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Bodies qualities and living processes

Spirit

spiritus, spiritus phantasticus, spiritalis, quasi spiritalia

Spiritus may name a cognitive or physiological medium; spiritalis may describe incorporeal activity or principles.

From the book

Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordSpiritus may name a cognitive or physiological medium; spiritalis may describe incorporeal activity or principles.
  • In the Platonic TheologyThe term's immediate context matters.
  • In this edition“Almost spiritual” at IV.1.72 preserves quasi.
  • A place to readImaginative spirit mediates inward formation, whereas spiritual seeds are productive principles.

Meaning

Spiritus may name a cognitive or physiological medium; spiritalis may describe incorporeal activity or principles. Quasi spiritalia is a qualified comparison for unusually subtle bodies, not their removal from bodily status.

Use in the book

The term's immediate context matters. In the geometer analogy, imaginative spirit is shaped through imagination, linking intellectual pattern with a lower medium. In the account of celestial action, spirits and humors in the human being are stirred and formed by powerful thought and affect. Yet spiritalis can also mark incorporeal productive seeds, while celestial bodies are called almost spiritual because of their exceptional subtlety. The latter phrase does not remove their bodily status: Ficino continues to distinguish a body from the soul animating it. The family of words accordingly distinguishes incorporeal principles from perceptual and physiological media. What Book IV supplies is a set of mediating roles and comparisons. The separately named ethereal garment belongs to a related context, but these passages do not identify it with every form of spiritus.

Further passage references. IV.1.11; IV.1.16; IV.1.72; IV.2.16; IV.2.26–IV.2.272

Places to read

  1. IV.1.11 and IV.1.16Imaginative spirit mediates inward formation, whereas spiritual seeds are productive principles.
  2. IV.1.72Celestial bodies are almost spiritual because of simplicity and subtlety, yet remain bodies animated by spirits.
  3. IV.2.16Human spirits and humors supply the bodily analogy for changing psychic affections.
  4. IV.2.26–272The ethereal garment’s fuller discussion is deferred.

Translation in this edition

“Almost spiritual” at IV.1.72 preserves quasi. Spiritus in the visual or imaginative medium and spirits beside humors in bodily response should not all be silently identified with the separately named ethereal garment.

spiritus

spiritus. Printed forms: spiritibus; spiritu; spiritui; Spiritus; spiritus.

Spirit or spiritual substance, here rational and nonbodily. Rational spirit’s asserted independence from matter supports the attributed presence theory; bodily spirit in other contexts must be distinguished. References: II.6.2, II.6.14, II.6.15, II.6.23. See Spirit.

sulfur / quasi spiritalia

sulfur / quasi spiritalia. Printed forms: quasi spiritalia; sulfur.

Sulfur; almost spiritual through exceptional subtlety. Readiness to ignite supplies an analogy for celestial bodies' readiness to receive animation; almost spiritual still describes bodies. References: IV.1.72. See Spirit.