Chapter 2 Matter as a Mirror: Marsilio Ficino and Renaissance ...

Matter as a Mirror 77
category of reflection, that is, a reflection that never met a mirror is, however,
Aristotelian in origin. 96 Plutarch maintains that all creative acts include the
distortion of the original form that is imprinted on matter; just as mirrors
render side-inverted images, any other material adds a difference, and thereby
contaminates the original.
For pure design cannot be seen by us, and when it is made
manifest in another guise and through another medium, it
becomes contaminated with the nature of this medium. Wax,
for example, and gold and silver I leave out of account as well
as other kinds of material, which, when moulded, take on the
particular form of the likeness which is being modelled; and yet
each one of them adds to the thing portrayed a distinguishing
characteristic which comes from its own substance; and so
also the numberless distortions seen in mirrors both plane and
concave and convex. 97
The confusion between mirror reflection, shadow, and imprint
structures the entire complex of ideas involved in the notion of a creative
and Narcissistic look at matter. The gaze, a kind of emission, as will soon
become clearer, has the power to shape and to act upon the world; conversely,
a shadow still carries and embodies the powers, the virtues, of the object it
represents — much to the detriment of Narcissus who is killed by his own
beautiful image, the product of a deceptive mirror.
Ficino’s metaphorical use of mirrors is not restricted to his Theologia
platonica or to the Philebus commentary. In his earlier work on the Symposium,
he used specula in a similar context where the divine order is propagated
96 Aristotle, De anima 419B; Frontisi-Ducroux (1997) 171; Guidorizzi (1992) 37, with
references.
97 Plutarch (1927–1969) 404 C-D: vol. V: 314–315; Frontisi-Ducroux (1997) 161.
For a parallel citation in Ficino, which does not however mention mirrors, see De amore
II 4: 151: “Sequenti enim gradus post animum forme corporum disponitur. Quorum
nihil sufficienter se habet. Forme huiusmodi neque sufficienter sunt, neque sufficienter
nobis divina ostendunt. Verae namque res, ideae, rationes et semina sunt. Corporum
vero formae umbrae rerum potius quam verae res esse videntur. Quemadmodum vero
corporis umbra exactam atque distinctam corporis figuram non indicat, ita corpora divinorum
naturam propriam non demonstrat. Circa ipsum regem et ea quae dixi nihil est
tale. Quo enim pacto mortalia immortalibus et falsa veris similia sint?”