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

Matter as a Mirror 83
gins. 111 The motif of three mirrors reflecting the ideas or archetypes in varying
degrees of refinement is also present in the Anticlaudianus of Alain de Lille
(c. 1123–1202). This text mentions a glass mirror where the forms appear
mixed with subjects; a silver mirror, which reflects primordial matter as well
as forms in their purer state; and, lastly, a looking glass made of gold in which
the ideas themselves can be perceived. 112 In a similar vein, in his Theologia,
Ficino speaks about images that are impressed into an eternal mirror. 113 In
Dante’s Divina commedia the idea of a hierarchy of mirrors that reflect the
image of God on a lower level appears in a different context; here the mirrors
do not render a darker image (as in Ficino) but a smaller one. 114
At this point it is perhaps fair to mention another author who is
often seen in connection with Ficino: the idea of a living mirror (speculum
vivens) is present in Cusanus (Nicholas of Kues or of Cusa, 1401–64), though
again in a slightly different context. According to Cusanus, all created things
are mirrors whose curved and irregular surfaces are incapable of adequately
representing the divine image of truth. Only the mirror of the human mind
has the capacity to remodel itself into such a perfect surface, to smoothen out
all the distortions and finally adequately to reflect the divine truth. 115 The im-
111 According to Goldberg (1985) 242, the Roman de la rose (c. 1273) uses a strikingly
similar concept: “Jean de Meun used the mirror as a symbol of human reproduction, tying
it analogously to the chain of being. The chain of being can be considered as a chain of
mirrors dependent from God, the successive members of which reflect God’s image with
less and less distinctiveness. On a lesser scale, the reflection of an image within a mirror
is a distinct analogy to reproduction. As a son is called „the image of his father,” so all
God’s creatures […] may be called his images. The mirror, therefore, which symbolizes
the radiant source of life also symbolizes the process of generation of the individual. Jean
de Meun’s ulterior aim is to encourage man to generate true and living images of God. To
emphasize his purpose, he chastises those who generate false and lying images, […]. He
asks the reader to enter the world of true and faithful images, each of which is reflected
from the ever-luminous mirror which is the mind of God.”
112 See Dronke (1974) 148 n. 2 with references.
113 Theologia, V, 13: I, 209. Giordano Bruno uses the metaphor of a speculum videns
in his Summa terminorum metaphysicorum, OL I; IV 31–32.
114 Dante, Paradiso, II, 97–105. On this, see Miller (1977) 266–268 and 266: “Creation
becomes a hierarchy of mirrors, each chasing an image of god. The further off the
individual mirror is from god, the smaller the image of him it reflects, but his brightness
never diminishes.”
115 Kues (1967) 69 : I: 192–193 on the concept of distorted mirrors.