ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a Platonic progression from speculative principles to practical demonstration. It explores Marsilio Ficino's understanding of the power of music in relation to his concept of natural magic. In addition to his writing on the subject, people have plenty of evidence that Marsilio Ficino's own inspired performance led those who heard him play to regard him as Orpheus reborn. By choosing to invoke a particular god with suitable music at 'the right astrological hour', Marsilio Ficino says, people will naturally attract their gifts, for the appropriate planetary music spirit will vibrate in sympathy. The chapter explores two examples of Ficinian magic in practice. These two examples are a letter which Marsilio Ficino wrote to Giovanni Cavalcanti and he instructs him to fully embrace Venus, in her higher manifestation of human nature at its most dignified, through her earthly counterpart in his new state of wedlock.
