Exchange and reconciliation · Lexicon

From the book

Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordMutuare and mutuari express lending or giving and borrowing or receiving; vicissim marks reciprocity.
In the Platonic TheologyThe world’s opposed members exchange natures and motions, giving as well as receiving.
In this editionThe supplied English’s “both giving and receiving” is an explanatory rendering of mutuarent...
A place to readThe paired active and deponent verbs articulate giving and receiving.

Meaning

Mutuare and mutuari express lending or giving and borrowing or receiving; vicissim marks reciprocity. Conciliare reconciles, interimere destroys, and copulare joins. Reciprocity is distinct from simple sameness.

Use in the book

The world’s opposed members exchange natures and motions, giving as well as receiving. Ficino asks what enables contrary powers to remain connected rather than separating according to weight and place or destroying one another. Their own opposition cannot, in his argument, explain their common ordered life; a superior unity must bind them. The subsequent reconciliation claim specifies the benefit: contending things are directed together toward good ends instead of mutually abolishing one another. The heat-and-cold comparison differentiates a power’s ordinary effect from the fitting measure of that effect within a coordinated whole. These passages therefore require both difference and cooperation. Making all elements identical would remove the very oppositions that providence is said to coordinate.

Selected annotated passages.

Places to read

II.13.4The paired active and deponent verbs articulate giving and receiving.
II.13.7Heat and cold have contrasting effects.
II.13.10Providence reconciles opposing things so they do not destroy each other.

Translation in this edition

The supplied English’s “both giving and receiving” is an explanatory rendering of mutuarent... et mutuarentur. It makes a real grammatical distinction audible. The physical claims about elements’ places and effects remain Ficino’s premises.

conciliare / interimere

conciliare / interimere. Printed forms: conciliet; interimant.

Reconcile / destroy. Providence brings contending powers together so that they do not mutually abolish one another. References: II.13.10. See Exchange and reconciliation.

mutuare / mutuari

mutuare / mutuari. Printed forms: mutuant; mutuarentque; mutuarentur; mutuari.

To exchange or borrow. Cosmic parts exchange natures; God is said to need no loan of matter to produce a whole effect. References: II.2.9, II.7.21. See Borrowing and assistance.

Give or lend / receive or borrow. The paired forms depict opposed members of the world exchanging natures and motions in both directions. References: II.13.4. See Exchange and reconciliation.

vicissim / invicem

vicissim / invicem. Printed forms: invicem; vicissim.

Reciprocally or in turn / mutually. The adverbs mark exchange and mutual connection; a shared order coordinates distinct agents without making them identical. References: II.13.4. See Exchange and reconciliation.