Spiritual images and light

Use in the book

After the wax and mirror hypotheses, Ficino says spiritual color-images are not produced by bodies or received in mirrors and the brain. They are splendors of light striking bodies. He traces visible light to an invisible light of heavenly souls, overflowing outward until perceptible; it is not fastened to bodies but joins the light of our spirit, which depends on our soul. This is a positive claim within his natural philosophy, not merely a modern metaphor for optical information. Its celestial explanation should be reported as his account, not validated as physical science.

Meanings reaching hearing supply a related example. Ficino calls them spiritual and makes their transmission and preservation depend on souls, rather than treating meaning as the corporeal sound itself. The word Lucifer later tests the distinction between an indivisible meaning and divisible sound.

A further qualification occurs in the discussion of partitioned sight: the species is not itself what is seen; the color is seen through it. The distinction separates cognitive means from the visible object. Chapter 13 likewise says that sight receives a wall’s color without receiving the wall. These formulations should stand beside chapter 6’s insistence that the soul is not passively shaped by bodily qualities. The texts distinguish cognition from material influx; they do not justify flattening all reception-language into one physical process.

Places to read

1. VII.1.3Invisible and visible light, the light of our spirit, and word-meanings are distinguished.
2. VII.4.2The visible color is seen through a species rather than the species being the ultimate object.
3. VII.13.1The wall and its spiritual color-image illustrate reception without the object’s matter.

Translation in this edition

“Spiritual” preserves spiritalis; it does not erase the explicitly bodily spiritus of VII.6.1. Chapter 6’s exclusion of forms received from bodies and chapter 13’s reception of forms without matter remain a qualified contrast, not an unnoticed contradiction repaired by changing either passage.

absque materia / paries

absque materia / paries. Printed forms: absque rerum ipsarum materia; pariete; parietis.

Reception without the objects’ own matter, illustrated by a wall. Sight receives the wall’s color-image without receiving the wall itself, distinguishing cognition from bodily incorporation. References: VII.13.1. See Spiritual images and light.

affigere / coniungere

affigere / coniungere. Printed forms: affigitur; coniungi.

To fasten to, or join with. Light is said not to be fixed to a body but able to join the light of our spirit. The two relations are not interchangeable. References: VII.1.3. See Spiritual images and light.

emicare / exuberare / evadere

emicare / exuberare / evadere. Printed forms: emicet; evaditque; exuberat.

To shine forth, overflow abundantly and issue outward. These verbs describe the account of visible light proceeding from invisible celestial light; they report Ficino’s natural philosophy. References: VII.1.3. See Spiritual images and light.

fingere / figere

fingere / figere. Printed forms: figuntur; fingi.

To imagine or invent, contrasted with fixing or fastening. The impossible partitioned perception cannot even be imagined; word-meanings are not fixed in a body. These similar-looking forms belong to distinct verbs. References: VII.1.3, VII.4.2. See Spiritual images and light.

formari a corpore

formari a corpore. Printed forms: formatur a corpore.

To be shaped or modified by a body. Ficino denies this passive formation of the final judge, while elsewhere retaining cognitive reception of forms without matter. References: VII.6.3. See Spiritual images and light.

lucere / perspicuus

lucere / perspicuus. Printed forms: lucent; lucere; perspicuae.

To shine or be manifest; clear to apprehension. The many clear images shining in the soul contrast with what a tiny material mirror could contain. References: VII.1.2. See Spiritual images and light.

species sensibilis

species sensibilis. Printed forms: speciem; species.

The perceptual form through which the color is seen. Ficino expressly distinguishes the species as cognitive means from color as the object seen. References: VII.4.2. See Spiritual images and light.

spiritalis

spiritalis. Printed forms: spiritale; spiritalem; spiritales; spiritali; Spiritalia; Spiritalis; spiritalis; spiritalium.

Spiritual, marking a mode distinct from bodily extension and material receptivity. The word qualifies spheres, reception and the analogical matter of separate beings; these uses should not be flattened into one physical picture. References: V.1.5, V.8.3, V.11.7, V.11.8. See Spiritual matter and identity.

Spiritual, marking an image or meaning distinguished from bodily matter and modification. The color-image and the wall’s matter are not received in the same way; bodily spirit remains a separate concept. References: VII.1.3, VII.13.1. See Spiritual images and light.

splendor / lumen / lux

splendor / lumen / lux. Printed forms: luci; lumen; lumine; luminis; splendores.

Splendor, light and its shining manifestation. Ficino derives visible light from heavenly souls’ invisible light and relates it to the light of our spirit. References: VII.1.3. See Spiritual images and light.

transmittere / conservare

transmittere / conservare. Printed forms: conservantur; transmittuntur.

To send across and preserve. Meanings are said to pass from soul to soul and persist by the power of souls, rather than as bodily inscriptions alone. References: VII.1.3. See Spiritual images and light.