Circularity and return

Use in the book

Circularity relates a movement's end to its beginning and provides Ficino with a model of return to a source. In Book III, he calls circular motion the most perfect motion: it remains close to its source, joins beginning and end, and repeats without meeting the boundary that stops a straight course. From this cosmological premise he reasons that soul's first proper movement returns upon itself. Its powers unfold from higher through intermediate to lower levels and fold back upward. Because a self-returning spiritual nature attends to itself and its contents, this return supports an argument for intellectual self-awareness. The circuit is a structure of activity, not a measurable circle inside a head.

Book IV differentiates the figures by their subjects. God is called one circle because beginning and end are within himself; an angel has two circuits, returning to its author and contemplating itself; soul has three, turning to God, considering itself, and descending from causes to effects before ascending back. These descriptions do not attribute geometrical shapes to incorporeal beings. An angel's return to its author occurs through understanding and love. The rational part of celestial soul passes from God through unity and mind and returns through mind and unity to God; its approach is described through natural desire, understanding, intellectual love, and loving union. Since this ordered return can be completed in a moment, a sequence of relations need not constitute an ordinary temporal journey.

Bodily heaven, by contrast, turns spatially while imitating its higher causes. Circular movement is close to stability because a sphere need not leave its general location or change its substance and natural quality, even as its parts change position. Ficino thus calls it almost non-motion. Several explanations accumulate: heaven imitates higher beings; its continuous parts draw and press one another into a circuit; it remains in its natural place; and equal affinity for different positions prevents satisfaction in one fixed position. Saturn's sphere is also said to seek everywhere the enjoyment of a soul already wholly present everywhere. Bodily succession approximates, without becoming, soul's simultaneous presence.

Return can additionally describe the renewed traversal of seminal contents after a cosmic cycle. This possible repetition differs from intellectual self-return and physical rotation, though they share a pattern of departure and recovery. Nor does circularity make the moving soul the ultimate source of cosmic action. The chapter closes by referring both moving body and moved mover to a stable principle and end. Its claims about everlasting circular movement belong to Ficino's cosmological argument rather than modern mechanics.

Further passage references. III.2.25–3023456; IV.1.56–IV.1.572; IV.2.21–IV.2.27234567; IV.2.6; IV.2.11–IV.2.122; IV.2.21–IV.2.2623456

Places to read

1. III.2.25Circular movement is judged most perfect because it remains closest to source and foundation.
2. IV.2.21One, two and three circles describe the different relations of God, angel and soul.
3. IV.2.26–272Bodily circulation is related to soul and finally to a stable higher principle and end.

Translation in this edition

“Circle” does not give God or soul a geometrical body. IV.2.21 explicitly assigns different returns to God, angel and soul, while the bodily sphere’s parts subsequently rotate in place. Preserve that change of subject.

accedere / recedere

accedere / recedere. Printed forms: accedet; recedet.

To approach and withdraw. Each celestial part repeatedly passes a designated point; this recurring departure distinguishes circular motion from one-way qualitative tendency. References: IV.1.56. See Circularity and return.

circuitus

circuitus. Printed forms: Circuitus; circuitus.

Circuit or circular movement. Circularity unites origin and end and supplies the model of soul’s continuing return into itself; Ficino assumes bounded space. References: III.2.25, III.2.26. See Circularity and return.

circulus / circuitus

circulus / circuitus. Printed forms: circuitus; circulus.

Circle; circuit or return. God, angel, and soul receive different nonbodily circular descriptions before physical heaven imitates them. References: IV.2.21. See Circularity and return.

continuatio / reflectere in gyrum

continuatio / reflectere in gyrum. Printed forms: continuationem; reflectunt in gyrum.

Continuity; turning back into a round. The connected parts of heaven draw and push one another when motion begins, explaining the bodily course after the higher analogies. References: IV.2.21. See Circularity and return.

convertere / reverti

convertere / reverti. Printed forms: conversa; reverti; revertitur.

To turn toward or return. Reason turned toward mind sees principles together; recurrence of effects and local return in finite space are different kinds of return. References: IV.2.12, IV.2.22. See Circularity and return.

convolvi / revolvi

convolvi / revolvi. Printed forms: convolvitur; revolvitur.

To coil or turn around. The world revolves within divine presence where its finite motion is prescribed, rather than traveling toward an absent God. References: II.6.14. See Circularity and return.

nescire quiescere

nescire quiescere. Printed forms: nescit quiescere.

To know no rest. The continuing soul-motion and refusal to abandon natural place jointly motivate rotation within a finite bodily region. References: IV.2.22. See Circularity and return.

pellere

pellere. Printed forms: pellet; pellitque.

To push or drive another part. Connected heavenly parts draw and push one another around, supplying a bodily component of the circular-motion explanation. References: IV.2.21, IV.2.25. See Circularity and return.

polus / revolutio / restitutio

polus / revolutio / restitutio. Printed forms: polos; restitutio; revolutio.

Poles, revolution and return to a position. The heavens’ regularity is offered as evidence of stability within motion in Ficino’s cosmology, not a contemporary astronomical model. References: I.5.7. See Circularity and return.

reflectere

reflectere. Printed forms: reflectendae; reflecti.

To turn back upon itself. A spatially extended quality allegedly lacks the self-return needed to give heaven a revolution into itself. References: IV.1.57. See Circularity and return.

repetere / reflectere

repetere / reflectere. Printed forms: reflectatur; repetit.

Repeat or seek again / bend back. A circuit repeats its course, and soul’s movement returns into itself rather than exhausting a one-way path. References: III.2.26. See Circularity and return.

vicissitudo

vicissitudo. Printed forms: vicissitudine.

Alternation or changing succession. The moon’s varying reception represents soul’s successive operation despite a stable higher gift. References: III.1.32. See Sun, Mercury and moon.

Alternation or successive exchange. Celestial motion is said to illuminate and foster the elemental globe equally on every side. References: IV.2.20. See Circularity and return.

Statesman; Politicus; book on kingship (authorities and cited works)

Statesman; Politicus; book on kingship. Appears in arguments about ends and providence, the fated desire moving heaven, cosmic restoration, and circular motion's proximity to stability. II.11.26; II.13.24; IV.2.2, IV.2.12, IV.2.22–232. See Fate; Great year; Circularity and return.

Use in the book

Ficino argues that circular motion recollects its powers instead of letting them run away. What looks like its failure becomes renewal. He then refers to, while saying he passes over, Pythagoras’s argument that a sphere has no beginning or end and that motion in a spherical circuit therefore never begins or ceases. The reported conclusion is stronger than what the mere shape visibly proves; the lexicon preserves its attribution and does not turn geometry into an uncontested demonstration of temporal eternity.

Rational souls are called spiritual spheres whose invisible circuits are reflected by visible spheres and motions. Bodies serve as shadows, allowing an inference from the supposed perpetuity of the shadow to a stronger perpetuity in its source. The absence of contrary circular motion then supports absence of a destructive contrary. These are connected cosmological and metaphysical premises, not a statement that the soul is a tiny revolving globe.

V.5.8 gives the circle a different argumentative emphasis. The soul’s returning into itself, leaving matter behind, supports independent activity and freedom from material bonds. The image therefore joins conservation of power, reflexive activity and immateriality. It need not imply an absence of every changing operation: the stable subject can act successively.

Places to read

1. V.1.3, V.1.4, V.1.5Circular movement gathers and renews power; spiritual spheres are contrasted with visible shadows.
2. V.5.8Return into oneself supplies an argument against bondage to matter.

Translation in this edition

The source applies the first printing’s authorial corrections spiritales and facere at V.1.5. That unit continues the governing ostendit in V.1.4, so the English adds a short governing phrase. The edition’s “all that belongs to it” for sua quaeque avoids reducing the phrase to powers alone.

circuitus

circuitus. Printed forms: circuitum; circuitus; Circuitus; circuituum.

A circuit or returning course whose motion is interpreted as gathering back into its source. The spiritual circuit conserves power and the soul's return into itself supports material independence. References: V.1.4, V.1.5, V.5.8. See Circularity and spiritual spheres.

circulus

circulus. Printed forms: circulo; circulum; circulus.

A circle or circular course; in one context a form with intrinsic roundness, in another a model of returning movement. V.12345's movement and V.9234's predication example use circularity for different argumentative purposes. References: V.1.1, V.1.3, V.9.1. See Circularity and spiritual spheres.

Pythagoras

Pythagoras. Printed forms: Pythagorae.

Pythagoras as Ficino's named authority for an argument from the sphere's lack of beginning and end. Ficino says he passes over the argument while briefly reporting it; the attribution is not an independently checked quotation. References: V.1.4. See Circularity and spiritual spheres.

recolligere

recolligere. Printed forms: recolligit.

To gather back together into oneself. Circular motion conserves rather than dissipates its powers by gathering what belongs to it into its own circuit. References: V.1.4. See Circularity and spiritual spheres.

renovare

renovare. Printed forms: renovat.

To renew or restore fresh activity. The apparent failure of circular motion becomes renewal, supporting the image of a self-sustaining circuit. References: V.1.4. See Circularity and spiritual spheres.

se recipere

se recipere. Printed forms: in se recipere; in seipsam se recipit.

To return or withdraw into oneself. Circular return supports material independence; a later hypothetical return of essence into itself is tested as an alleged corruption. References: V.5.8, V.11.7. See Circularity and spiritual spheres.

sphaera

sphaera. Printed forms: sphaera; sphaerae; sphaeram; sphaerarum; sphaeras.

A sphere, used literally for visible bodies and analogically for rational souls. Spiritual spheres are not spatially extended soul-bodies; their invisible circuits are said to have visible shadows. References: V.1.4, V.1.5. See Circularity and spiritual spheres.

Pythagoras and the ancient theologians (authorities and interlocutors)

Pythagoras and the ancient theologians. The sphere argument attributed to Pythagoras is mentioned while being passed over in Book V. Book VI places Zoroaster, Hermes, Orpheus, Aglaophemus, Pythagoras and Plato in the ancient theological line. These two contexts do different argumentative work. References: V.1.4, VI.1.6. See Circularity and spiritual spheres; Divine production and the third essence.