Complete Works

...[intending] to paint the Idea, he will then strive in what follows to prove in fact that our prophet has fallen away from that archetype in no respect, but has attained to that Mosaical Idea in all its parts, so that nothing else should be proposed to all as such an Idea than [the works of] Moses himself; and we can all more easily marvel at its magnitude than estimate it according to its worth.

These things of ours, whatever they may be, still the raw beginnings of our youth, are owed to you, most illustrious Lorenzo, to write correctly concerning nature either because they are mine—I who long ago gave and devoted myself to you—or because you yourself provided for us that leisure of the Fiesolan retreat in which they were born. Angelo Poliziano This leisure is seasoned by the frequent intervention, or rather the constant presence, of your close friend Angelo Poliziano, whose pleasant and fertile genius, which previously brought forth various flowers of literature, now, as I judge, promises a solid and truly mature fruit of philosophy. It is also customary, when something festive or joyful happens to those we love or honor, to congratulate them not only with words but also to favor their happiness, if I may say so, with some gift, and to make the joy of our soul manifest to them.

This lucubration of ours, therefore, comes to you at an opportune time, when your son Giovanni has been designated at an age at which no one before was ever appointed to the highest college of the Christian orders by the Supreme Pontiff Innocent VIII Innocent VIII—both his own character, which promises all good things of itself, and your merits and authority rightly and deservedly demanding this for him. It remains for that excellent youth to show himself worthy of this dignity. He will do so if he has the same man as the exemplar of his life—that is, of prudence and all virtue—whom he had as father and author of his dignity. Farewell.

ANOTHER PROEM TO THE WHOLE WORK.

Decorative woodcut initial 'T' featuring floral motifs and a central figure or face within the letter's frame.

The grades and difference of the three worlds: The Angelic, Celestial, and Sublunary World Antiquity depicts three worlds. The highest of all is the ultramundane, which theologians call the angelic and philosophers the intellectual, and which Plato says in the Phaedrus has been sung by no one sufficiently according to its dignity. Next to this is the celestial; the last of all is this sublunary one which we inhabit. This is the world of darkness; that other, however, is of light; the heaven is tempered from light and darkness.

This [sublunary] world is marked by a flowing and unstable substance through water; that [angelic] one through the fire of the brightness of light and the sublimity of its place; therefore, the heaven, being of a middle nature, is called by the Hebrews ashamayim, as if composed of esh and mayim, that is, of the fire and water which we have mentioned. Here is the vicissitude of life and death; there is perpetual life and stable operation; and in heaven, the stability of life and the vicissitude of operations and places. This [world] consists of the falling substance of bodies; those [higher worlds] of the nature of the divine mind; the heaven is constituted of body, but incorruptible, and of mind, but bound to the body.

The third is moved by the second; the second is ruled by the first; and there are besides many differences between them, which it is not my purpose to recount here, where we are passing by these things rather than overflowing them. I should not omit that these three worlds were most evidently figured by Moses in the construction of that admirable tabernacle of his. Three worlds figured in the tabernacle of Moses For he divided the tabernacle into three parts, of which each could in no way more expressly represent the individual worlds we have mentioned.

For the first part, defended by no roof or covering, was exposed and vulnerable to rains, snows, suns, heat, and cold; and as it is most clearly the image of our—that is, the sublunary—world, not only did clean and unclean, sacred and profane men inhabit it, but also animals of every kind; and in it, either because of the sacrifices or the continual slaughters, there was a perpetual vicissitude of life and death. The remaining two parts were both covered and free on all sides from every foreign injury, just as both worlds, the celestial as well as the super-celestial, are capable of neither injury nor insult. Both likewise were honored with the name of holiness, yet in such a way that the one which was more secret was called the "Holy of Holies," while the other was decorated with the title of "Holy"; just as, although both the celestial and angelic worlds are each holy, since above the moon after the fall of Lucifer no [evil...]