altars and sacrifices), and in 42 BCE the Senate voted to have him included among the gods of the state and passed a formal decree of deification, making him divus [divine] Julius.

[3] quam etiam ob causam divus Agustinus ipsum senem jam Hieronymum ad luctam provocat ac canere palinodiam praecipit.

Thus, the fact that Pico had arrived in Florence just as the Divus Plato had emerged, and the words he had used to express the general conviction that Plotinus and Plato should go hand in hand, might indeed have been interpreted by Ficino as clear evidence that Cosimo had had a specific purpose in mind, of which he had hitherto remained unaware.