if the source of movement were to dry up, nothing else in nature
would be moved. Again, what is moved first provides internal and
external movement to itself. Internal movement is life; so it sup-
plies life to itself. Because it never abandons itself (for perpetual
love of itself is innate in every nature), it never stops living. For if
what is moved by another clings to the mover as long as it is being
moved, then a fortiori what is moved by itself, in that it is the same
as the mover and is never abandoned by the mover, never stops
being moved.

Furthermore, if we suppose it to die at some point in time, then
either it will stop existing before it stops being moved, or vice
versa, or both at the same time. The first is not possible, because
movement cannot continue separated from essence; nor is the
second, because spontaneous movement is the constant companion of
anything that initiates its own movement. Nor is the third possible,
because destructive change cannot ever erupt from within that
which is the source of vital and life-giving movement; and it cannot
happen from without, for a source of movement is not moved
from elsewhere. This then is the particular property of the third...… (más)

PLATONIC THEOLOGY. VOLUM 1: BOOKS I-IV

The Platonic Theology is a visionary work and the philosophical
masterpiece of Marsilio Ficino (1433-99), the Florentine scholar
philosopher-magus who was largely responsible for the
Renaissance revival of Plato. Though an independent, scholastically
trained thinker, Ficino was profoundly influenced throughout his
life by the rational mysticism of Plotinus (third century A.D.), the
founder of the Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato, and by the
later Neoplatonism of the fifth century Proclus and his disciple,
Dionysius the Areopagite. The latter, significantly, he identified
along with most others during the Middle Ages and the early
Renaissance, with St. Paul's Athenian convert on the Hill of Mars
(Acts 17:34) and thus as bearing witness to a complex Neoplatonism
at the very onset of Christianity. From the 146os Ficino be-
came an accomplished scholar and exegete of the texts of these
and other Neoplatonists, and soon achieved a penetrating, com
prehensive understanding of the intricacies of Plotinian and
clian metaphysics and a remarkable grasp too of its pagan
development and history. However, he was also committed to reconciling
Platonism with Christianity, and Platonic apologetics with the
Church Fathers and the great Scholastics, in the hope that such a
reconciliation would initiate a spiritual revival, a return of the
golden age with a new Pope and a new Emperor. In this regard he
speaks to some of the recurrent millenarian and prophetic impulses
that galvanized Renaissance Italy and witnessed their cul
mination in the ministry of Savonarola at the end of the fifteenth
century.

In addition to these and to the traditional concerns of theology
and philosophy, as a scholar Ficino was also fascinated by music,
magic and harmonic theory, by medicine, astrology, demonology...… (más)