Magnificence

MAGNIFICENCE. - Magnificence or munificence indicates splendor in spending and in giving. As a special virtue, magnificence consists in the disposition of the will to accomplish great external works, and it 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 everyone's reach, but belong to a few privileged persons, that is to say the rich, rulers, or the great coordinators of the public good, by whom money is employed in noble undertakings.

But in order that this desire for greatness not go astray, it is necessary that pride and ambition not be its mainspring, but rather the glory of God and the common good. Then the natural desire for greatness is made supernatural, and one arrives at the virtue of magnificence. The virtue of magnificence has a great affinity with liberality (v.) on account of the generosity it shares with it, with fortitude (v.) on account of the common difficulty both encounter (fortitude on account of the dangers in which it manifests itself, magnificence on account of great expenditures), and with magnanimity (v.), with which it shares the grandeur of works. For magnificence to be realized, certain favorable conditions are required: confidence, security, and also, though not necessarily, worldly goods.

The defects opposed to magnificence are meanness or stinginess, which represses the impulses of the heart and does not know how to proportion expenditures to the greatness of the work; and prodigality, which consists in squandering money without measure.