From the book
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordOculus is an eye; visus can mean sight or the visual capacity.
- In the Platonic TheologyFicino invites two linked imaginary enlargements.
- In this editionBoth “Imagine” imperatives translate finge.
- A place to readMind is established as the soul’s eye
Meaning
Oculus is an eye; visus can mean sight or the visual capacity. Fingere animo asks the reader to imagine or fashion a supposition mentally. Prospectus and intuitus identify a view or apprehension. Aucupari, literally a hunting word, here depicts seeking one object and then another.
Use in the book
Ficino invites two linked imaginary enlargements. First the eye grows to fill the whole body, removing the variety of bodily members. It sees all colours at once without turning but still receives the same sunlight and remains other than that light. Then mind takes the place of every other psychic faculty, leaving a pure mind which Ficino calls an angel. It apprehends all true things in one intuition rather than hunting them successively. The parallel is designed to preserve the distinction between recipient and truth even at the highest created intellectual level. It does not describe a biological transformation or prescribe the literal destruction of bodily or psychic functions. Nor does “the same truth” mean the same limited amount of apprehension: reception becomes more abundant while its source remains the same.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
Both “Imagine” imperatives translate finge. “Hunting” preserves the vividness of aucupabitur, whereas “a single intuition” translates the cognitive unico intuitu. These are figurative aids to an argument, not evidence that intuitus always names a separate faculty.
aucupor
aucupor. Printed forms: aucupabitur.
To hunt or seek after successively. The pure mind does not hunt now one truth and now another; the hunting image characterizes discursive acquisition. References: I.6.9. See Eye and imagined enlargement.
excresco / invalesco
excresco / invalesco. Printed forms: excrescere; invalescere.
To grow until filling something, and to grow powerful. The eye’s imagined bodily expansion parallels mind’s imagined dominance over other faculties; these are suppositious analogies, not a physical transformation. References: I.6.8, I.6.9. See Eye and imagined enlargement.
finge animo / finge iterum
finge animo / finge iterum. Printed forms: Finge animo; Finge iterum.
Imagine, and imagine again. Two explicit thought experiments enlarge eye and mind to isolate simultaneous apprehension while preserving distinction from light or truth. References: I.6.8, I.6.9. See Eye and imagined enlargement.
fingo and removed members
fingo and removed members. Printed forms: deletis; relicta; sublata.
With something removed or abolished; left remaining. These participles specify hypothetical removal of bodily members or nonintellectual soul-powers in the paired eye/mind thought experiments, not actual prescriptions for transformation. References: I.6.8, I.6.9. See Eye and imagined enlargement.