Marsilio Ficino was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest, one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism in touch with the major academics of his day and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin, his Florentine Academy, an attempt to revive Plato's Academy, influenced the direction and tenor of the Italian Renaissance and the development of European philosophy. Ficino was born at Figline Valdarno, his father Diotifeci d'Agnolo was a physician under the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici, who took the young man into his household and became the lifelong patron of Marsilio, made tutor to his grandson, Lorenzo de' Medici. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the Italian humanist philosopher and scholar was another of his students. During the sessions at Florence of the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1438–1445, during the failed attempts to heal the schism of the Eastern and Western churches, Cosimo de' Medici and his intellectual circle had made acquaintance with the Neoplatonic philosopher George Gemistos Plethon, whose discourses upon Plato and the Alexandrian mystics so fascinated the learned society of Florence that they named him the second Plato.

In 1459 John Argyropoulos was lecturing on Greek language and literature at Florence, Ficino became his pupil. When Cosimo decided to refound Plato's Academy at Florence he chose Ficino as its head. In 1462, Cosimo supplied Ficino with Greek manuscripts of Plato's work, whereupon Ficino started translating the entire corpus into Latin. Ficino produced a translation of a collection of Hellenistic Greek documents found by Leonardo da Pistoia called Hermetica, the writings of many of the Neoplatonists, including Porphyry and Plotinus. Among his many students was Francesco Cattani da Diacceto, considered by Ficino to be his successor as the head of the Florentine Platonic Academy. Diacceto's student, Giovanni di Bardo Corsi, produced a short biography of Ficino in 1506. A physician and a vegetarian, Ficino became a priest in 1473. In 1474 Ficino completed his treatise on the immortality of the soul, Theologia Platonica de immortalitate animae. In the rush of enthusiasm for every rediscovery from Antiquity, he exhibited a great interest in the arts of astrology, which landed him in trouble with the Catholic Church.

In 1489 he was accused of heresy before Pope Innocent VIII and needed strong defense to preserve him from condemnation. Writing in 1492 Ficino proclaimed: "This century, like a golden age, has restored to light the liberal arts, which were extinct: grammar, rhetoric, sculpture, music... this century appears to have perfected astrology." Ficino's letters, extending over the years 1474 -- 1494, have been published. He wrote De amore. De vita libri tres, or De triplici vita, published in 1489, provides a great deal of medical and astrological advice for maintaining health and vigor, as well as espousing the Neoplatonist view of the world's ensoulment and its integration with the human soul: There will be some men or other and blind, who see life plain in the lowest animals and the meanest plants, but do not see life in the heavens or the world... Now if those little men grant life to the smallest particles of the world, what folly! What envy! neither to know that the Whole, in which'we live and move and have our being,' is itself alive, nor to wish this to be so.

One metaphor for this integrated "aliveness" is Ficino's astrology. In the Book of Life, he details the interlinks between consequence, it talks about a list of things. Due to early influences from his father Diotifeci, a doctor to Cosimo de' Medici, Ficino published Latin and Italian treatises on medical subjects such as Consiglio contro la pestilenza and De vita libri tres, his medical works exerted considerable influence on Renaissance physicians such as Paracelsus, with whom he shared the perception on the unity of the micro- and macrocosmos, their interactions, through somatic and psychological manifestations, with the aim to investigate their signatures to cure diseases. Those works, which were popular at the time, dealt with astrological and alchemical concepts, thus Ficino came under the suspicion of heresy. Ficino introduced the concept of "platonic love" in the West, it first appeared in a letter to Alamanno Donati in 1476, but was fully developed all along his work his famous De amore.

He practiced this love metaphysic with Giovanni Cavalcanti, whom he made the principal character in his commentary on the Convivio, to whom he wrote ardent love letters in Latin that were published in his Epistulae in 1492. After his death his biographers had a difficult task trying to refute those who spoke of his homosexual tendencies, but his sincere and deep faith, membership of the clergy, put him beyond the reach of gossip, while praising love for the same sex, he condemned sodomy in the Convivium. His Latin translations of Plato's texts put into practice the theories of anti-homosexuality in his Convivium. Marsilio Ficino was able to place women on an equal level with men in the cosmological hiera

The Dominican Summer League Rangers or DSL Rangers are a Minor League Baseball team of the Dominican Summer League and Rookie affiliates of the Texas Rangers. They are located in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Since 2014, the team has been split into two squads, DSL Rangers 1 and DSL Rangers 2; the team was established in 1989 as a shared affiliate of the Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox, Houston Astros. For 1990 and 1991, they were an independent Rangers affiliate. For 1992, they shared an affiliation with the expansion Florida Marlins. In 1993, they shared an affiliation with the Chicago Cubs. In 1994, they shared an affiliation with the Atlanta Braves, they became an independent Rangers affiliate again in 1995 and have remained so since. The team has split into two squads three different times in their existence: 1997, 2008, 2009, since 2014. In 2019, the Rangers opened a new $12.5 million organizationally owned Dominican Academy complex in Boca Chica. The complex includes three full size fields, a 18,500 square-foot clubhouse with lockers for 100 players, a 2,500 square-foot weight room, a 10,000 square-foot batting cage, a 30,000 square-foot dormitory which accommodates 96 players and 29 staff members.

Included is a 90-seat dining hall and standalone office building. Official DSL Rangers 1 website Official DSL Rangers 2 website

Nettwerk Music Group is the umbrella company for Nettwerk Records, Nettwerk Management, Nettwerk One Publishing. Established in 1984, the Vancouver-based company was created by Nettwerk principals Terry McBride, Mark Jowett, Ric Arboit and Dan Fraser, as a record label to distribute recordings by the band Moev, but the label expanded in Canada and internationally. Specializing in electronic music genres such as alternative dance and industrial, the label became a powerful player in pop and rock in the late 1980s and 1990s, with label and management clients including Coldplay, Sarah McLachlan and Barenaked Ladies. Nettwerk has on its label and publishing rosters Perfume Genius, The Veils, fun. Passenger, Christina Perri, Family of the Year, Beta Radio, Ólafur Arnalds. Once out of college, CEO Terry McBride managed a small band called Moev, of whom his friend Mark Jowett was a member. They'd spend time at his small apartment with friends such as the members of the electro-industrial band Skinny Puppy, soon he and Jowett starting putting out their records, along with Moev's and The Grapes of Wrath.

McBride had started a label and though it did not off the ground, he and Jowett were willing to give the record business another try. The company opened its doors in 1985, their first release was The Grapes of Wrath's self-titled EP followed by their full-length, September Bowl of Green. It piqued the attention of Capitol Records, paved the way for a distribution deal for the band and Nettwerk as a label. At a show in Halifax, McBride met nineteen-year-old singer-songwriter named Sarah McLachlan – he'd been introduced to her music through Jowett, tried to recruit her to front Moev, her parents rejected the idea, saying she was too young, but by she had her moved out of her parents home and rented an apartment down the street while in her first year of art school. McBride offered McLachlan a five-record deal, she agreed, saying “Ok. Sure. Why not?"At this point, McBride and Jowett had moved Nettwerk into a new office, McLachlan relocated to Vancouver to write, finishing her debut, Touch, in 1988.

The first single, "Vox", was a hit, led to her signing a worldwide deal with Arista Records. She followed up with Solace in 1991 and Fumbling Towards Ecstasy in 1993. Surfacing in 1997 contained two hit singles. Lilith Fair was McLachlan’s idea. Though McBride was resistant at first, he pushed forward, they assembled a lineup that they were told was "suicidal": Paula Cole, Aimee Mann, Patti Smith, Lisa Loeb and McLachlan to close, it was a success, the next summer they launched a touring version – it grossed $16 million, a large portion of, donated women’s charities. Founded by McLachlan, McBride, Nettwerk co-owner Dan Fraser and New York talent agent Marty Diamond, Lilith Fair would become one of the most powerful and accomplished tours of all time. Nettwerk signed Barenaked Ladies, at the time viewed as a novelty act. After steady radio promotion, McBride booked the band for a show at City Hall Plaza in Boston to launch their album Stunt; the concert drew 80,000 fans, the first single, "One Week", reached number one on the charts earning the band a Grammy nomination and a Juno Award for Best Pop Album.

They have since gone on to sell over 10 million albums. Nettwerk brought on Dido in 1999, as well as Sum 41. Avril Lavigne was sixteen. Though Lavigne would release her records through Arista, she continued with Nettwerk for her management, it was around this time that the label entered into an agreement with EMI that allowed Nettwerk to pursue the company’s rejected material – one of, a record called Parachutes by the band Coldplay. Nettwerk released the album in Canada and the United States in 2000. Nettwerk embraced new digital formats. McBride studied reports showing the sea change in fan preference, realized that he’d rather cater to the growing MP3 culture rather than work against it. In 2005, Nettmusic became one of the first major music companies to sell MP3s free of DRM, supported the consumer case in the battle against the Recording Industry Association of America. Nettwerk has offered to pay the legal fees of a teenager in Texas, being sued for downloading songs. At the same time, Nettwerk continued to focus on other new and both artist-and-fan friendly models.

McBride conceived of a concept he called "collapsed copyright", set to revolve around a new business model that empowered artists themselves and not just the corporations. The premise allowed artists to release music under their own label and promoted through Nettwerk. On June 9, 2010, Nettwerk announced that for its distribution and marketing in the United States, it would depart from Sony Music and its catalogue would now be distributed by WMG's Alternative Distribution Alliance. In 2013, Nettwerk raised $10.25 million in equity financing to sign artists and purchase catalogs. In July, 2016, Nettwerk sold its publishing catalog to Kobalt Investment Fund, an independent investment fund established in 2011. In September 2017 Nettwerk Records announced. In 2008, Nettwerk founder Terry McBride revived a retired sub-label of Nettwerk called Nutone Records, with the objective of releasing devotional and world music, he launched a chain