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Italianphilosopher and scholar, born 24 February, 1463; died 17 November, 1494. He belonged to afamily that had long dwelt in the Castle of Mirandola (Duchy ofModena), which had become independent in the fourteenth century and had received in 1414 from the Emperor Sigismund the fief ofConcordia. 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 theecclesiastical career. Repelled, however, by the purely positivescience of law, he devoted himself to the study ofphilosophy andtheology, and spent seven years wandering through the chiefuniversities ofItaly andFrance, studying also Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic. An impostor sold him sixty Hebrewmanuscripts, 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 hisphilosophical theories. His aim was to conciliate religion andphilosophy. Like his teacher, Marsilius Ficinus, he based his views chiefly onPlato, in opposition toAristotle 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 purehumanism. 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 thisidea (Florence, about 1480); to the same period belongs the "De ente et uno", with its explanations of several passages in Moses,Plato andAristotle; also an oration on the Dignity of Man (published among the "Commentationes").
With bewildering attainments due to his brilliant and tenacious memory, he returned toRome 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 wereheretical, 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 nonsensicalbeliefs, 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 defence in "Apologia J. Pici Mirandolani, Concordiae comitis" (1489). One of his detractors had maintained that Kabbala was the name of an impious writer againstJesus Christ. Despite all efforts Pico was condemned, and he decided to travel, visitingFrance first, but he afterwards returned to Florence. He destroyed his poetical works, gave up profanescience, and determined to devoted his old age to a defence ofChristianity againstJews,Mohammedans. andastrologers. A portion of this work was published after his death ("Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem", Bologna, 1495). Because of this book and his controversy againstastrology, Pico marks an era and a decisive progressive movement inideas. He died two months after his intimate friend Politian, on the day Charles VIII ofFrance entered Florence. He wasinterred at San Marco, andSavonarola 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 ofPlato'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.
NICERON, Mémoires, XXXIV; TIRABOSCHI, Biblioteca Modenese, IV, 95; biography by his nephew, in complete works; Storia della letteratura italiana, VI, part I, 323; SANDYS, A History of Classical Scholarship, II (Cambridge, 1908), 82.
APA citation.Lejay, P.(1911).Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10352a.htm
MLA citation.Lejay, Paul."Giovanni Pico della Mirandola."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 10.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1911.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10352a.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by Vernon Bremberg.Dedicated to the Cloistered Dominican nuns of the Monastery of the Infant Jesus, Lufkin, Texas.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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