Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (24 February 1463 – 17 November 1494) was an Italian Renaissance nobleman and philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when, at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy, and magic against all comers. The 900 Theses was the first printed book to be universally banned by the Church. He was the founder of the tradition of Christian Kabbalah, a key tenet of early modern Western esotericism.
About Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in brief
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (24 February 1463 – 17 November 1494) was an Italian Renaissance nobleman and philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when, at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy, and magic against all comers. The 900 Theses was the first printed book to be universally banned by the Church. He was the founder of the tradition of Christian Kabbalah, a key tenet of early modern Western esotericism. His Oration on the Dignity of Man has been called the \”Manifesto of the Renaissance\”, and a key text of Renaissance humanism. His cousin and contemporary was the poet Matteo Maria Boiardo, who grew up under the influence of his own uncle, the Florentine patron of the arts and scholar-poet Tito Vespasiano Strozzi. Pico also wrote sonnets in Latin and Italian, which, because of his influence, he destroyed at the end of his life. In 1485, he travelled to the University of Paris, the most important centre for scholastic philosophy and theology, and a hotbed of secular Averroism. It was probably in Paris that he conceived the idea of THE CONCLUSIONS, which will not be published in Italian until after the Epiphany in January 1562. He died in Modena in 1494, and is buried in the Pico family’s castle of Mir andola, near Modena, near the city of Ferrara.
His nephew, Gianfrancesco Pico, was a great admirer of his uncle, yet published Examen vanitatis doctrinae gentium 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. He had two much older brothers, both of whom outlived him: Count Galeotto I continued the dynasty, while Antonio became a general in the Imperial army. He may also have been a lover of Angelo Poliziano, the courtly poet Girolamo Benivieni, and probably the young Dominican friar Grolamo Savonarola. He remained very close friends with all three for the rest of hisLife. He also wrote a number of books, including a biography of his nephew, which was published in 1486. His son, Giovanni Pico Del Medneto, was born in 1463 and died in November 1493. He lived in a castle in the Emilia region of Emilia, near Ferrara, and was the youngest son of Gianfr Francesco I Pico and his wife Giulia. His siblings wed the descendants of the hereditary rulers of Corsica, Ferrara,. Bologna, and Forlì. He studied Hebrew and Arabic in Padua with Elia del Medigo, and read Aramaic manuscripts with him well.
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