Ficino and the Music of the Spheres

(c) Walker Art Gallery; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

... I want to emphasise two further vital ingredients, which we find continually emphasized in his [Ficino's] practical writings. These are the desire and imagination of the human being, which, when focussed on images such as music, stars, or talismans, somehow facilitate an interplay with the cosmos, and allow the qualities of a particular moment in time to be seized and recognised. This very process may effect a change in being. When we fashion images, Ficino says, 'Our spirit, if it has been intent upon the work and upon the stars through imagination and emotion, is joined together with the very spirit of the world and with the rays of the stars through which the world-spirit acts.'

The Music of the Spheres - Ficino and Renaissance harmonia

—Angela Voss