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Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Giovanni Pico dei conti della Mirandola e della Concordia (/ˈpiːkoʊ ˌdɛlə mɪˈrændələ, -ˈrɑːn-/ PEE-koh DEL-ə mirr-A(H)N-də-lə,[1][2] Italian: [dʒoˈvanni ˈpiːko della miˈrandola]; Latin: Johannes Picus de Mirandula; 24 February 1463 – 17 November 1494), known as Pico della Mirandola, was an Italian Renaissance nobleman and philosopher.[3] 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 against all comers, for which he wrote the Oration on the Dignity of Man, which has been called the "Manifesto of the Renaissance",[4] and a key text of Renaissance humanism and of what has been called the "Hermetic Reformation".[5] He was the founder of the tradition of Christian Kabbalah, a key tenet of early modern Western esotericism. The 900 Theses was the first printed book to be universally banned by the Church.[6] Pico is sometimes seen as a proto-Protestant, because his 900 theses anticipated many Protestant views.[7]

Pico della Mirandola

(1463-02-24)24 February 1463

Mirandola, Duchy of Mirandola

17 November 1494(1494-11-17) (aged 31)

Florence, Republic of Florence

University of Bologna, University of Ferrara, University of Padua, University of Paris

Renaissance philosophy

Western philosophy

Renaissance philosophy
Christian humanism
Neoplatonism

Politics, history, religion, esotericism

The beardless young man in 's fresco The School of Athens (1509–11) is thought to be Pico della Mirandola (or maybe Francesco della Rovere).[32][33] Christiane Joost-Gaugier described Pico della Mirandola as "a major philosophical inspiration of the fresco's program, especially insofar as he was the most outspoken proponent of the harmony of Plato and Aristotle."[34]

Raphael

In 's 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."[35]

James Joyce

Of minor interest is a passing reference to Mirandola by , 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".

H. P. Lovecraft

Psychoanalyst , 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...".[36]

Otto Rank

In '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."

Umberto Eco

In 's novel about Michelangelo, 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.

Irving Stone

Philosopher of social science 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)

René Girard

In '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).

Roberto Bolaño

Luther

English composer made use of the texts of Pico della Mirandola in his musical production; most notably in pieces like "Glorious Hill", for vocal quartet/mixed choir, "Pico's Flight", for soprano and orchestra, and "Incipit Vita Nova for alto and string trio.

Gavin Bryars

Pico della Mirandola appears as the character Ikaros in 's novels The Just City and The Philosopher Kings. Also, he is one of the main characters in her novel Lent.

Jo Walton

In the book Dying for Ideas; The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers (2015) by Romanian philosopher , Mirandola's life and work is taken as an early or even first example of taking human life as a project of 'self-fashioning', relating this to Mirandola's heretic idea of man being part of creation with 'an indefinite nature'.

Costica Bradatan

Pico della Mirandola is the protagonist in the short story by "The Glass Casket", which was published as a part of the Snow White, Blood Red (book) anthology.

Jack Dann

In the Graphic Novel by the Author Grant Morrison Giovanni Pico della Mirandola can be seen reciting a part of the Oration on the Dignity of Man.

All-Star Superman

(sister)

Caterina Pico

Christian Kabbalah

Contemporary philosophers: Marsilio Ficino, Lodovico Lazzarelli, Giovanni Mercurio da Correggio

Italian Renaissance

(philosophical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus)

Hermetica

Hermeticism

Perennial philosophy

Platonic Academy (Florence)

Renaissance humanism

Renaissance magic

at Internet Archive

Works by or about Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

at Project Gutenberg

Works by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

at Open Library

Works by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

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.

The Pico Project

Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem Archived 16 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine

[1]

Overview of the 900 Theses, with some downloadable texts

Syncretism in the West

the works of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), with a List of Studies and Commentaries.

Pico in English: A Bibliography

On Flavius Mithridates' Hebrew-Latin Translations of kabbalistic works for Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Edition of the complete translations by Flavius Mithridates

(in French)

Biography

by Richard Hooker, 6 June 1999.

Pico della Mirandola

Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

"Giovanni Pico della Mirandola" 

(ed.). "Giovanni Pico della Mirandola". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Zalta, Edward N.

Life of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola