GIOVANNI PICO DELLA MIRONDOLA

(1463-1494)

BIOGRAPHY

The person who most typifies this use of ancient texts to express the importance and "dignity of man" is Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Pico was born in Mirandola, near Ferrara, northern Italy. The son of a minor Italian prince, his education included a variety of subjects and a diversity of institutions.

He belonged to a family that had long dwelt in the Castle of Mirandola (Duchy of Modena), which had become independent in the fourteenth century and had received in 1414 from the Emperor Sigismund the fief of Concordia. To devote himself wholly to study, he left his share of the ancestral principality to his two brothers, and in his fourteenth year went to Bologna to study canon law and fit himself for the ecclesiastical career. Repelled, however, by the purely positive science of law, he devoted himself to the study of philosophy and theology, and spent seven years wandering through the chief universities of Italy and France, studying also Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic. An impostor sold him sixty Hebrew manuscripts, asserting positively that they were written by order of Esdras, and contained the secrets of nature and religion. For many years he believed in the Kabbala and interwove its fancies in his philosophical theories. His aim was to conciliate religion and philosophy. Like his teacher, Marsilius Ficinus, he based his views chiefly on Plato, in opposition to Aristotle the doctor of scholasticism at its decline. But Pico was constitutionally an eclectic, and in some respects he represented a reaction against the exaggerations of pure humanism. According to him, we should study the Hebrew and Talmudic sources, while the best products of scholasticism should be retained. His "Heptaplus", a mystico-allegorical exposition of the creation according to the seven Biblical senses, follows this idea (Florence, about 1480); to the same period belongs the "De ente et uno", with its explanations of several passages in Moses, Plato and Aristotle; also an oration on the Dignity of Man (published among the "Commentationes").

With bewildering attainments due to his brilliant and tenacious memory, he returned to Rome in 1486 and undertook to maintain 900 theses on all possible subjects ("Conclusiones philosophicae, cabalasticae et theologicae", Rome, 1486, in fol.). He offered to pay the expenses of those who came from a distance to engage with him in public discussion. Innocent VIII was made to believe that at least thirteen of these theses were heretical, though in reality they merely revealed the shallowness of the learning of that epoch. Even such a mind as Pico's showed too much credulity in nonsensical beliefs, and too great a liking for childish and unsolvable problems. The proposed disputation was prohibited and the book containing the theses was interdicted, notwithstanding the author's defense in "Apologia J. Pici Mirandolani, Concordiae comitis" (1489). One of his detractors had maintained that Kabbala was the name of an impious writer against Jesus Christ. Despite all efforts Pico was condemned, and he decided to travel, visiting France first, but he afterwards returned to Florence. He destroyed his poetical works, gave up profane science, and determined to devote his old age to a defense of Christianity against Jews, Mohammedans. and astrologers. A portion of this work was published after his death ("Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem", Bologna, 1495). Because of this book and his controversy against astrology, Pico marks an era and a decisive progressive movement in ideas. He died two months after his intimate friend Politian, on the day Charles VIII of France entered Florence. He was interred at San Marco, and Savonarola delivered the funeral oration.

Besides the writings already mentioned, see his complete works (Bologna, 1496; Venice, 1498; Strasburg, 1504; Basle, 1557; 1573, 1601). He wrote in Italian an imitation of Plato's "Banquet". His letters ("Aureae ad familiares epistolae", Paris, 1499) are important for the history of contemporary thought. The many editions of his entire works in the sixteenth century sufficiently prove his influence.

BASIC THOUGHT

Pico believed it was possible to reconcile the seeming contradictions among the various systems of thought he had studied. Drawing out what he considered the best in each thinker and system he encountered, he developed a philosophy known as "syncretism." Syncretism holds that all schools of philosophy have some truth and so should be examined and defended; but no system of thought has all the truth, and so one must also expose the errors in each scheme.

Applying his philosophy of syncretism, in 1486 Pico drew up a list of nine hundred true theses (or propositions), using various Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and Roman thinkers who summarized his views. He invited scholars from all over Europe to come to Rome, where he would defend his positions against all challengers. However, the disputation never occurred. Pope Innocent VIII suspended the debate and appointed a commission to investigate the nine hundred theses. Seven of the propositions were subsequently declared unorthodox and six more held to be dangerous. Pico publicly protested the decision by publishing a defense of his positions. This succeeded only in infuriating the pope. The pope condemned all nine hundred propositions, reportedly commenting, "That young man wants someone to burn him." Pico fled to France but was arrested there by papal envoys. Through the intervention of friends, Pico was released by the French king. He spent the rest of his short life in Florence under the protection of the powerful Lorenzo de Medici.

The Oration on the Dignity of Man was intended as an introductory speech for the proposed debate in Rome. In the selection reprinted here, Pico exhibits his syncretistic willingness to draw from many different sources. Quoting from a wide variety of writings, he argues that God has given all creatures besides humans a unique, fixed nature. They have a certain kind of being that they cannot change. But we as human beings do not have a given being--we alone have the freedom to choose what we will become. Even though we can choose to become animals or "couch potatoes" or angelic philosophers, it is the ability to choose that gives us dignity.

(Click here for our selection from The Oration on the Dignity of Man.)

REFERENCES

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

Open Directory - Society: Religion and Spirituality: Esoteric and Occult: Personalities: Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni