ARTICOLI / 9 / Stéphane Toussaint /
In the cat’s eye. The oculus catti between Albert the Great and Marsilio Ficino
The article examines the origins of the image of the cat’s eye in Medieval theologians, such as Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, and Thomas Aquinas, and its use for representing the intellectual vision metaphorically. By assessing continuities and disruptions between Medieval and Renaissance philosophies, the paper explores the fortune of the oculus catti among Renaissance philosophers, in particular Marsilio Ficino. The zoologic metaphor has its roots in the Medieval reception of Aristotle’s De Anima and can be correctly understood within the debate on the Platonic, Aristotelian, and Democritean theories about the visible light and considering the intersection between Latin and Arabic sources. In the end, I argue that Ficino reworks the image of the cat’s eye and the Medieval sources, such as Avicenna, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas, envisaging a new theory of intellectual vision grounded on the panoptic nature of the soul’s vehicle.
