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Pico della Mirandola (Mirandola 1463 Florence 1494). He was a humanist, philosopher and theologian. He studied Law at the University of Bologna, Letters in Ferrara and Philosophy in Padua. He also Greek, Arabic, Hebrew and Chaldean, with the purpose of understanding the Kabbalah, the Koran, the Chaldean Oracles and the Platonic Dialogues in his original texts.
Pico reveals to us that the essence of human dignity is free will. Luck is the daughter of the soul. The man trusting himself in his reason must become the architect of himself and his destiny.
He attempted to unify the cultural traditions surviving in his time. He considered Christianity to be the meeting point of all previous philosophical traditions. He is famous for his Discourse on the Dignity of Man, which has been called the "Renaissance Manifesto."
In 1485, during his stay in Paris, he read the works of Averroes (1126-1198), who introduced Aristotelian thought to the West. There he conceived the idea of unifying the cultural traditions surviving at that time.
At the height of the Renaissance, he published his famous nine hundred theses in Rome, entitled Conclusiones philosophicae, cabalisticae et theologicae (1486). In them he expressed the intention of demonstrating the true nature of Christianity, considering it as the point of confluence of all previous philosophical traditions, including Greek philosophy, astrology, Kabbalah and magic.
He was persecuted as a heretic. However, thirteen of those theses were considered "suspected of heresy." The Pope linked them to cabalistic magic and prohibited further debate. Tried and convicted of heresy, Pico was excommunicated so he fled to France, where he was arrested and taken to Vincennes prison.
The heir to the throne of France and future King Charles VIII interceded on his behalf and he was released. Some time later he accepted an invitation from Lorenzo the Magnificent de Medicis, Italian banker, politician and patron, and settled in Florence where he became one of the most active collaborators of the Florentine Platonic Academy of Marsilio Ficino.
In 1486, at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses of religion and philosophy with his Oratio de hominis dignitate, which has been called The Manifesto of the Renaissance. The work was preceded by an introduction, which he titled Discourse on the Dignity of Man, where Pico formulates three of the ideals of the Renaissance:
“When God finished the creation of the world, he began to contemplate the possibility of creating man, whose function will be to meditate, admire and love the greatness of God's creation. But God did not find a model to do it. He therefore addresses the first specimen of his creature, and says: 'I have not given a form, nor a specific function, to you, Adam. For this reason, you will have the form and function you want. I have given the nature of other creatures according to my desire. But you will have no limits. You will define your own limitations according to your free will. I will place you at the center of the universe, so that it will be easier for you to dominate your surroundings. I have not made you mortal, nor immortal; neither from the earth, nor from the sky. In such a way that you can transform yourself into whatever you want. You can descend to the lowest form of existence as if you were a beast, or you can instead be reborn beyond the judgment of your own soul, among the highest spirits, those who are divine.'"
In the year 1489 he finished Heptaplus, a mystical story about the creation of the universe, in which he delves into Genesis seeking to unravel its deepest meanings.
Two years later, at the age of twenty-eight, he renounced his considerable assets and his share of the family principality and devoted himself to a deep religious fervor.
He traveled throughout Italy as a mendicant until in 1493, Pope Alexander VI absolved him of any accusation of heresy and admitted him back into the Catholic Church.
Pico, however, did not renounce any of his theses. He entered the Dominican Order whose habits he came to wear shortly before his death.
Some ideas from Pico della Mirandola ("Man is an exception in Nature because he has no limits to his action. He can change his life. God modifies the rule of creation when man arrives"):
On November 17, 1494, Pico was poisoned with arsenic under strange circumstances. A rumor spread that one of his secretaries had poisoned him due to his close relationship with the Dominican religious Girolamo Savonarola. He was 31 years old. He was buried in San Marco in Florence.
