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

Matter in Ficino’s Cosmology
Matter as a Mirror 55
According to Ficino, matter is a principle in its own right and it is distinct
and separable from form. The latter principle is imposed on, or given to the
former by some supreme and divine artist. 25 Ficino’s ideas about the material
aspect of creation are thus related to questions of origin and, more precisely,
of (male) authorship: what was created first by God, forms or matter? It seems
likely that the Godhead first brought forth the unchanging and hierarchically
higher “noble” forms which were to shape “base or common” matter.
However, and quite unexpectedly, in several crucial passages Ficino maintains
that God created shapeless materia before He created forms. 26 One especially
pressing problem in this discussion is whether, according to Platonic
myths of creation, the supreme God not only created but also shaped matter
or whether this second task was left to one or more demiurges, inferior gods
whose duty it was to shape the chaotic primordial matter in accordance with
the forms flowing from the divinity. 27 Though the latter account of creation is
not in accordance with Christian doctrines, it has the advantage of explaining
the process of creation in accordance with human forms of creativity. 28 The
following passage from Ficino’s commentary on the Timaeus is a good summary
of these problems.
Is God not only the author of the worlds, but also the former
of matter? That would have been the answer given by the
school of Ammonius and Origen. In the Parmenides, matter
has to be viewed as originating from God in a certain way:
whereas in the Timaeus — on the grounds that matter also
accepts the good from God —, it has to exist before and then it
is to be thought of as something good. The common school of
Platonists though would have a different opinion, maintaining
25 De amore V 5; see as precedents, Metaphysics VII, 7: 1032a26–b21; Plotinus, En-
neads V, 8, 1.
26 In Timaeum chapt. 26, OO 1449/445–145/446. On the Theologia XVII, 2, see infra.
27 In Timaeum chapt. 41, OO 1463/461: “Quae autem de materia prima sit inter Platonicos
ambiguitas, narravimus ab initio. Mandat ergo posthac architectus mundi filiis
suis, id est animabus sphaerarum stellarumque et daemonum […] ut ad imitationem sui,
mixtionemque sub Luna rerum aggrediatur, hominisque subjiciant omnia […].”
28 On this, and Ficino’s connections with Arianism, see Allen (1987) 438–439.