  This process of intense reading and commenting set the stage for Ficino to write one of his most interesting works. Between 1469 and 1474 he composed his Theologia platonica (Platonic Theology), which awaited print publication until 1482. The work’s subtitle, On the Immortality of Souls, is indicative of Ficino’s goals. He feared that his contemporaries were losing their way, and he believed that the right sort of approach would help them find it. Above all, there was a tendency, he wrote (in the work’s dedicatory preface, addressed to Lorenzo de’ Medici), to separate philosophy from religion. Using Plato, and trying “to paint a portrait of Plato as close as possible to the Christian truth,” (Allen and Hankins 2001–06, vol.1, proem, sec.3, pp. 10–11) seemed to Ficino the way out of this impasse.