Three Books on Life

by Marsilio Ficino, Carol V. Kaske (Editor), John R. Clark (Editor)

A Critical Edition and Translation with Introduction and Notes

Genres: Philosophy, Astrology, Renaissance, Esoterica, Occult, Religion, Nonfiction

528 pages, Hardcover

First published December 3, 1489

About the author

Marsilio Ficino (Italian: [marˈsiːljo fiˈtʃiːno]; Latin name: Marsilius Ficinus; 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was also an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin. His Florentine Academy, an attempt to revive Plato's Academy, had enormous influence on the direction and tenor of the Italian Renaissance and the development of European philosophy.

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This a health text I read in Latin at the British Library; it includes some Salernitan medicine, proverbs which I studied for the paper I gave at the Villa Vergiliana Italian Medicine conference (largely on baths) at Cuma in 2001. In the intro Ficino talks of poets celebrating wine for health and salubrious outlook; when poets are melancholy, they've spent too much time studying, reasoning about the heavens.
Aristotle and Democritus agree men tend toward melancholy, though Democritus fought it with laughter. Avicenna disagrees that wine is salubrious: Quippe si vinum vl nimium vel nimis calidum vehemenque fuerit caput humoribus pessimisque fumis implebit. Too much wine, or too hot wine, both fill the head with the worst vapors and humors.
Shun melancholia--black bile, the humor responsible--by meat and sauce dijonaise (sinapis/white mustard).
For headache (dolor capitis): roses in oil-- “oleo rosaceo tunsis.”
For low energy ("phlegmatic" like Jeb Bush): aromatic roses "aromatico rosaceo vtere."
or upset stomach, honey mixed with cinnamon: "mixto melle rosaceo cum cinamo."
Sir Francis Bacon also wrote his own "Historia vitae et mortis" about two centuries after Ficino, observing in Intention #iv, "the things which conduce to health do not always conduce to longevity."
#xxv, "Of spirits retaining their youth": "The Turks use likewise [with opium] a kind of herb, called "coffee," which they dry, grind to a powder, and drink in warm water. They affirm that it gives no small vigor to their courage and their wit. Yet this to have in large quantities will excite and disturb the mind; which shows it to be of a similar nature to opiates." Coffee's like an opiate! Tell Ben Jonson in 17C English coffee houses that. Opposite to coffee, in order to compose the spirits to sleep:
#lxxviii: "Lettuce and violets and a glass of cold water at bedtime compose the spirits for sleep."
Bacon on hypnosis: "If voluntary trances--I know nothing certain…Of these make further inquiry."
On psychosoma, how "affectus mentis" effects "motus spiritus."
Nota bene: "Metus graviores vitam abbreviant." Great fears shorten life--though we may add, in the year of Trump, lengthen political careers.
Hope is the best for long life: "Admiratio, et levis contempliva," such as study of nature or rhetoric, yield longevity. Light contemplation, Bacon emphasizes, or subtle, sharp thought shortens life:
"inquisitio subtilis et acuta et acris vitam abbreviant; spiritum enim lassat et carpit." For such thought tires the spirit.

[Jacob Hurley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ficino offers a comprehensive course, sort of like what we might find in an esoteric health blog today, on the right foods & drinks to consume, and the right lifestyle habits, in order to maintain a healthy harmony of the humors and spirits. These truths tend to be censored by major health establishments in our darker age, so it's fairly imperative that you should read this book. They would prefer you covered in black bile and mcdonald's imitation meat cheese burgers than be healthy off a diet of ginger and almond milk.

Unfortunately appended is a classically erroneous tract, calling itself 'neoplatonic' but totally contrary to the works of Plato, attributing flatly false claims to dialogues and citing a wide range of Aristotelian, Plotinean and scholastic sources in order to justify a deranged, cosmology-based metaphysics that struggles to understand the actual meaning of the Doctrine of Eide and the differences between Platonism and dumb Empedoclesian business. Do not engage with this third book. Stick to the health advice

[Ren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book that offers thoughtful perspectives on the archetypal characters of each of the inner planets and their gods. For instance there's this wild piece on Mercury describing Venus to a group of elder men and damn!

"Because she is ever new, therefore she always likes new things and hates old
things. She destroys what has been made in order to construct from them what
is still to be made. Again like a whore (if I may say so), not content with one
man, she loves the crowd and (to speak like a dialectician) favors the species
generally rather than the individual. But now she not only overthrows you by
touch but also deceives daily by taste, and dooms those she has deceived. For
those flavors you perceive in things which are pleasing because of their moderate temperedness, those Diana gave you by the gift of Apollo and of Jupiter.
But those wonderful allurements of taste by which daily you, secretly miserable,
lose your life like people caught on a hook-these are the ones that insidious
Venus fashions. Therefore, why do you blame Mars? Why Saturn? Mars
indeed harms you very rarely, and face to face. Saturn also more often declares
himself an enemy to your face; he harms more slowly, and leaves everyone
enough time for remedies. Only Venus comes before your face as a friend,
secretly as an enemy. Rather blame her, therefore - if one can blame any among
the powers above. Against her multiple deceptions equip yourselves with the
eyes of Argus; fortify yourselves with the shield of Pallas; and stop your ears
to her flattering promises as to the lethal songs of the Sirens; finally, accept
from me this flower of prudence with which you may avoid the sorcery of this
Circe. She promises (rather than gives) you at last barely two pleasures, and
these indeed lethal; but I promise you with the kindness of a father and a brother
five pleasures, and five I give, pure, perpetual, and wholesome, of which the
lowest is in smelling; the higher, in hearing; the more sublime, in seeing; the
more eminent, in the imagination; the higher and more divine in the reason.
The greater the delight experienced in touching and tasting, the graver damage
frequently befalls. But, on the contrary, the greater pleasure you gain daily
in smelling, hearing, and seeing, likewise in imagination and often in reason,
the longer you extend the thread of life."

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure what to say about this book. I felt as though non of what I read went in. The world of Renaissance thinking is so different from our own. But interesting.