Pico della Mirandola 1463 – 1494
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was an Italian Renaissance humanist and philosopher, a member of the Florentine circle around Marsilio Ficino. At twenty-three he proposed to defend nine hundred theses drawn from every available philosophical and religious tradition, prefacing them with the Oration on the Dignity of Man, a manifesto of Renaissance humanism. He was the first Christian thinker to make extensive use of Kabbalah, and his thought sought a concordance of Plato, Aristotle, the prisca theologia, and Christian doctrine. He died at thirty-one, possibly poisoned.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Italian
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Renaissance, Platonism
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Pico della Mirandola:
“We have made you neither of heavenly nor of earthly stuff, neither mortal nor immortal, that with freedom of choice and with honor, as though the maker and molder of yourself, you may fashion yourself into whatever shape you shall prefer.”
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Attributed to Pico della Mirandola:
“Man is the maker of himself.”
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Attributed to Pico della Mirandola:
“There is nothing in the world more wonderful than man.”
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Attributed to Pico della Mirandola:
“Philosophy alone leads us to seek truth, theology to find it, religion to possess it.”
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Attributed to Pico della Mirandola:
“The diversity of doctrines, far from a defect, is the very ornament of philosophy.”