Introduction, re-edition, translation and commentary of 'De Sole' of Marsilio Ficino

Abstract

In less than two years' time, universities in the West will be celebrating the 500th anniversary of the death of Marsilio Ficino. Yet, never has Ficino' s presence and greatness been felt more keenly than at the present time. The fascination which Ficino exerts rests on the undisputed fact that the philosophy he practised and propounded throughout his life belonged not to the rarified atmosphere of universities and academic circles, nor yet to the even more exclusive corridors of political (and ecclesiastical) power - it is a philosophy which addresses man's true and innermost self and, as such, transcends the dull and limited conflnes of political, religious and academic systems. This is the reason why Ficino's light, 500 years after the Renaissance to which he gave birth, shines brighter now than ever before. His philosophy has not dated because it is a universal philosophy as relevant now in its exhortations to men to acknowledge the divinity within their own souls as it was in the fifteenth century . To Lorenzo Lippi, the rhetorician, Ficino wrote: Advise your pupils to use human learning to dispel the clouds of the senses, and to bring serenity to the soul. Then will the ray of truth from the divine sun illumine the mind and never in any other way. That is the only useful study. A man who acts otherwise labours vainly and miserably. (Letters, 1.109) In the limit of texts available, especially the Opera Omnia, it has, regrettably, not always been possible to quote from a Latin text nor to refer to specific titles within the Opera. For the present translation, the Laurenziana manuscript has been consulted as well as the Florence, 1493 edition (which is the first printed edition), the reprint of the Basle, 1576 edition, which is the most accessible, and Garin's 1952 edition which is accompanied by the Italian translation. The Florence edition has been mainly followed where there are discrepancies in the texts, since this is the only edition published during Ficino's life-time, but the variants of the manuscript and other editions consulted are given in the footnotes to the Latin text which refer to B as the Basle edition, ms. as the Laurenziana manuscript, F as the Florence edition and G as Garin's edition. The Latin text is accompanied by a double system of notation: (I) Alphabetical indices on each page refer to footnotes which indicate, for the most part, textual discrepancies. Where the footnote consists of a phrase, the first and last words are common to the version given, and the words in between constitute the variants according to the manuscript or editions quoted. The presence of only two words in the footnote indicates the omission of a word in the manuscript and edition quoted which is present in the text. The use of et passim in a footnote indicates the repeated presence of that word on the page. (2) The majority of notes, keyed by numerical indices, have been placed at the end of the text. They detail the sources on which Ficino drew and are also intended as a clarification and commentary on the text. As regards spelling, where there are discrepancies, the version which has been followed is that given in the Latin Lexicon by Lewis & Short. Spelling of words has been changed only in instances of words which are incorrect, e.g. commercium replaces the incorrect commertium (p.31, 1.8), caritate replaces charitate (p.28, 1.3),feminae replaces foeminae (p.35, l.15), etc. However, in those cases where the manuscript or printed edition gives a lesser used but acceptable version of a word, this has not been changed e.g. mixtio has not been changed to mistio (p.40, 1.2), augumentum to augmentum (p.35, l.12), or !ethos to letos (p.46, 1.4). Neither has coelum (and all related words) been changed to caelum (as given in F and G). No paragraphs are marked in the manuscript and printed editions, except for G which has a few. Therefore, paragraphs have been marked in the Latin text and the present translation according to what the sense requires. All punctuation-marks and capital letters have been rewTitten in order to avoid inordinately long sentences and awkward constructions. Of course, the numerous abbreviations which were used at the time, even in printed editions, have been avoided. 'v' has been used instead of 'u' for both lower and upper-case letters; likewise, 'ij' has been replaced by 'ii'. This was merely a Renaissance innovation to indicate lengthening of the final vowel.