Glass and colored radiance · Lexicon

From the book

Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordVitrum is glass, vitreus glass-made, fenestra a window, and pavimentum a paved floor.
In the Platonic TheologySunlight passes through two colored windows and produces red and green radiances on the pavement.
In this edition“Radiance” renders splendor, while lumen is the light from which it proceeds.
A place to readNarrower agents differentiate universal action; colored windows illustrate how

Meaning

Vitrum is glass, vitreus glass-made, fenestra a window, and pavimentum a paved floor. Splendor is radiance or brightness. Rubeus and ruber mark red, viridis green; the variant red forms belong to the same color-description.

Use in the book

Sunlight passes through two colored windows and produces red and green radiances on the pavement. Both radiances owe their being light to sunlight. Their distinct colors also come from that light, but as passing through one particular glass or the other. The example therefore avoids assigning universal being to God and then treating specific determinations as independent products of other causes.

The immediate claim is that divine power differentiates itself through various intermediaries. The intermediaries matter: their differences shape the manifestation. Yet their contribution remains dependent on the first source. The image illustrates coordinated levels of causation rather than a choice between one cause doing everything and many causes acting autonomously. It is Ficino’s explanatory optical analogy, not a complete account of the physics of color.

Places to read

II.7.30, II.7.31Narrower agents differentiate universal action; colored windows illustrate how
II.7.32The following conclusion restates the dependence of subordinate powers and traces

Translation in this edition

“Radiance” renders splendor, while lumen is the light from which it proceeds. Preserve the qualification “insofar as” the light passes through particular glass; without it the role of the intermediary disappears.

ruber / viridis / splendor

ruber / viridis / splendor. Printed forms: rubeus; rubra; rubrum; splendor; splendores; viridem; viridis.

Red, green, and radiance. Each radiance owes both its luminosity and its color to sunlight as transmitted through particular glass. References: II.7.31. See Glass and colored radiance.

vitrum / fenestra / pavimentum

vitrum / fenestra / pavimentum. Printed forms: fenestras; pavimento; vitreas; vitrum.

Glass, window, and pavement. Colored windows shape sunlight into distinct radiances on the floor, illustrating differentiated dependent causation. References: II.7.31. See Glass and colored radiance.