MAGNIFICENCE. — Magnificence or munificence denotes splendor in spending and giving. As a special virtue, magnificence consists in the disposition of the will to perform great external works, and is proper to certain souls who seek to leave in the splendor of external works an imprint of their own personality. Great works are not within the reach of everyone, but of a few privileged individuals, namely the wealthy, the rulers, or the great coordinators of the public good, by whom money is employed in noble enterprises.
But that this desire for greatness may not go astray, it must not be driven by pride or ambition, but by the glory of God and the common good. Then the natural desire for greatness is elevated to the supernatural and one attains the virtue of magnificence. The virtue of magnificence has a great affinity with liberality (q.v.) for the generosity it shares with it, with fortitude (q.v.) for the common difficulty both face (fortitude in the dangers in which it manifests itself, magnificence in great expenditures), and with magnanimity (q.v.), with which it shares the grandeur of its works. For magnificence to be realized, certain favorable conditions are required: confidence, security, and also, though not necessarily, wealth.
The defects opposed to magnificence are stinginess or miserliness, which restrains the impulses of the heart and fails to proportion expenditures to the grandeur of the work; and prodigality, which consists in squandering money without measure.