Art and nature

Use in the book

Ars means purposive skill or craft, not only the fine arts. Natura can name a thing's constitution, a non-deliberative operative power, or the broader organized order of beings. Ficino uses craft to distinguish intelligent direction from the undirected capacities of material: fire's ability to heat does not explain the arrangement of a complete building. An architect knows parts through a plan of the whole; an accomplished artisan acts readily through settled skill. Divine counsel, on this analogy, need not imply hesitation or successive planning. God also differs decisively from a human craftsman by producing matter itself rather than borrowing it.

Book I argues that material does not give itself an artifact's form and therefore cannot be the sufficient source of natural form. Nature's superior control of its matter implies a formative source both more intimately present to it and more independent in substance. A maker wholly mingled with and limited by its work could not be the first architect. These comparisons concern causal dependence, not a physical divine artisan standing outside the universe with tools.

Book IV develops the contrast between external human art and inward natural art. Human art is described as a kind of nature acting externally upon matter; nature is art ordering matter internally. The carpenter imagined within wood and the geometer forming figures in imagination model this intimacy. Drawing on the ground remains an external operation. An artifact is the craftsman's mind in matter separated from that craftsman; a natural work is nature's mind in matter joined to nature. Human art imposes contingent forms, while natural art produces substantial forms through lasting essential principles. Ficino argues from the life, beauty, and completeness of natural products that their source cannot be less intelligently equipped than human craftsmanship.

Other craft examples refine the causal account. A house's original structural features belong to its plan, while added paintings may require other plans. A Florentine mechanical display, in which one ball coordinates diverse figures and sounds, illustrates unified direction of varied effects. The examples link ideas, instruments, ends, and providential order without identifying divine action with ordinary manufacture.

'Bare nature' has a narrower meaning in II.11234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303132333435363738: a fixed power exerting its available force toward a determinate effect. Fire heats differently because materials and conditions vary, not because it intelligently selects them. This cannot explain God's full range of effects, yet Ficino does not oppose nature to intellect without qualification: he attributes intellectual nature and natural intelligence to God. Providence preserves each creature's proper nature rather than making every level act alike. A further local use distinguishes a body's natural tendency toward rest from rational soul's circular activity. The particular use of 'nature' therefore determines whether the contrast is with craft, deliberation, intelligence, or psychic motion.

Further passage references. I.2.1–I.2.923456789; I.3.6, I.3.17–I.3.182, I.3.32; I.5.11–I.5.122, I.5.17; II.11.14, 18, 21; II.13.2, 5, 13–18; II.11.8–1623456789; II.13.5–1923456789101112131415, 26; III.1.17–23234567; IV.1.9–IV.1.132345; IV.1.56; IV.1.75

Places to read

1. I.3.6Craft matter cannot give itself an artifact’s form, supporting the need for a natural formative source.
2. I.3.17Nature’s superior efficacy implies both more intimate presence and greater substantial independence than art.
3. I.3.32A maker tainted by its own material work cannot be the first independent architect.
4. II.13.17Natural regularity and fitting products are compared with intelligent human design.

Translation in this edition

“Nature” should not always be read as the total environment, nor “art” restricted to fine art. The maker analogy distinguishes externally imposed form, inward natural formation and divine production of matter itself; it does not give God a bodily workshop.

ars / artificium

ars / artificium. Printed forms: ars; arti; artibus; artificii; artis; Artium.

Craft or skill and its produced artifact. Material already shaped in some way still needs the art’s form to become the artifact; the comparison strengthens the case for a natural formative cause. References: I.3.6. See Art and nature.

Craft or purposive skill, broader than fine art. Art’s dependence on natural material and intellectual makers’ knowledge of products serve different causal arguments. References: II.7.17, II.9.13. See Art and nature.

conicio

conicio. Printed forms: conicimus.

To infer or conjecture from an indication. Nature’s superior efficacy compared with art supports an inference about greater mastery, closer presence and more independent substance. References: I.3.17. See Art and nature.

detestari

detestari. Printed forms: detestatur.

Denounce or reject strongly. Ficino attributes to Plato a rejection of philosophers who explain nature through chance or necessity alone. References: II.11.26. See Art and nature.

fabricare / construere / conficere

fabricare / construere / conficere. Printed forms: conficere; constructa; construi; fabricat.

To fashion, construct, or complete a product. The verbs range from hypothetical worlds to the exact craftsmanship attributed to even the lowest things. References: II.2.12, II.2.13, II.9.22. See Art and nature.

instinctus

instinctus. Printed forms: instinctu.

Impulse or inclination. Natural instinct is denied as a sufficient account of divine action but positively describes soul’s inclination toward both extremes. References: II.11.10, III.2.8. See Art and nature.

natura / naturalis

natura / naturalis. Printed forms: natura; naturae; naturale; naturalem; naturalia; naturam.

A thing’s nature or constitution; the natural productive order; what acts through natural being. A shared nature differs from a proper feature, while nature as a whole depends on God as art depends on nature. References: II.2.3, II.7.17, II.8.4. See Art and nature.

naturalis / natura

naturalis / natura. Printed forms: natura; naturalis.

Natural / a thing’s nature or constitutive manner. God preserves each nature’s mode of action; the term’s broad use must be distinguished from bare nature as a limited necessary agent. References: II.11.14, II.13.26. See Art and nature.

nudus / adventitius

nudus / adventitius. Printed forms: adventitiam; nudam.

Bare or considered alone / added from outside. God acts neither by bare nature nor by an adventitious intelligence; the paired rejection prepares intellectual nature and natural intelligence. References: II.11.12. See Art and nature.

opifex / architectus

opifex / architectus. Printed forms: architectum; opificem.

A maker or artisan and an architect. A maker mingled with and impaired by its work cannot be its supreme independent source; the craft image tests causal mastery. References: I.3.32. See Art and nature.

opus

opus. Printed forms: operis; opus.

Work or product; also need in opus est. God’s one work requires unity of parts, while opus est medio means a middle is needed. The idiom must not be read as a separately manufactured work. References: II.13.2, III.2.2, III.2.6, III.2.7. See Art and nature.

sapientia / sapiens

sapientia / sapiens. Printed forms: sapientia; sapientiae; sapientissima; sapientissimi.

Wisdom / wise. Wisdom supplies the purpose and order that bare material powers do not explain in Ficino’s argument. References: II.11.23, II.13.20. See Art and nature.

temperare

temperare. Printed forms: temperans; temperas; temperat.

Moderate or bring into a fitting condition. Heaven is said to temper earth and water in the historical account of provisioning living things. References: II.13.16. See Providential provision.

To order or regulate by fitting adjustment; to tune. Nature orders matter inwardly, while Apollo tunes heaven through the musical comparison. References: IV.1.11, IV.1.52. See Art and nature.

Lucretius (authorities and cited works)

Lucretius. The named Epicurean opponent in Ficino's argument against chance as the explanation of the world's orderly formation and governance. The direct addresses belong to Ficino's polemical presentation. II.13.14–20234567. See Chance; Providence; Art and nature.

Physics; works on nature (authorities and cited works)

Physics; works on nature. Invoked for purposive natural order and celestial animation. II.13.12; IV.1.88. See Art and nature; Spheres and stars.