Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life: A Critical Edition and Translation (Volum

 Taking a course on astrological magic and this text was recommended to be picked up for a better understanding. The translation is great and the notes on various portions of the translation has really helped with my understanding of how the cosmic order works. Highly recommend this to other students of astrology, not just for those that are interested in the magic side of it. ( on line review) Ficino, famous in his day and in histories of philosophy as the pioneering translator of Plato and the Neo-Platonists (a distinction made long after his time), was the son of a physician, which in those days meant an astrologer. He was trained in his father's profession, but also as a priest, and read the Aristotle of the late Scholastics as well as Plato and his followers, and his supposed source, the books attributed to the Egyptian sage, Hermes Trismegistus. Bits and pieces of all of these interests, and others, appear in the "Books on Life," which are in large measure an attempt to avoid the negative implications of Ficino's own horoscope, which was dominated by the influence of Saturn, seeming to doom him to lethargy and sickness.