Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
Humans have no fixed nature; we are free to make ourselves whatever we choose, sinking to the beasts or rising toward the divine.
Placement
In the speech later titled “Oration on the Dignity of Man”, meant to open a public debate on his 900 theses, God leaves the human being without a fixed place, free to shape himself; Pico sought a hidden concord of all traditions, the Kabbalah included.
Key ideas
- Dignity of man
- Syncretism
Influence
Influenced by 5
Plato
influenced by
Pico expounded Plato’s doctrine of love from the Symposium in his Commento (1486) and defended the concord of Plato and Aristotle in De ente et uno (1491). G. Pico della Mirandola, Commento sopra una canzone d’amore (1486); De ente et uno (1491); SEP “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola”
Evidence: AI draft
Plato › 428–348 BCE
Aristotle
influenced by
Pico held that Aristotle agrees with Plato in substance and argued this on being and the one in De ente et uno (1491). G. Pico della Mirandola, De ente et uno (1491); Conclusiones (1486); SEP “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola”
Evidence: AI draft
Aristotle › 384–322 BCE
Plotinus
influenced by
Pico included fifteen theses ‘according to Plotinus’ among those of the later Platonists in his 900 Conclusions (1486), alongside theses after Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus. G. Pico della Mirandola, Conclusiones (Rome, 1486); S. A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico’s 900 Theses (1998)
Evidence: AI draft
Plotinus › 204–270
Ibn Rushd (Averroes)
influenced by
Pico studied Averroes in Padua with Elia del Medigo, who prepared texts for him, and included forty-one theses ‘according to Averroes’ in his 900 Conclusions (1486). G. Pico della Mirandola, Conclusiones (1486); G. Licata, Secundum Avenroem: Pico della Mirandola, Elia del Medigo e la «seconda rivelazione» di Averroè (2022)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Ibn Rushd (Averroes) › 1126–1198
Marsilio Ficino
influenced by
Pico joined Ficino’s Florentine circle from 1484 and took up his Platonism, though his Commento (1486) criticised parts of Ficino’s doctrine of love. G. Pico della Mirandola, Commento sopra una canzone d’amore (1486); SEP “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola”; SEP “Marsilio Ficino”
Evidence: AI draft
Marsilio Ficino › 1433–1499
Works
God created human beings without a fixed place – they determine themselves.
Position
Pico’s Oration – the title “on the Dignity of Man” was added after his death – was later read, from Burckhardt to Cassirer, as a manifesto of Renaissance humanism; recent research stresses that it introduces his theses and aims at a mystical ascent. God, Pico has him say, gave every other creature a fixed nature, but left the human being without a set place, so that we can shape ourselves – sinking to the level of beasts or rising toward the divine. Human dignity therefore lies in freedom and self-formation. Pico also believed that all great traditions – Plato and Aristotle, the Kabbalah, Hermetic writings and Christianity – share a single hidden truth, and sought to unite them. His syncretism anticipated later dreams of a universal philosophy, and his Oration is still read as an early statement of human self-determination.
Life & context
Born in 1463 into the family of the lords of Mirandola, Pico studied law and philosophy in Bologna, Ferrara, Padua and Paris and joined Marsilio Ficino’s circle in Florence. In 1486 he offered to defend 900 theses publicly in Rome, but the debate never took place: a papal commission censured thirteen of them, and in August 1487 Innocent VIII condemned all 900. After a brief arrest in France he lived in Florence under the protection of Lorenzo de’ Medici and died there in 1494, aged 31.
Further main works
- 900 Theses (1486)
- Heptaplus (1489)
- On Being and the One (1491)
- Disputations against Divinatory Astrology (1496)
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