Magnificent

An exclamation that springs from the heart through the furrows that wonder opens, in turn solicited by what is magnificent. The sun rising over the landscape under a clear sky, a work of art, a story or special news. There is a very similar word, "beneficial", which rhymes with magnificent, but which curiously has an almost dissonant way of functioning; in fact, it contains like an extra sound, which overlaps and changes something: can it be the clue for a reasoning? Therefore, we say magnificent what is great, because magnus in Latin means precisely this way. Instead we say beneficial something that is, beneficial, but first of all it is such because it does good. We will therefore have to ask ourselves why we don't take magnificent also to describe what makes something great, and that only for this reason can it aspire to be judged magnificent. We will find ourselves together with that spirit of past centuries who attributed the appellation of magnificent to people: not so much giants of beauty, but people capable of giving greatness to others (even if it were for personal gain). We will regain another obsolete word, magnificence. In the end, a landscape is magnificent because it opens the heart and helps it grow bigger.


Fabio Arduini
NP April 2023