Born twenty-three years into his parents' marriage, Giovanni had two much older brothers, both of whom outlived him: CountGaleotto I continued the dynasty, while Antonio became a general in theImperial army.[8] The Pico family would reign as dukes until Mirandola, an ally ofLouis XIV of France, was conquered by his rival,Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1708 and annexed to Modena by DukeRinaldo d'Este, the exiledmale line becoming extinct in 1747.[9]
Giovanni's maternal family was singularly distinguished in the arts and scholarship of theItalian Renaissance. His cousin and contemporary was the poet Matteo Maria Boiardo, who grew up under the influence of his own uncle, the Florentinepatron of the arts and scholar-poetTito Vespasiano Strozzi.[10]
Giovanni had a paradoxical relationship with his nephewGiovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola, who was a great admirer of his uncle, yet publishedExamen vanitatis doctrinae gentium (1520) in opposition to the "ancient wisdom narrative" espoused by Giovanni, described by historian Charles B. Schmitt as an attempt "to destroy what his uncle had built."[11]
A precocious child with an exceptional memory, Giovanni was schooled in Latin and possibly Greek at a very early age. Intended for theChurch by his mother, he was named a papal protonotary (probably honorary) at the age of 10 and in 1477, he went to Bologna to studycanon law.[12]
At the sudden death of his mother three years later, Pico renounced canon law and began to study philosophy at theUniversity of Ferrara.[12] During a brief trip to Florence, he metAngelo Poliziano, thecourtly poetGirolamo Benivieni, and probably the young Dominican friarGirolamo Savonarola. For the rest of his life, he remained very close friends with all three.[13] He may also have been a lover of Poliziano.[14]
From 1480 to 1482, he continued his studies at theUniversity of Padua, a major centre ofAristotelianism in Italy.[12] Already proficient in Latin and Greek, he studied Hebrew and Arabic inPadua withElia del Medigo, a JewishAverroist, and read Aramaic manuscripts with him as well. Del Medigo also translatedJudaic manuscripts from Hebrew into Latin for Pico, as he would continue to do for a number of years. Pico also wrotesonnets in Latin and Italian which, because of the influence of Savonarola, he destroyed at the end of his life.[citation needed]
He spent the next four years either at home or visitinghumanist centres elsewhere in Italy. In 1485, he travelled to theUniversity of Paris, the most important centre in Europe forscholastic philosophy and theology, and a hotbed of secular Averroism. It was probably in Paris that Giovanni began his900 Theses and conceived the idea of defending them in public debate.[citation needed]
THE CONCLUSIONS will not be disputed until after the Epiphany. In the meantime they will be published in all Italian universities. And if any philosopher or theologian, even from the ends of Italy, wishes to come to Rome for the sake of debating, his lord the disputer promises to pay the travel expenses from his own funds.
During this time two life-changing events occurred. The first was when he returned to settle for a time inFlorence in November 1484 and metLorenzo de' Medici andMarsilio Ficino. It was anastrologically auspicious day that Ficino had chosen to publish his translations of the works of Plato from Greek into Latin, under Lorenzo's enthusiastic patronage. Pico appears to have charmed both men, and despite Ficino's philosophical differences, he was convinced of their Saturnine affinity and the divine providence of his arrival. Lorenzo would support and protect Pico until Lorenzo's death in 1492.
Soon after this stay in Florence, Pico was travelling on his way to Rome where he intended to publish his900 Theses and prepare for a congress of scholars from all over Europe to debate them. Stopping inArezzo he became embroiled in a love affair with the wife of one of Lorenzo de' Medici's cousins, which 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.
Pico spent several months inPerugia 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 areChaldean books ... ofEsdras, ofZoroaster and ofMelchior, oracles of the magi, which contain a brief and dry interpretation of Chaldean philosophy, but full of mystery."[16] Pico was introduced in Perugia to the mystical HebrewKabbalah, which fascinated him, as did the late classical Hermetic writers, such asHermes Trismegistus. TheKabbalah andHermetica were thought in Pico's time to be as ancient as the Old Testament. One of Pico's tutors in Kabbalah wasRabbi Johannan Alemanno (1430s – c. 1510), who argued that the study and mastery of magic was to be regarded as the final stage of one's intellectual and spiritual education.[17] According to Brian Copenhaver, Pico also relied on translations byFlavius Mithridates, a convert and prolific forger. Flavius supplied Pico with doctored Kabbalistic and seemingly pro-Christian texts, which persuaded Pico "that mysteries of the Kabbalah were keys to heaven for Christians."[18]
This contact, initiated as a result of Christian interest in probing the ancient wisdom found in Jewish mystical sources, resulted in unprecedented mutual influence between Jewish and Christian Renaissance thought.[17] The most original of Pico's 900 theses concerned theKabbalah. As a result, he became the founder of the tradition known asChristian Kabbalah, which went on to be a central part of early modernWestern esotericism.[6] Pico's approach to different philosophies was one of extremesyncretism, placing them in parallel, it has been claimed, rather than attempting to describe a developmental history.[19]
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 thestudia humanitatis, Pico was constitutionally aneclectic, and in some respects he represented a reaction against the exaggerations of pure humanism, defending what he believed to be the best of themedieval and Islamic commentators, such asAverroes andAvicenna, on Aristotle in a famous long letter toErmolao Barbaro in 1485. It was always Pico's aim to reconcile the schools of Plato and Aristotle since he believed they 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).[20] Similarly, Pico believed that an educated person should also study Hebrew andTalmudic sources, and the Hermetics, because he thought they represented the same concept of God that is seen in theOld Testament, but in different words.
He finished his "Oration on the Dignity of Man" to accompany his900 Theses and travelled to Rome to continue his plan to defend them. He had them published together in December 1486 as"Conclusiones philosophicae, cabalasticae et theologicae", and offered to pay the expenses of any scholars who came to Rome to debate them publicly. He wanted the debate to begin on 6 January, which was, as historian Steven Farmer has observed, the feast ofEpiphany and "symbolic date of the submission of the pagan gentes to Christ in the persons of the Magi". After emerging victorious at the culmination of the debate, Pico planned not only on the symbolic acquiescence of the pagan sages, but also the conversion of Jews as they realised that Jesus was the true secret of their traditions. According to Farmer, Pico may have been expecting quite literally that "his Vatican debate would end with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse crashing through the Roman skies".[21]
Innocent VIII, 15th century
In February 1487,Pope Innocent VIII halted the proposed debate, and established a commission to review the orthodoxy of the900 Theses. Although Pico answered the charges against them, thirteen theses were condemned. Pico agreed in writing to retract them, but he did not change his mind about their validity. Eventually, all 900 theses were condemned. He proceeded to write anapologia defending them,Apologia J. Pici Mirandolani, Concordiae comitis, published in 1489, which he dedicated to his patron, Lorenzo. When the pope was apprised of the circulation of this manuscript, he set up an inquisitorial tribunal, forcing Pico to renounce theApologia, in addition to his condemned theses, which he agreed to do. The popecensured900 Theses as:
In part heretical, in part the flower of heresy; several are scandalous and offensive to pious ears; most do nothing but reproduce the errors of pagan philosophers [...] others are capable of inflaming the impertinence of the Jews; a number of them, finally, under the pretext of 'natural philosophy', favour arts [i.e.,magic[6]] that are enemies to the Catholic faith and to the human race.[22]
This was the first time that a printed book had been banned by the Church, and nearly all copies were burned.[6] Pico fled to France in 1488, where he was arrested byPhilip II, Duke of Savoy, at the demand of the papalnuncios, and imprisoned atVincennes. Through the intercession of several Italian princes – all instigated by Lorenzo de' Medici – KingCharles 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 ofAlexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) to the papacy.
The experience deeply shook Pico. 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 syncretist convictions. He settled in a villa nearFiesole prepared for him by Lorenzo, where he wrote and published theHeptaplus id est de Dei creatoris opere (1489) andDe Ente et Uno (Of Being and Unity, 1491). It was here that he also wrote his other most celebrated work, theDisputationes 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 astrologers of his day.
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.[23]
In 1494, at the age of 31, Pico died under mysterious circumstances along with his friendPoliziano.[24]
It was rumoured that his own secretary had poisoned him because Pico had become too close to Savonarola.[22] He was interred together with Girolamo Benivieni at San Marco, and Savonarola delivered the funeral oration. 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.[22]
In 2007, the bodies of Poliziano and Pico were exhumed from theChurch of San Marco in Florence to establish the causes of their deaths.[25] Forensic tests showed that both Poliziano and Pico likely died of arsenic poisoning, possibly at the order of Lorenzo's successor, Piero de' Medici.[26] Subsequent scientific investigation found that while Pico may have died from acute arsenic poisoning (intentional or otherwise), there was not enough evidence to conclude the same for Poliziano, and levels of arsenic found in his remains may have been from chronic exposure or have taken place post-mortem.[27]
In theOratio de hominis dignitate (Oration on the Dignity of Man, 1486), Pico justified the importance of the human quest for knowledge, masterfully blendingNeoplatonism and AristotelianScholasticism.[28]
TheOration 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 combinedPlatonism, Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism,Hermeticism and Kabbalah. They also included 72 theses describing what Pico believed to be a complete system of physics.
Pico'sDe animae immortalitate (Paris, 1541), and other works, developed the doctrine that man's possession of animmortal soul freed him from the hierarchical stasis. Pico believed inuniversal reconciliation, as 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 4 August 1487.[29]
In theOration he argues, in the words ofPier Cesare Bori, 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."[30]
A portion of hisDisputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem was published in Bologna after his death. In this book, Pico presents arguments against the practice ofastrology 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,Augustine of Hippo, and also by the medieval philosophical taleḤayy ibn Yaqẓān byibn Tufail, which promotedautodidacticism as a philosophical program.[31]
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 nephewGiovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola, 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.
Early in his career, Pico wrote aCommento sopra una canzone d'amore di Girolamo Benivieni, in which he revealed his plan to write a book entitledPoetica Theologia:[32]
It was the opinion of the ancient theologians that divine subjects and the secret Mysteries must not be rashly divulged... the Egyptians had sculpted sphinxes in all their temples, for no other reason than to indicate that divine things, even when they are committed to writing, must be covered with enigmatic veils and poetic dissimulation... How that was done... by Latin and Greek poets we shall explain in the book of our Poetic Theology.
Pico'sHeptaplus, a mystical-allegorical exposition of thecreation according to the seven Biblical senses, elaborates on his idea that different religions and traditions describe the same God. The book is written in his characteristicapologetic and polemic style:
If they agree with us anywhere, we shall order the Hebrews to stand by the ancient traditions of their fathers; if anywhere they disagree, then drawn up in Catholic legions we shall make an attack upon them. In short, whatever we detect foreign to the truth of the Gospels we shall refute to the extent of our power, while whatever we find holy and true we shall bear off from the synagogue, as from a wrongful possessor, to ourselves, the legitimate Israelites.
On Being and the One (Latin:De ente et uno) has explanations of several passages in thePentateuch, Plato and Aristotle. It is an attempted reconciliation between Platonic and Aristotelian writings on the relative places of being and "the one" and a refutation of opposing arguments.
He wrote in Italian an imitation of Plato'sSymposium. 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.
Another notorious text by Pico isDe omnibus rebus et de quibusdam aliis ("Of all things that exist and a little more"), which is mentioned in some entries on Thomas More'sUtopia and makes fun of the title of Lucretius'De rerum natura.
InJames Joyce'sUlysses, the precociousStephen 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."[38]
Of minor interest is a passing reference to Mirandola byH. P. Lovecraft, in the storyThe 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 hisThree 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".
PsychoanalystOtto Rank, a rebellious disciple ofSigmund Freud, chose a substantial excerpt from Mirandola'sOration on the Dignity of Man as the motto for his bookArt 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...".[39]
InUmberto Eco's novelFoucault'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".
InIrving Stone's novel aboutMichelangelo,The Agony and the Ecstasy, book 3, part 3 contains a paragraph's description of Mirandola as part of the scholarly circle that surroundedLorenzo 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.
Philosopher of social scienceRené Girard mentions Mirandola passingly in his bookDes choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde (French for '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)
InRoberto Bolaño's novel2666, the philosophy professor Oscar Amalfitano begins his three-columned list of philosophers with Pico della Mirandola. Adjacent to Mirandola, Amalfitano writesHobbes, while beneath him he writesHusserl (p.207, 2008).
InFrédéric Lenoir's novelL'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:
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 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;
at the end of Chapter 24, having discussedLuther's concept of free will,[clarification needed] the sage wants to 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;
at the beginning of Chapter 26, with Giovanni having now read theOration 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.
English composerGavin Bryars 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.
In the bookDying for Ideas; The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers (2015) by Romanian philosopherCostica Bradatan, 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'.
Ben-Zaken, Avner, "Defying Authority, Rejecting Predestination and Conquering Nature", inReading Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan: A Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), pp.65–100.ISBN978-0801897399.
Borchardt, Frank L. "TheMagus as Renaissance Man."Sixteenth Century Journal (1990): 57–76.doi:10.2307/2541132.
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.
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.
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.
Campanini, Saverio. "Talmud, Philosophy, Kabbalah: A Passage from Pico della Mirandola's Apologia and its Source." InThe 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.
Cassirer, Ernst, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John Herman Randall, Jr.The Renaissance Philosophy of Man. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1948.
Coenhaver, Brian P. (2020).Magic and the Dignity of Man: Pico della Mirandola and His Oration in Modern Memory. Belknap Press, Harvard.
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.
Dougherty, M. V., ed.Pico della Mirandola. New Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Dulles, Avery,Princeps Concordiae: Pico della Mirandola and the Scholastic Tradition – The Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Prize Essay for 1940, Cambridge, MA, 1941.
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.)
Gilbhard, Thomas. "Paralipomena pichiana: a propos einer Pico–Bibliographie". InAccademia. Revue de la Société Marsile Ficin VII (2005): 81–94.
Hanegraaff, Wouter (2012).Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0521196215.
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)
Heiser, James D.,Prisci Theologi and the Hermetic Reformation in the Fifteenth Century, Malone, TX: Repristination Press, 2011.ISBN978-1-4610-9382-4.
Jurgan, Susanne, 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, inThe Kabbalistic Library of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola 5, Nino Aragno Editore, Torino 2012.ISBN978-8884195449
Kristeller, Paul Oskar.Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1964.
Martigli, Carlo A., "999 L'Ultimo Custode", Italia: Castelvecchi, 2009.
Pater, Walter. "Pico Della Mirandola." InThe Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, 24–40. New York: The Modern Library, 1871.
Quaquarelli, Leonardo, and Zita Zanardi.Pichiana. Bibliografia delle edizioni e degli studi. Firenze: Olschki, 2005 (Studi pichiani 10).
Robb, Nesca A.,Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance, New York: Octagon Books, Inc., 1968.
Wilson-Lee, E.,The Grammar of Angels: A Search for the Magical Powers of Language in Renaissance Italy London: William Collins, 2025.
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