Preface.

Of the Gentiles, under the Mosaic law, the impiety of the Gentiles, and how they recognized God having been taught by divine instruction; how the invisible things of God are known through visible things. Furthermore, concerning the triple cause within God, and the triple divine cognition as if in a triple heaven; how the impious fall from guilt into punishment, and from punishment back into guilt; concerning the persistence of unbelievers, the divine judgment, the retribution for works, eternal punishment, the steps to the Father, the proud struggle against God and divine vengeance, and innumerable other matters which are noted in the individual chapters.

Fourth follows a most elegant and at once most Christian book of SERMONS, in which, besides pious dogmas, various passages of the Evangelists are explained. In these, he wishes nothing to be promulgated by himself (which is also to be understood of all his other books) except as much as the Christian religion and the Catholic Church can endure and agree upon.

Fifth are contained in this first Volume, the three books ON THE TRIPLE LIFE. Of these, the first treats the health of scholars, from which one may recognize how much he loved students of literature and sought their advantage; for which benefit, indeed, all students, both young and old alike, rightly owe him great thanks, for from this they emerge instructed in how they might rightly order their lives while engaged in letters. The second book concerns the prolongation of life—that is, by what remedy we ought to extend our life so that we might enjoy a long-lasting and prosperous health. The third concerns obtaining life from the heavens: and this book is clearly to be sought after and read by everyone, so that, being instructed, we may eventually acquire that celestial life in the heavenly fatherland with the Sacrosanct and individual Trinity—FATHER, SON, and HOLY SPIRIT—and there, having laid down this mass of the body, enjoy true joy.

Sixth, the APOLOGY A "defense" or formal justification of his views. follows these in place, in which he deals with medical matters, Astrology, the life of the world, magic, and the MAGI The "Wise Men" from the East who visited the infant Jesus; Ficino argues their "magic" was a legitimate study of nature. who immediately greeted CHRIST THE BEST AND GREATEST. At the end of this, a most beautiful LETTER is also placed, concerning how security and tranquility of mind are necessary for life.

Then is added to this the Antidote against Epidemics, which that most serious author had written in his own vernacular tongue—that is, Tuscan Ficino originally wrote this plague manual in Italian (Tuscan) to ensure it was accessible to the general public during outbreaks.—at the urging of the prayers and requests of certain friends; it was finally gifted with Latinity Translated into Latin. by GIROLAMO RICCI OF PAVIA. If your Excellency should deign to read this when your mind is quiet from greater business, there will be, joined with the fruitfulness, elegance, and ornament of the language, a certain pleasure and no common utility. For it teaches not only the cure of an evil spreading as an epidemic original: "ἐπιδημίως" and currently present, but also with what healings or medicines this pestilence can be kept away from bodies.

In the seventh place, we have set that work of LETTERS divided into twelve books, into which other small books and dialogues discussing various matters are inserted (as can always be seen in their proper place).

The eighth place, however, is occupied by those two books, the first ON THE SUN, the other ON LIGHT. In the former, ON THE SUN, many things indeed most worthy of knowledge and pleasant are shown: such as what its nature, force, and power are; how it stands in relation to all other stars and planets; also its likeness to GOD the creator of all things, and many other things of this kind. Concerning LIGHT, almost no fewer things are shown, as one may read in the inscriptions of the individual chapters.