Enfolding and unfolding · Lexicon

From the book

Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordImplicare can fold or gather together, explicare unfold or set forth, and replicare fold back or repeat.
In the Platonic TheologyAt the close of II.32 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10, unity enfolds, truth unfolds, and goodness pours forth.
In this editionThe translation renders replicatur “is enfolded” and explicatur “is unfolded” in II.6.13.
A place to readEnfolding, unfolding, outpouring, and the threefold return close the argument for one principle

Meaning

Implicare can fold or gather together, explicare unfold or set forth, and replicare fold back or repeat. Ficino uses this related vocabulary to describe unity and developed plurality. The passive reformantur and restituuntur emphasize being re-formed and restored.

Use in the book

At the close of II.32 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10, unity enfolds, truth unfolds, and goodness pours forth. Return reverses the direction: things flow back through goodness, are re-formed through truth, and restored into one through unity. The sequence assigns explanatory roles to the one substance already identified as God. It does not narrate three substances creating in successive stages.

II.6.13 uses folding language in a discussion of magnitude: what is truly great is wholly great in everything within and wholly manifested throughout what is without. The wording responds to imagination’s assumption that only bodily extension can be vast. The image of folds is useful precisely because it need not parcel the source into spatial fragments. It should not be taken as a description of physical surfaces inside a divine body.

Places to read

II.3.10Enfolding, unfolding, outpouring, and the threefold return close the argument for one principle
II.6.13Whole presence within and without counters the model of divisible magnitude

Translation in this edition

The translation renders replicatur “is enfolded” and explicatur “is unfolded” in II.6.13. The Latin word-family is a reading aid, not proof that the two passages offer a complete technical doctrine with invariant terminology.

implicare / explicare / replicare

implicare / explicare / replicare. Printed forms: explicat; explicatur; implicat; replicatur.

To enfold, unfold, or fold back, used for unity and manifested plurality. The one principle enfolds and unfolds; whole presence within and without contrasts with divisible bodily magnitude. References: II.3.10, II.6.13. See Enfolding and unfolding.