Featuring philosophical commentary from Marsilio Ficino—a leading scholar of the Italian Renaissance who translated all the works of Plato into Latin—this work is the first English translation of Ficino's commentary of Plato's dialogue between the philosopher Parmenides and the youthful Socrates. In the scene, the older man instructs his student on the use of dialectic to draw the mind away from its preoccupation with the realm of matter and attract it towards contemplation of the soul.