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| {{Infobox philosopher
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| | region = Western Philosophers
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| | era = [[Renaissance philosophy]]
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| | image = Pico1.jpg
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| | caption = Portrait from the [[Uffizi|Uffizi Gallery]], in [[Florence, Italy|Florence]].
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| | name = Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
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| | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1463|2|24}}
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| | birth_place = [[Mirandola]], Italy
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| | death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1494|11|17|1463|2|24}}
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| | death_place = Florence, Italy
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| | school_tradition = [[Renaissance philosophy]]
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| | main_interests = [[Politics]], [[history]], [[religion]], [[magic (paranormal)|magic]]
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| | signature =
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| | influences = [[Plato]], [[Marsilio Ficino]], [[Aristotle]], [[Pseudo-Dionysius]], [[Neoplatonism]], [[Nicholas of Cusa]], [[Kabbalah]]
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| | influenced = [[John Colet]], [[Erasmus]], [[Sir Thomas More]]
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| }}
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| {{Neoplatonism}}
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| [[Count]] '''Giovanni Pico della Mirandola''' ({{IPA-it|dʒoˈvanni ˈpiko della miˈrandola|lang}}; 24 February 1463 – 17 November 1494) was an [[Italy|Italian]] [[Renaissance]] [[philosopher]].<ref>"Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, Conte" in Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge, volume 15, copyright 1991. Grolier Inc., ISBN 0-7172-5300-7</ref> He is famed for the events of 1486, when at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on [[religion]], [[philosophy]], [[natural philosophy]] and [[magic (paranormal)|magic]] against all comers, for which he wrote the famous ''[[Oration on the Dignity of Man]]'', which has been called the "Manifesto of the Renaissance",<ref>''[[Oration on the Dignity of Man]]'' (1486) [http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/pico.html wsu.edu]</ref> and a key text of [[Renaissance humanism]] and of what has been called the "Hermetic Reformation".<ref>Heiser, James D., ''Prisci Theologi and the Hermetic Reformation in the Fifteenth Century'', Malone, TX: Repristination Press, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4610-9382-4</ref>
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| ==Family==
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| Giovanni was born at [[Mirandola]], near [[Modena]], the youngest son of Francesco I, [[duchy of Mirandola|Lord of Mirandola]] and Count of [[Concordia sulla Secchia|Concordia]] (1415–1467), by his wife Giulia, daughter of Feltrino [[Matteo Maria Boiardo|Boiardo]], Count di [[Scandiano]].<ref name="genealogy.euweb.cz">{{cite web
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| |url= http://genealogy.euweb.cz/italy/pico1.html|title= Genealogy.eu|accessdate= 2008-03-09|last= Marek|first= Miroslav|date= 2002-09-16|work= Pico family}}</ref> The family 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 [[Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor|Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund]] the fief of Concordia. Mirandola was a small autonomous county (later, a duchy) in [[Emilia (region of Italy)|Emilia]], near [[Ferrara]]. The Pico della Mirandola were closely related to the [[Sforza]], [[House of Gonzaga|Gonzaga]] and [[House of Este|Este]] dynasties, and Giovanni's siblings wed the [[Wiktionary:scion|scion]]s of the hereditary rulers of [[Corsica]], Ferrara, [[Bologna]] and [[Forlì]].<ref name="genealogy.euweb.cz"/>
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| Born twenty-three years into his parents' marriage, Giovanni had two much older brothers, both of whom outlived him: Count Galeotto I (1442–1499) continued the dynasty, while Antonio (1444–1501) became a general in the [[Holy Roman Empire|Imperial]] army.<ref name="genealogy.euweb.cz"/> The Pico family would [[reign]] as [[duke]]s until Mirandola, an ally of [[Louis XIV of France]], was conquered by his rival, [[Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor]], in 1708 and [[annexation|annexed]] to Modena by Duke [[Rinaldo d'Este, Duke of Modena|Rinaldo d'Este]], the exiled [[patrilineality|male line]] becoming extinct in 1747.<ref>{{cite book| last = Schoell| first = M.| title = History of the Revolutions in Europe| url = http://books.google.com/?id=tiEMAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22history+of+the+revolutions+in+europe+from+the+subversion%22&printsec=frontcover| accessdate = 2008-03-09| year = 1837| publisher = S. Babcock & Co|location = Charleston| isbn = 0-665-91061-4| pages = 23–24| chapter = VIII| chapterurl = http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=tiEMAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22history+of+the+revolutions+in+europe+from+the+subversion%22&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=C0FUfZKyf7&sig=g4sPrWs40bVshRG1-PWBsCfDxdw&h1=en#PRA1-PA24,M1}}</ref>
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| Giovanni's maternal family was singularly distinguished in the arts and scholarship of the [[Italian Renaissance]]. His cousin and contemporary was the poet [[Matteo Maria Boiardo]], who grew up under the influence of his own uncle, the Florentine [[Gaius Maecenas|patron of the arts]] and scholar-poet, [[W:it:Tito Vespasiano Strozzi|Tito Vespasiano Strozzi]].<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.geocities.com/autorbis/boiardolife.html|title= Trionfi.com|accessdate= 2008-03-09|work= Boiardo's Life: Time Table|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20090806060236/http://geocities.com/autorbis/boiardolife.html|archivedate=2009-08-06}}</ref>
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| ==Education==
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| A precocious child with an amazing [[memory]], Giovanni was schooled in [[Latin]], and possibly [[Greek (language)|Greek]], at a very early age. Intended for the [[Roman Catholic Church|Church]] by his mother, he was named a papal [[protonotary]] at the age of ten and in 1477 he went to [[Bologna]] to study [[canon law]].<ref name="Baird">{{cite web|url=http://www.whitworth.edu/core/classes/co250/Italy/Data/fr_pico.htm|title=Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) |last=Baird|first=Forrest|year=2000|work=Philosophic Classics|publisher=Prentice Hall|accessdate=2009-01-28}}</ref>
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| At the sudden death of his mother three years later, Pico renounced canon law and began to study philosophy at the University of [[Ferrara]].<ref name="Baird"/> During a brief
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| trip to Florence, he met [[Angelo Poliziano]], the [[courtly]] poet [[Girolamo Benivieni]], and probably the young Dominican monk [[Girolamo Savonarola]]. For the rest of his life he remained very close friends with all three, including the ascetic and violently anti-[[Humanism|humanist]] Savonarola. {{Citation needed|date=March 2008}}<ref name="bbcexhume">{{Cite news |title=Medici writers exhumed in Italy |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6920443.stm |accessdate=2007-07-28 |periodical=[[BBC News]] |date=2007-07-28}}</ref>
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| [[Image:Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.jpg|thumb|190px|right|Pico della Mirandola.]]
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| From 1480 to 1482, he continued his studies at the [[University of Padua]], a major center of [[Aristotelianism]] in Italy.<ref name="Baird"/> Already proficient in [[Latin]] and [[Greek (language)|Greek]], he studied [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] and [[Arabic language|Arabic]] in [[Padua]] with [[Elia del Medigo]], a Jewish [[Averroist]], and read [[Aramaic language|Aramaic]] [[manuscripts]] with him as well. Del Medigo also translated [[Rabbinic literature|Judaic manuscripts]] from Hebrew into Latin for Pico, as he would continue to do for a number of years. Pico also wrote [[sonnet]]s in Latin and Italian, which because of the influence of Savonarola, he destroyed at the end of his life.
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| He spent the next four years either at home, or visiting [[Humanism|humanist]] centres elsewhere in Italy. In 1485, he travelled to the [[University of Paris]], the most important centre in the whole of Europe for [[Scholasticism|Scholastic]] philosophy and theology, and a hotbed of secular [[Averroism]]. It was probably in Paris that Giovanni began his 900 Theses and conceived the idea of defending them in public debate.
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| ==Florence==
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| During this time two life-changing events occurred. The first was when he returned to settle for a time in [[Florence]] in November 1484 and met [[Lorenzo de' Medici]] and [[Marsilio Ficino]], on the [[Astrology|astrologically]] auspicious day Ficino had chosen to publish his translations of the works of [[Plato]] from [[Greek (language)|Greek]] into [[Latin]] under Lorenzo’s enthusiastic patronage. Pico appears to have charmed both men immensely, with Ficino endeared, despite continuing philosophical differences, convinced of their [[Saturn]]ine affinity and the divine provenance of his arrival. Until his death in 1492, Lorenzo supported and protected Pico. Without Lorenzo's support it is doubtful that Pico would have survived even the 10 more years that he did.
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| Soon after this stay in Florence, Pico was travelling on his way to Rome where he intended to publish his 900 Theses and prepare for a “Congress” of scholars from all over Europe to debate them. Stopping in [[Arezzo]] he became embroiled in a love affair with the wife of one of Lorenzo de' Medici's cousins. It almost cost him his life. Giovanni attempted to run off with the woman, but he was caught, wounded and thrown into prison by her husband. He was released only upon the intervention of Lorenzo himself. The incident is wholly representative of Pico's often audacious temperament and of the loyalty and affection he nevertheless could inspire.
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| Pico spent several months in [[Perugia]] and nearby Fratta, recovering from his injuries. It was there, as he wrote to Ficino, that "divine Providence [...] caused certain books to fall into my hands. They are [[Chaldean Christians|Chaldean]] books [...] of [[Esdras]], of [[Zoroaster]] and of [[Biblical Magi|Melchior]], oracles of the magi, which contain a brief and dry interpretation of Chaldean philosophy, but full of mystery."<ref>[http://www.lyber-eclat.net/lyber/mirandola/picbio.html Bibliographie Giovanni Pico della Mirandola<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> It was also in Perugia that Pico was introduced to the mystical Hebrew [[Kabbalah]], which fascinated him, as did the [[Late Antiquity|late Classical]] [[Hermetica|Hermetic]] writers, such as [[Hermes Trismegistus]]. The [[Kabbalah]] and the [[Hermetica]] were thought in Pico's time to be as ancient as the Old Testament, and for that reason, he accorded them an almost scriptural status. It was always Pico's intention to walk completely around a topic and look at it from many possible angles, in order to derive the truest possible vision of the thing itself. [[Syncretism]], for Pico, was seeing the same absolute from many different points of view, a Scholastic approach with a strong modern resonance.
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| Pico based his ideas chiefly on [[Plato]], as did his teacher, [[Marsilio Ficino]], but retained a deep respect for [[Aristotle]]. Although he was a product of the ''studia humanitatis'', Pico was constitutionally an [[Eclecticism|eclectic]], and in some respects he represented a reaction against the exaggerations of pure [[humanism]], defending what he believed to be the best of the [[Middle Ages|medieval]] and [[Islam]]ic commentators (see [[Averroes]], [[Avicenna]]) on [[Aristotle]] in a famous long letter to [[Ermolao Barbaro]] in 1485. It was always Pico’s aim to reconcile the schools of [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]], since he believed they both used different words to express the same concepts. It was perhaps for this reason his friends called him "Princeps Concordiae", or "Prince of Harmony" (a pun on Prince of Concordia, one of his family's holdings.<ref>Paul Oskar Kristeller, Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance. Stanford University Press (Stanford, California, 1964.) P. 62.</ref>) Similarly, Pico believed an educated person should also study the Hebrew and [[Talmudic]] sources, and the [[Hermetica|Hermetics]], because he believed they represented the same view seen in the [[Old Testament]], in different words, of God.
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| He finished his ''[[Oration on the Dignity of Man]]'' to accompany his 900 Theses and traveled to Rome to continue his plan to defend them. He had them published in December 1486 (''Conclusiones philosophicae, cabalasticae et theologicae'', Rome, 1486) and offered to pay the expenses of any scholars who came to Rome to debate them publicly.
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| In February 1487, [[Pope Innocent VIII]] halted the proposed debate, and established a commission to review the orthodoxy of the ''Theses.'' Although Pico answered the charges against them, thirteen of the ''Theses'' were condemned. Pico agreed in writing to retract them, but he did not change his mind about their validity, and proceeded to write an ''Apologia'' ("Apologia J. Pici Mirandolani, Concordiae comitis" published in 1489) defending them, dedicated to Lorenzo. When the Pope was apprised of the circulation of this manuscript, he set up an inquisitorial tribunal, forcing Pico to renounce the ''Apologia'' as well which he also agreed to do.
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| Nevertheless, the Pope declared his Theses un[[Orthodoxy|orthodox]] calling them "in part heretical, in part the flower of [[heresy]]; several are [[scandal]]ous and offensive to pious ears; most do nothing but reproduce the errors of [[Paganism|pagan]] philosophers...others are capable of inflaming the impertinence of the [[Jews]]; a number of them, finally, under the [[pretext]] of '[[natural philosophy]]', favor arts that are enemies to the [[Catholic]] faith and to the human race."<ref name="Lybereclatnetopcit">Lyber-eclat.net ''op.cit.''</ref> One of Pico’s detractors maintained that "Kabbala" was the name of an impious writer against [[Jesus Christ]]. {{Citation needed|date=March 2008}}
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| <!--[[Image:Lorenzo de Medici_by_Verrochio.jpg|thumb|300px|left|Lorenzo de' Medici, bronze bust by Verrocchio.]] missing image -->
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| Pico fled to France in 1488, where he was arrested by [[Philip II, Duke of Savoy|Philip II of Savoy]], at the demand of the papal [[nuncio]]s, and imprisoned at [[Vincennes]]. Through the [[intercession]] of several Italian princes—all instigated by [[Lorenzo de' Medici]]—King [[Charles VIII of France|Charles VIII]] had him released, and the Pope was persuaded to allow Pico to move to Florence and to live under Lorenzo’s protection. But he was not cleared of the papal censures and restrictions until 1493, after the accession of [[Alexander VI]] (Rodrigo Borgia) to the papacy.
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| Pico was deeply shaken by the experience. He reconciled with [[Savonarola]], who remained a very close friend. It was at Pico’s persuasion that Lorenzo invited Savonarola to Florence. But Pico never renounced his [[Syncretism|syncretist]] convictions.
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| He settled in a villa near [[Fiesole]] prepared for him by Lorenzo, where he wrote and published the ''Heptaplus id est de Dei creatoris opere'' (1489) and ''De Ente et Uno'' (Of Being and Unity, 1491). It was here that he also wrote his other most celebrated work, the ''Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinicatrium'' (Treatise Against Predictive Astrology), which was not published until after his death. In it, Pico acidly condemned the deterministic practices of the [[astrologer]]s of his day.
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| After the death of [[Lorenzo de' Medici]], in 1492, Pico moved to [[Ferrara]], although he continued to visit Florence. In Florence, political instability gave rise to the increasing influence of Savonarola, whose reactionary opposition to Renaissance expansion and style had already brought about conflict with the [[Medici]] family (they eventually were expelled from Florence) and would lead to the wholesale destruction of books and paintings. Nevertheless, Pico became a follower of Savonarola. Determined to become a monk, he dismissed his former interest in Egyptian and Chaldean texts, destroyed his own poetry and gave away his fortune.<ref>[http://www.compilerpress.atfreeweb.com/Anno%20Borchardt%20Magi.htm The ''Magus'' as Renaissance Man p.70]</ref>
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| Pico was poisoned under very mysterious circumstances in 1494, together with his close friend Angelo Poliziano.<ref>Ben-Zaken, Avner, "Defying Authority, Rejecting Predestination and Conquering Nature", in [http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Hayy-Ibn-Yaqzan-Cross-Cultural-Autodidacticism/dp/0801897394/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1343310784&sr=8-3&keywords=avner+ben-zaken Reading Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan: A Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 65-101].</ref> It was rumored that his own secretary had [[poison]]ed him, because Pico had become too close to Savonarola.<ref name="Lybereclatnetopcit" /> He was interred at [[San Marco di Firenze|San Marco]] and Savonarola delivered the [[funeral]] oration. [[Marsilio Ficino|Ficino]] wrote: “Our dear Pico left us on the same day that Charles VIII was entering Florence, and the tears of men of letters compensated for the joy of the people. Without the light brought by the king of France, Florence might perhaps have never seen a more somber day than that which extinguished Mirandola's light.”<ref name="Lybereclatnetopcit" />
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| <!-- Can we get an update on this? Fb 2008 was more than a *year* ago! -->
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| In 2007, the bodies of [[Poliziano]] and Pico della Mirandola were exhumed from St. Mark's Basilica in Florence. Scientists under the supervision of Giorgio Gruppioni, a professor of [[anthropology]] from [[Bologna]], will use current testing techniques to study the men's lives and establish the causes of their deaths. A TV documentary is being made of this research,<ref>
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| {{cite news
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| | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6920443.stm
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| | accessdate = 2007-07-28 | work=BBC News | date=2007-07-28}}</ref>
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| and it was recently announced that these forensic tests showed that both Poliziano and Pico likely died of arsenic poisoning, probably at the order of Lorenzo's successor, Piero de' Medici.<ref>
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| {{cite news
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| | title = Medici philosopher's mysterious death is solved|work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |location=London|date= 7 February 2008
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| | url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/07/wmedici107.xml
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| | accessdate = 2008-02-07
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| | first=Malcolm
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| | last=Moore
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| | date=2008-02-07}}</ref>
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| ==Writings==
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| In the ''Oratio de hominis dignitate'' (''[[Oration on the Dignity of Man]]'', 1486), Pico justified the importance of the human quest for knowledge within a Neoplatonic framework.
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| The ''Oration'' also served as an introduction to Pico's 900 theses, which he believed to provide a complete and sufficient basis for the discovery of all knowledge, and hence a model for mankind's ascent of the chain of being. The 900 Theses are a good example of humanist [[syncretism]], because Pico combined [[Platonism]], [[Neoplatonism]], [[Aristotelianism]], [[Hermeticism]] and [[Kabbalah]]. They also included 72 theses describing what Pico believed to be a complete system of physics.
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| Mirandola's ''De animae immortalitate'' (Paris, 1541), and other works developed the view that man's possession of an [[immortal soul]] freed him from the hierarchical stasis. Pico may have believed in [[universal reconciliation]], since one of his 900 theses was "A mortal sin of finite duration is not deserving of eternal but only of temporal punishment;" it was among the theses pronounced heretical by Pope Innocent VIII in his bull of Aug. 4, 1487.<ref>"[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc01.html?term=Apocatastasis Apocatastasis]". ''New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. I''.</ref> In the ''Oration'' he writes that "human vocation is a mystical vocation that has to be realized following a three stage way, which comprehends necessarily moral transformation, intellectual research and final perfection in the identity with the absolute reality. This paradigm is universal, because it can be retraced in every tradition."<ref>Prof. Pier Cesare Bori. "[http://didattica.spbo.unibo.it/pais/bori/articolo010.html The Italian Renaissance: An Unfinished Dawn?: Pico della Mirandola]". Accessed Dec. 5, 2007.</ref>
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| A portion of his ''Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem'' was published in Bologna after his death. In this book Pico presents arguments against the practice of [[astrology]] that have had enormous resonance for centuries, up to our own time. ''Disputationes'' is influenced by the arguments against astrology espoused by one of his intellectual heroes, [[St. Augustine of Hippo]], and also by the medieval philosophical tale Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan which promoted autodidacticism as a philosophical program.<ref>see Ben-Zaken, Avner, "Defying Authority, Rejecting Predestination and Conquering Nature", in ''[http://www.amazon.com/dp/0801897394/ref=rdr_ext_tmb Reading Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan: A Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism]'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), pp. 65-100.</ref> Pico’s antagonism to astrology seems to derive mainly from the conflict of astrology with Christian notions of free will. But Pico’s arguments moved beyond the objections of Ficino, who was himself an astrologer. The manuscript was edited for publication after Pico’s death by his nephew, an ardent follower of [[Savonarola]], and may possibly have been amended to be more forcefully critical. This might possibly explain the fact that Ficino championed the manuscript and enthusiastically endorsed it before its publication.
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| Pico’s ''Heptaplus'', a mystico-allegorical exposition of the creation according to the seven Biblical senses, elaborates on his idea that different religions and traditions describe the same God. ''De ente et uno'', has explanations of several passages in [[Moses]], Plato and Aristotle.
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| He wrote in Italian an imitation of Plato's ''Symposium''. 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.
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| Another notorious text by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola is ''De omnibus rebus et de quibusdam aliis'', "Of all things that exist and a little more" which is mentioned in some entries on Thomas More's ''[[Utopia (book)|Utopia]]'' and makes fun of the title of Lucretius' ''[[De Rerum Natura]]''.
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| ==Cultural references==
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| *In [[James Joyce]]'s ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'', the precocious [[Stephen Dedalus]] recalls with disdain his boyhood ambitions, and apparently associates them with the career of Mirandola: "Remember your epiphanies written on green oval leaves, deeply deep...copies to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the world...Pico della Mirandola like."<ref>Source: [http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/j/joyce/james/j8u/section3.html ebooks.adelaide.edu.au] (accessed: September 15, 2010)</ref>
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| *Of minor interest is a passing reference to Mirandola by [[H. P. Lovecraft]], in the story ''[[The Case of Charles Dexter Ward]]'' (1927). Mirandola is given as the source of the fearsome incantation used by unknown evil entities as some sort of evocation. However, this "spell" was first depicted (as the key to a rather simple form of divination, not a great and terrible summoning) by, and in all likelihood created by, [[Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim]] in his ''[[Three Books of Occult Philosophy]]''. This was written several decades after Mirandola's death and was the first written example of that "spell", so it is almost impossible for Mirandola to have been the source of those "magic words".
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| *Psychoanalyst [[Otto Rank]], a rebellious disciple of [[Sigmund Freud]], chose a substantial excerpt from Mirandola's ''[[Oration on the Dignity of Man]]'' as the motto for his book ''Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development'', including: "...I created thee as a being neither celestial nor earthly... so that thou shouldst be thy own free moulder and overcomer...".<ref>Rank, Otto, ''Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development'', Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1932.</ref>
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| *In [[Umberto Eco]]'s novel ''[[Foucault's Pendulum]]'' the protagonist Casaubon claims that the idea that the Jews were privy to the enigma of the Templars was "a mistake of Pico Della Mirandola" caused by a spelling mistake he made between "Israelites" and "Ismaelites."
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| *In [[Irving Stone]]'s novel about [[Michelangelo]], ''[[The Agony and the Ecstasy (novel)|The Agony and the Ecstasy]]'', book 3, part 3 contains a paragraph's description of Mirandola as part of the scholarly circle that surrounded [[Lorenzo di Medici]] in Florence. Mirandola was described as a man who spoke 22 languages, was deeply read in philosophy, and someone who made no enemies.
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| *Philosopher of social science [[René Girard]] mentions Mirandola passingly in his book ''Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde'' (''[[Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World]]''), Girard writes in a disparaging tone, "People will accuse us of playing at being Pico della Mirandola-the renaissance man-certainly a temptation to be resisted today, if we wish to be seen in a favourable light." (p. 141, 1987)
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| *In [[Roberto Bolaño]]'s novel ''2666'', the philosophy professor Oscar Amalfitano begins his three-columned list of philosophers with Pico della Mirandola. Adjacent to Mirandola, Amalfitano writes [[Hobbes]], while beneath him he writes [[Husserl]] (p. 207, 2008).
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| *In [[Frédéric Lenoir]]'s novel "L'Oracle della Luna" (2006) the philosophy of Pico della Mirandola forms one of the major teachings acquired by the protagonist, Giovanni, from his main spiritual Master. The year is 1530. The major mentions are:
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| ** at the end of Chapter 21 the sage - a fictitious character - says he has personally met Pico della Mirandola and discusses Mirandola's disagreement with the pope about the 900 Theses (with [[Frédéric Lenoir|Lenoir]] stating that only 7 of them had not been accepted) and the philosopher's later fate. In the words of the sage, the main goal of [[Ficino]] and Pico della Mirandola was to acquire universal knowledge, free from prejudice and from linguistic and religious barriers;
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| ** at the end of Chapter 24, having discussed [[Martin Luther|Luther]]'s concept of free will, the sage wants the acquaint Giovanni with Mirandola's ideas on this issue and lets him read "De hominis dignitate"; Giovanni peruses the book with great interest in Chapter 25;
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| ** at the beginning of Chapter 26, with Giovanni having now read the ''[[Oration on the Dignity of Man]]'', the sage discusses two issues from the book with him. One is Pico della Mirandola's attempt to form one unified and universal philosophy and the difficulties thereof. The other one is Mirandola's concept of free will. Giovanni has learnt one passage from the book by heart, about God addressing man and telling him, that He has made him neither a heavenly nor an earthly creature and that man is the forger of his own fate. This passage is quoted in the novel.
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| *English composer [[Gavin Bryars]] makes use of the texts of Pico della Mirandola in his musical production; most notably in pieces like Glorious Hill, for vocal quartet/mixed choir, and Incipit Vita Nova, for alto and string trio.
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| ==See also==
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| *[[Platonic Academy (Florence)]]
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| ==References==
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| ===Footnotes===
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| {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}
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| ==Bibliography and further reading==
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| {{Refbegin|2}}
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| * Ben-Zaken, Avner, "Defying Authority, Rejecting Predestination and Conquering Nature", in ''[http://www.amazon.com/dp/0801897394/ref=rdr_ext_tmb Reading Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan: A Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism]'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), pp. 65-100. ISBN 978-0801897399.
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| * Borchardt, Frank L. [http://www.compilerpress.atfreeweb.com/Anno%20Borchardt%20Magi.htm]{{Dead link|date=August 2010}} "The ''Magus'' as Renaissance Man." ''Sixteenth Century Journal'' (1990): 57-76.
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| * Busi, G., "'Who does not wonder at this Chameleon?' The Kabbalistic Library of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola", in "Hebrew to Latin, Latin to Hebrew. The Mirroring of Two Cultures in the Age of Humanism. Colloquium held at the Warburg Institute. London, October 18–19, 2004", Edited by G. Busi, Berlin-Torino: Nino Aragno Editore, 2006: 167-196.
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| * Busi, G. with S. M. Bondoni and S. Campanini (eds.), ''The Great Parchment: Flavius Mithridates’ Latin Translation, the Hebrew Text, and an English Version, The Kabbalistic Library of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola - 1''. Torino: Nino Aragno Editore, 2004.
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| * Campanini, S. ''The Book of Bahir. Flavius Mithridates' Latin Translation, the Hebrew Text, and an English Version, with a Foreword by G. Busi, The Kabbalistic Library of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola - 2''. Torino: Nino Aragno Editore, 2005.
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| * Campanini, Saverio. "Talmud, Philosophy, Kabbalah: A Passage from Pico della Mirandola’s Apologia and its Source." In ''The Words of a Wise Man’s Mouth are Gracious. Festschrift for Günter Stemberger on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday'', edited by M. Perani, 429-447. Berlin & New York: W. De Gruyter Verlag, 2005.
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| * Cassirer, Ernst, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John Herman Randall, Jr. ''The Renaissance Philosophy of Man''. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1948.
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| *Corazzol, Giacomo (ed.), Menahem Recanati, ''Commentary on the Daily Prayers. The Kabbalistic Library of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola - 3''. 2 volumes. Torino: Nino Aragno Editore, 2008.
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| * Dougherty, M. V., ed. ''Pico della Mirandola. New Essays''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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| * [[Avery Dulles|Dulles, Avery]], ''Princeps Concordiae: Pico della Mirandola and the Scholatic Tradition—The Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Prize Essay for 1940'', Cambridge, MA, 1941.
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| * Farmer, S. A. ''Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486): The Evolution of Traditional Religious and Philosophical Systems''. Temple, AZ: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1998. (Contains the Latin text of the 900 theses, an English translation, and detailed commentary. For a full book description, see [http://www.safarmer.com/pico Farmer's website].)
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| * Gilbhard, Thomas. "Paralipomena pichiana: a propos einer Pico–Bibliographie". In ''Accademia. Revue de la Société Marsile Ficin'' VII (2005): 81–94.
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| * Heiser, James D., ''Prisci Theologi and the Hermetic Reformation in the Fifteenth Century'', Malone, TX: Repristination Press, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4610-9382-4.
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| * Kristeller, Paul Oskar. ''Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance''. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1964.
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| * [[Susanne Jurgan|Jurgan, Susanne]], [[Saverio Campanini|Campanini, Saverio]], ''The Gate of Heaven. Flavius Mithridates' Latin Translation, the Hebrew Text, and an English Version''. Edited with Introduction and Notes by S. Jurgan and S. Campanini with a Text on Pico by Giulio Busi, in ''The Kabbalistic Library of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola 5'', Nino Aragno Editore, Torino 2012. ISBN 978-8884195449
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| * Pater, Walter. "[http://www.authorama.com/renaissance-3.html Pico Della Mirandola]." In ''The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry'', 24-40. New York: The Modern Library, 1871.
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| * Quaquarelli, Leonardo, and Zita Zanardi. ''Pichiana. Bibliografia delle edizioni e degli studi''. Firenze: Olschki, 2005 (Studi pichiani 10).
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| * Robb, Nesca A., ''Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance'', New York: Octogon Books, Inc., 1968.
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| * Martigli, Carlo A., "999 L'Ultimo Custode", Italia: Castelvecchi, 2009.
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| * Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, “''Apologia. L'autodifesa di Pico di fronte al Tribunale dell’Inquisizione''”, a cura di Paolo Edoardo Fornaciari, Firenze, Sismel - Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2010 ([[:it:Società internazionale per lo studio del Medioevo latino]])
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| {{Refend}}
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| ==External links==
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| *[http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/pico/ The Pico Project] at the [[University of Bologna]] and [[Brown University]] is a project to make accessible a complete resource for the reading and interpretation of the ''Dignity of Man''.
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| *''[http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Mirandola/ Oration on the Dignity of Man]'', translated by A. Robert Caponigri (Chicago: Regnery Publishing, 1956).
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| *''Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem '' [http://bivio.signum.sns.it/bvWorkTOC.php?authorSign=PicodellaMirandolaGiovanni&titleSign=DisputationesAdversusAstrologiam&lang=en]
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| *[http://www.safarmer.com/pico Syncretism in the West] Overview of the 900 Theses, with some downloadable texts
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| *[http://www.mvdougherty.com/pico.htm Pico in English: A Bibliography], the works of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), with a List of Studies and Commentaries.
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| *[http://www.pico-kabbalah.eu Edition of the complete translations by Flavius Mithridates] On [[Flavius Mithridates]]' Hebrew-Latin Translations of [[Kabbalah|kabbalistic]] works for Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
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| *{{fr icon}} [http://www.lyber-eclat.net/lyber/mirandola/picbio.html Biography]
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| *[http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/REN/PICO.HTM Pico della Mirandola] by Richard Hooker, 6 June 1999.
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| *{{CathEncy|wstitle=Giovanni Pico della Mirandola}}
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| *{{Sep entry|pico-della-mirandola|Giovanni Pico della Mirandola}}
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| *[http://www.exclassics.com/Pico/picintro.htm Life of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola]
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| {{Catholic|wstitle=Giovanni Pico della Mirandola}}
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| {{Authority control|VIAF=34491108}}
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| {{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] -->
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| | NAME =Pico Della Mirandola, Giovanni
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| | ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
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| | SHORT DESCRIPTION =
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| | DATE OF BIRTH =24 February 1463
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| | PLACE OF BIRTH =[[Mirandola]], [[Italy]]
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| | DATE OF DEATH =17 November 1494
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| | PLACE OF DEATH =Italy
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| }}
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| {{DEFAULTSORT:Pico Della Mirandola, Giovanni}}
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| [[Category:1463 births]]
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| [[Category:1494 deaths]]
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| [[Category:Roman Catholic philosophers]]
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| [[Category:Roman Catholic writers]]
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| [[Category:Italian Christian Universalists]]
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| [[Category:Italian occult writers]]
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| [[Category:Italian philosophers]]
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| [[Category:Italian Renaissance humanists]]
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| [[Category:Italian Roman Catholics]]
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| [[Category:Christian Kabbalists]]
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| [[Category:People from Mirandola]]
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| [[Category:Renaissance Latin-language writers]]
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| [[Category:Rhetoricians]]
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| [[Category:Roman Catholic mystics]]
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| [[Category:Christian humanists]]
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| [[Category:15th-century philosophers]]
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| [[Category:15th-century Italian writers]]
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| [[Category:Counts of Italy]]
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|
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| * * *
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|
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| Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola AKA Counte di Concordia AKA The Count of Concord / Agreement
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| Italy 1463 – 1494
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| Teachers: Marsilio Ficino; Girolamo Savonarola; Elia del Medigo; Flavius Mithridates AKA Raimundo Moncada; Yosef Giqatilla AKA Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla; Menahem Recanati; Reuven Sarfati; Avraham ben Alexander of Cologne; Abraham Abulafia; George Gemistos Plethan; John Argyropoulos; Plato; Socrates; Aristotle; Pythagoras; Homer ; Plutarch; Iamblichus; Euclid; Hermes Trismegistus; Philo of Alexandria; Archimedes; Ptolemy; Apuleius; Proclus; Apollonius of Rhodes ; Herodotus; Epicurus; Josephus;
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| Students: Cornelius Agrippa; Giovanni Cavalcanti (poet); Ernesto Garin; Johannes Valentinus Andreae; Tobias Hess; Christoph Besold; Dante Alighieri; Erasmus; Ralph Chubb; Emanuel Swedenborg; Flavius Mithridates; Antoine Joseph Pernety; Pierre-François Hugues d'Hancarville; Thomas Hyde; Samuel Sharpe; Jacob Bryant; Thomas Young; A.E. Waite; Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim;
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| Friends: Thomas More
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| Author: Oration on the Dignity of Man, 1486 (Conclusiones philosophicae, cabalasticae et theologicae, 1486); Heptaplus id est de Dei creatoris opere (1489); De Ente et Uno (Of Being and Unity), 1491 ; Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem; Conclusiones Kabbalisticae; 900 Theses aka Conclusiones sive Theses DCCCC;
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| Organizations: Florence Platonic Academy;
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| Comments: VERY IMPORTANT bridge between the lost wisdom of Greece, Rome and the early Judeans, his teacher Marsilio Ficino and Medici Patrons translated Arabic, Hebrew and Greek texts into Latin and even Italian in some cases; Neoplatonism; infused Ficino's work with Magick and Egyptian symbolism; brought the Greek Ancients and Hebrew Qabalists to a European intellectual audience;
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| Resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Pico_della_Mirandola; http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Mirandola/ (Oration on the Dignity of Man translated); http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/pico/presentaz/eng.html (The Pico Project); read more here - http://www.esotericarchives.com/pico/beinguni.htm; http://www.esotericarchives.com/pico/conclus.htm;
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| [[Категория:Персоналии]] | | [[Категория:Персоналии]] |
