Count A count is a nobleman in European countries; his wife is a countess. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The British equivalent is an earl . Alternative names for the & Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (February 24, 1463 – November 17, 1494) was an Italian Italy (pronounced /ˈɪtəli/ ; Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a country located partly on the European Continent and partly on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine Renaissance The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historic era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform across Europe, this is a general use of the philosopher Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "philosophy" comes from the.[1] He is famed for the events of 1486, when at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion Religion (from O.Fr. religion "religious community," from L. religionem "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods," "obligation, the bond between man and the gods" is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or more in general a set of beliefs explaining the existence of and giving meaning to the universe,, philosophy Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "philosophy" comes from the, natural philosophy Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science. It is considered to be the precursor of natural sciences such as physics and magic Magic, sometimes known as sorcery, is the practice of consciousness manipulation and/or autosuggestion to achieve a desired result, usually by techniques described in various conceptual systems. The practice is often influenced by ideas of religion, mysticism, occultism, science, and psychology.[citation needed] against all comers, for which he wrote the famous Oration on the Dignity of Man which has been called the "Manifesto of the Renaissance",[2] and a key text of Renaissance humanism Renaissance Humanism was a European intellectual movement that was a crucial component of the Renaissance, beginning in Florence in the later half of the 14th century. The humani Social or civic humanism rose out of the republican ideology of Florence at the beginning of the fifteenth century. It sought to create citizens capable of participating.

Contents

Family

Giovanni was born at Mirandola Mirandola is a city and comune of Emilia-Romagna, Italy, in the Province of Modena, 31 km northeast of the provincial capital by railway, near Modena Modena listen (Italian pronunciation: [ˈmɔːdena]; Mòdna in Modenese dialect) is a city and comune (municipality) on the south side of the Po valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, the youngest son of Francesco I, Lord of the Mirandola Mirandola is a city and comune of Emilia-Romagna, Italy, in the Province of Modena, 31 km northeast of the provincial capital by railway and Count of Concordia (1415–1467), by his wife Giulia, daughter of Feltrino Boiardo Boiardo was born at, or near, Scandiano ; the son of Giovanni di Feltrino and Lucia Strozzi, he was of noble lineage, ranking as Count of Scandiano, with seignorial power over Arceto, Casalgrande, Gesso, and Torricella. Boiardo was an ideal example of a gifted and accomplished courtier, possessing at the same time a manly heart and deep humanistic, Count di Scandiano Scandiano is a town and comune in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, administratively part of the province of Reggio Emilia. It had some 24,700 inhabitants as of 31 March 2009.[3] 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 Emperor Sigismund the fief of Concordia.The Mirandola was a small province in the region of Emilia-Romagna Emilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of 20,124 km² and about 4.3 million inhabitants near Ferrara Ferrara listen is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north. The town has broad streets and numerous palaces dating from the 14th century and 15th century,, but the Pico dynasty Historians traditionally consider a state's history within a framework of successive dynasties, particularly with such nations as China, Ancient Egypt and the Persian Empire. Much of European political history was dominated, successively and together, by dynasties such as the Carolingians, the Capetians, the Habsburgs, the Stuarts, the ruled it as independent sovereigns Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided. The concept has been discussed, debated and questioned throughout history, from the time of the Romans through to the present day, rather than as noble vassals A vassal, in the terminology that preceded and accompanied the feudalism of medieval Europe, is one who enters into mutual obligations with a monarch, usually of military support and mutual protection, in exchange for certain guarantees, which came to include the terrain held as a fief. By analogy it is applied to similar systems in other feudal, gradually aggrandizing power in northern Italy. The Pico della Mirandola were closely related to the Sforza Sforza was a ruling family of Renaissance Italy, based in Milan, Gonzaga The Gonzaga family ruled Mantua in Northern Italy from 1328 to 1708. See Duchy of Mantua for a list of rulers and Este The House of Este is a European princely dynasty. It is split into two branches; the elder is known as the House of Welf-Este or House of Welf, the younger, as the House of Fulc-Este or later simply as the House of Este dynasties, and Giovanni's siblings wed the scions of the hereditary rulers of Corsica Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia, Ferrara, Bologna Bologna listen (Italian pronunciation: [boˈloɲːa], from the Latin Bononia, Bulåggna; pronounced [buˈlʌɲːa] in Bolognese dialect) is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley (Pianura Padana in Italian) of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and and Forlì Forlì listen (Latin: Forum Livii) is a comune and city in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, and is the capital of the province of Forlì-Cesena. The city is situated along the Via Emilia, to the right of the Montone river; and is an important agricultural center. The city hosts many of Italy's culturally and artistically significant landmarks; It is also.[3]

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 Imperial The Holy Roman Empire (HRE; German: Heiliges Römisches Reich , Latin: Imperium Romanum Sacrum (IRS), Italian: Sacro Romano Impero (SRI)) was for about a millennium a realm in Central Europe under a Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in army.[3] The Pico family would reign A reign is the term used to describe the period of a person's or dynasty's occupation of the office of monarch of a nation or of a people KwaZulu-Natal, Belgium. In most hereditary monarchies and some elective monarchies (e.g. Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Poland) there have been no limits on the duration of a sovereign's reign or incumbency, nor as dukes A duke is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy. The title comes from the Latin Dux Bellorum, a term that ancient Roman chroniclers used to describe tribal Germanic and Celtic war leaders until Mirandola, an ally of Louis XIV of France Louis XIV , known as the Sun King (French: le Roi Soleil), was King of France and of Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days, and is the longest documented reign of any European monarch, was conquered by his rival, Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I , Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, King of Hungary, King of the Romans was the elder son of Emperor Leopold I and his third wife, Eleonore-Magdalena of Pfalz-Neuburg, who was the daughter of Philipp Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, in 1708 and annexed Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity (either adjacent or non-contiguous). Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size. It can also imply a certain measure of coercion, to Modena by Duke Rinaldo d'Este, the exiled male line Patrilineality is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritance of property, names or titles through the male line as well becoming extinct in 1747.[4]

Giovanni's maternal family was singularly distinguished in the arts and scholarship of the Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe. The term renaissance is in essence a modern one that came into currency in the. His cousin and contemporary was the poet Matteo Maria Boiardo Boiardo was born at, or near, Scandiano ; the son of Giovanni di Feltrino and Lucia Strozzi, he was of noble lineage, ranking as Count of Scandiano, with seignorial power over Arceto, Casalgrande, Gesso, and Torricella. Boiardo was an ideal example of a gifted and accomplished courtier, possessing at the same time a manly heart and deep humanistic, who grew up under the influence of his own uncle, the Florentine patron of the arts Gaius Cilnius Maecenas 13 April 70 BC –October 8 BC was a confidant and political advisor to Octavian as well as an important patron for the new generation of Augustan poets. During the reign of Augustus, Maecenas served as a quasi-culture minister to the Emperor and scholar-poet, Tito Vespasiano Strozzi.[5]

Education

A precocious child with an amazing memory In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing the memory. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century put memory within the paradigms of cognitive psychology. In recent decades, it has, Giovanni was schooled in Latin Latin or sometimes Roman is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Although often considered a dead language, in view of the fact that it has no native, fluent speakers, Latin continues to be taught in schools and has been, and currently is, used in the process of new word production in modern languages from many, and possibly Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of, at a very early age. Intended for the Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with more than a billion members. The Church's leader is the Pope who holds supreme authority in concert with the College of Bishops of which he is the head. A communion of the Western church and 22 autonomous Eastern Catholic churches (called by his mother, he was named a papal protonotary at the age of ten and in 1477 he went to Bologna Bologna listen (Italian pronunciation: [boˈloɲːa], from the Latin Bononia, Bulåggna; pronounced [buˈlʌɲːa] in Bolognese dialect) is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley (Pianura Padana in Italian) of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and to study canon law Canon law is the body of laws and regulations made by or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of churches. The way that such church law.[6]

At the sudden death of his mother three years later, Pico renounced canon law and began to study philosophy at the University of Ferrara Ferrara listen is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north. The town has broad streets and numerous palaces dating from the 14th century and 15th century,.[6] During a brief trip to Florence, he met Angelo Poliziano, the courtly poet Girolamo Benivieni, and probably the young Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola Girolamo Savonarola was an Italian Dominican priest and leader of Florence from 1494 until his execution in 1498. He was known for his book burning, destruction of what he considered immoral art, and hostility to the Renaissance. He vehemently preached against the moral corruption of much of the clergy at the time, and his main opponent was. For the rest of his life he remained very close friends with all three, including the ascetic and violently anti-humanist Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. The term has a complex history and is used to mean several things, most notably, an educational movement, associated especially with the Italian Renaissance, that emphasized the study of Greek and Roman literature, rhetoric, and moral philosophy – Savonarola.[citation needed][7]

Pico della Mirandola.

From 1480 to 1482, he continued his studies at the University of Padua The University of Padua , located in Padua, Italy, was founded in 1222. It is among the earliest of the universities in the world and the second oldest in Italy. As of 2003 the university had approximately 65,000 students and in 2009 it was nominated as "Best University" among Italian institutions of higher education with more than 40,000, a major center of Aristotelianism Aristotelianism is a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. The works of Aristotle were initially defended by the members of the Peripatetic school, and, later on, by the Neoplatonists who produced many commentaries on Aristotle's writings. In the Islamic world, the works of Aristotle were in Italy.[6] Already proficient in Latin Latin or sometimes Roman is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Although often considered a dead language, in view of the fact that it has no native, fluent speakers, Latin continues to be taught in schools and has been, and currently is, used in the process of new word production in modern languages from many and Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of, he studied Hebrew Extinct as a regularly spoken language by the 4th century CE, but survived as a liturgical and literary language; revived in the 1880s and Arabic Arabic (العربية al-ʿarabīyah, ( Arabic pronunciation ) or عربي ʿarabi) is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. Arabic has more speakers than any other language in the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million in Padua with Elia del Medigo, a Jewish Averroist, and read Aramaic manuscripts with him as well. Del Medigo also translated Judaic manuscripts from Hebrew into Latin for Pico, as he would continue to do for a number of years. Pico also wrote sonnets in Latin and Italian, which because of the influence of Savonarola, he destroyed at the end of his life.

He spent the next four years either at home, or visiting humanist centres elsewhere in Italy. In 1485 he travelled to the University of Paris, the most important centre in the whole of Europe for 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.

During this time two life-changing events occurred. The first was when his returned to settle for a time in Florence in November 1484 and met Lorenzo de' Medici and Marsilio Ficino, on the astrologically auspicious day Ficino had chosen to publish his translations of the works of Plato from Greek into Latin under Lorenzo’s enthusiastic patronage. Giovanni appears to have charmed both men immensely, with Ficino endeared, despite continuing philosophical differences, convinced of their Saturnine affinity and the divine provenance of his arrival. Until his death in 1492 Lorenzo supported and protected Giovanni. Without Lorenzo's support it is doubtful that Pico would have survived even the 10 more years that he did.

View of Florence, woodcut, Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493.

Soon after this stay in Florence, Pico was travelling on his way to Rome where he intentioned 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.

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 books […] of Esdras, of Zoroaster and of Melchior, oracles of the magi, which contain a brief and dry interpretation of Chaldean philosophy, but full of mystery."[8] It was also in Perugia that Pico was introduced to the mystical Hebrew Kabbalah, which fascinated him, as did the late Classical 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.

Pico based his ideas chiefly on Plato, as did his teacher, Marsilio Ficino, but Pico retained a deep respect for Aristotle. Although he was a product of the studia humanitatis, Pico was constitutionally an 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 medieval and Islamic 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.[9]) Similarly, Pico believed an educated person should also study the Hebrew and Talmudic sources, and the Hermetics, because he believed they represented the same view seen in the Old Testament, in different words, of God.

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.

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.

Nevertheless, the Pope declared his Theses unorthodox calling them "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", favor arts that are enemies to the Catholic faith and to the human race."[10] One of Pico’s detractors maintained that "Kabbala" was the name of an impious writer against Jesus Christ.[citation needed]

Pico fled to France in 1488, where he was arrested by Philip II of Savoy, at the demand of the papal nuncios, and imprisoned at Vincennes. Through the intercession of several Italian princes—all instigated by Lorenzo de' Medici—King 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.

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 syncretist convictions.

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 Astrology), which was not published until after his death. In it, Pico acidly condemned the practices of the astrologers of his day, and shredded the intellectual basis of astrology itself. Pico was interested in high magic that enhanced man's dignity and strengthened his will. There was no room in such a concept for the determinism of the stars.

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.[11]

Pico died under very mysterious circumstances in 1494. It was rumored that his own secretary had poisoned him, because Pico had become too close to Savonarola.[12] He was interred 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.”[13]

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,[14] 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.[15]

Writings

In the "De hominis dignitate" (Oration on the Dignity of Man, 1486), Pico justified the importance of the human quest for knowledge within a Neoplatonic framework.

Savonarola by Fra Bartolomeo, c. 1498.

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.

Pico appears to have believed in universal reconciliation. 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.[16] 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."[17]

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 ideas held by his teacher, Marsilio Ficino, who may have encouraged him to write it. 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.

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.

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.

Cultural references

In James Joyce'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."

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 De occulta philosophia libri tres. 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". One has to wonder what error of research, or perhaps deliberate misquote, led to this attribution by Lovecraft.

Psychologist, 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...".[18]

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."

Philosopher of social science René Girard mentions Mirandola passingly in his book 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)

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).

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, Conte" in Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge, volume 15, copyright 1991. Grolier Inc., ISBN 0-7172-5300-7
  2. ^ Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486) http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/pico.html
  3. ^ a b c Marek, Miroslav (2002-09-16). "Genealogy.eu". Pico family. http://genealogy.euweb.cz/italy/pico1.html. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
  4. ^ Schoell, M. (1837). "VIII". History of the Revolutions in Europe. Charleston: S. Babcock & Co. pp. 23–24. ISBN 0665910614. 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. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
  5. ^ "Trionfi.com". Boiardo's Life: Time Table. http://www.geocities.com/autorbis/boiardolife.html. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
  6. ^ a b c Baird, Forrest (2000). "GIOVANNI PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA (1463-1494)". Philosophic Classics. Prentice Hall. http://www.whitworth.edu/core/classes/co250/Italy/Data/fr_pico.htm. Retrieved 2009-01-28.
  7. ^ "Medici writers exhumed in Italy". BBC News. 2007-07-28. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6920443.stm. Retrieved 2007-07-28.
  8. ^ Bibliographie Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
  9. ^ Paul Oskar Kristeller, Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance. Stanford University Press (Stanford, California, 1964.) P. 62.
  10. ^ lyber-eclat.net op.cit.
  11. ^ http://www.compilerpress.atfreeweb.com/Anno%20Borchardt%20Magi.htm The Magus as Renaissance Man p.70
  12. ^ lyber-eclat.net op.cit.
  13. ^ lyber-eclat.net op.cit.
  14. ^ "Medici writers exhumed in Italy". BBC News. 2007-07-28. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6920443.stm. Retrieved 2007-07-28.
  15. ^ Moore, Malcolm (2008-02-07). "Medici philosopher's mysterious death is solved, The Daily Telegraph (London) 7 Feb 2008". http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/07/wmedici107.xml. Retrieved 2008-02-07.
  16. ^ "Apocatastasis". New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. I.
  17. ^ Prof. Pier Cesare Bori. "The Italian Renaissance: An Unfinished Dawn?: Pico della Mirandola". Accessed Dec. 5, 2007.
  18. ^ Rank, Otto, Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1932.

Bibliography and further reading

External links

This article incorporates text from the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913, a publication now in the public domain.

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