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Renaissance
Review Essays of Academic, Professional & Technical Books in the Humanities & Sciences
Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola
Pico della Mirandola: Oration on the Dignity of Man: A New Translation and Commentary by Pico della Mirandola, edited by Francesco Borghesi, Dr Michael Papio and Dr Massimo Riva (Cambridge University Press) This is a new translation of and commentary on Pico della Mirandola's most famous work, the Oration on the Dignity of Man. It is the first English edition to provide readers with substantial notes on the text, essays that address the work's historical, philosophical, and theological context, and a survey of its reception. Often called the "Manifesto of the Renaissance," this brief but complex text was originally composed in 1486 as the inaugural speech for an assembly of intellectuals, which could have produced one of the most exhaustive metaphysical, theological, and psychological debates in history, had Pope Innocent VIII not forbidden it. This edition of the Oration reflects the spirit of the original text in bringing together experts in different fields. Not unlike the debate Pico optimistically anticipated, the resulting work is superior to the sum of its parts.
Reviewed by Amos Edelheit, National University of Ireland, Maynooth
from Notre Dame Philosophy Reviews
Ever since his
untimely death it seems that there has been an uninterrupted
interest in the thought and writings of Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola (1463-1494), one of the most authentic representatives of
Renaissance philosophy. Pico was interested in every philosophical
or theological trend, accumulating ideas and doctrines from the
ancient Greeks and Romans, from Jewish mysticism, from Arabic
philosophers as well as from the most recent theories in natural
philosophy. He lived and worked -- either as a student or as a
colleague -- in the most important intellectual centres of his time:
Padua, Florence and Paris. He associated with Nicoletto Vernia,
Agostino Nifo and Elijah Delmedigo on the one hand, and with Angelo
Poliziano and Ermolao Barbaro, Girolamo Benivieni, Marsilio Ficino
and Lorenzo de' Medici on the other. Pico moved quite naturally and
freely among different scholastic schools and humanist fashions and
methods while developing his own particular interest in Jewish
Kabbalah and its potential role in Christian theology ("inventing" a
unique branch of knowledge which was later regarded as Christian
Kabbalah). He also pursued his interest in oriental languages and
cultures.
Pico's Oration,
which stands at the centre of this new volume, has a special place
in Pico's oeuvre. It is regarded as a kind of a manifesto
of the new Renaissance spirit, mainly thanks to the first section,
which is still part of the captatio benevolentiae. In it
Pico introduces a brilliant idea, on both philosophical and
rhetorical grounds: since man was created last, everything was
already occupied and given to other created beings. God, who is
depicted as a demiurge and an architect, solved this problem by
putting man at the centre of the world so that he could better see
what is there and by giving him the ability to choose his own place
and thus to determine his own destiny. The exact philosophical and
theological implications of this idea are still a subject of debate
among Pico scholars. Pico composed the Oration in 1486. He
organized a public debate in Rome and intended to open it with the Oration.
The subject of the debate was to be nine hundred theses and
conclusions from them that he had gathered from diverse sources or
had composed under their inspiration. The debate, however, never
took place. The Oration was not published during Pico's
lifetime although he did use parts of it in his Apology (1487)
defending 13 of the theses against accusations of different degrees
of heresy. It was included in the 1496 posthumous edition of Pico's
works and some sixteenth-century printers titled it Oratio de
hominis dignitate (Oration on the Dignity of Man), the
name by which it became known to readers all over Europe.
There is something
remarkable in both the quantity and complexity that every student of
Renaissance philosophy immediately faces when reading either
humanist-oriented thinkers like Petrarch, Salutati, Bruni, Valla or
Manetti, for instance, or scholastic thinkers like Dominici,
Antoninus, Pisano or Saliviati. The essential gap between our
contemporary modern life-style and rhythm, on the one hand, and
Renaissance scholarship and erudition, on the other, can defeat the
strongest hearts (but only in those rare cases where honesty and
sincerity are involved). With regard to Pico, for instance, one
should be familiar with the ancient and medieval sources that were
available to him in Greek and Latin, along with some of the Hebrew
(and in some cases Aramaic) sources and with Arabic philosophy (at
least in Latin translations). I still strongly believe in the value
of such an endeavour and in promoting and advancing our
understanding of Renaissance philosophy by using "old-school"
scholarly methods: philology and a historical approach combined with
all the electronic devices and possibilities. Such concerns and
circumstances, together with the new electronic technologies (and
the constant need for funded projects) are pushing scholars nowadays
to use electronic devices in special collective research projects.
In such a context we find also the "Pico Project" and its first
print edition, the volume under review.
Massimo Riva gives
an overview of the Pico Project in the first chapter of Part I. Just
before that, in the acknowledgments section, we are told not to
expect any revisions in the Latin of the Oration since the
volume's translators and commentators (not 'editors' as they are
called on the cover) "adopted" the 2003 "critical text" of Francesco
Bausi, one of the leading Pico scholars today. The purpose of this
cooperative project between Brown University and the University of
Bologna, was "to make the Oration widely available on the
Internet as a resource for a wider community of scholars and
readers, an essential step toward a better understanding and
reappraisal of a legendary episode of the Renaissance" (p. 5). There
is nothing wrong in making a fifteenth-century text more available
through the Internet. How exactly this effort is going to be
"essential" for "a better understanding" of this text and context is
unclear in this statement, which is presented as the credo of
the whole project. More problematic is the use of the word
'aphorisms' (p. 6) to describe Pico's method of collecting his
theses or conclusions, which were only the opening declarations and
short accounts preceding detailed philosophical or theological
discussions, the kind of discussion we have in Pico's Apology that
has absolutely nothing in common with "our own post-modern way of
retrieving [diverse traditions and ideas] " (p. 6). I shall leave
the question as to who exactly are the "we" or "our own" open. But
any reader familiar with classical scholarship will find the
speculations concerning the advantages of "dynamic" digital editions
over printed editions superficial, since no serious scholar will
ever consider a printed critical edition of any text as "potentially
definitive" (p. 7), and the dynamic nature of scholarship has been
well known to generations of scholars many years before the
invention of the first computer.
Pier Cesare Bori's
piece is an English translation taken from his book on Pico (2000)
and is used here as an historical introduction to Pico's Oration.
Beside some relatively minor problems (for instance, Flavius
Mithridates is referred to (p. 13, n. 8; p. 15; p. 16, n. 17) as a
"colleague" of Pico, while in fact he was Pico's teacher and
translator employed by the Count), it is unclear why Bori gives such
a detailed account of Pico's famous and dramatic love affair with
Margherita (pp. 11-15). This is not justified by any new evidence or
a new interpretation of known documents. Bori refers (p. 27) to what
he regards as Pico's "pluralistic theoretical perspective, and his
capacity to see reality in the light of innumerable points of view",
while in fact there is very little evidence for such a "pluralistic
perspective." Pico's purpose in accumulating as many doctrines and
opinions (verba) as possible was probably to understand
better the reality (res) reflected in those true and
adequate doctrines, assuming a necessary relation between concepts
and reality. In other words, his novelty lies more in his historical
than in his conceptual approach, although this point is of course
open to debate. The historiographical division provided (pp. 32-33)
between those who emphasize the importance of mysticism and esoteric
doctrines in Pico's thought and those who focus on his contributions
to the theological tradition and to religious discourse is very
simplistic (a point I shall return to shortly).
There are several
inaccuracies in Francesco Borghesi's chronology of the main events
in Pico's life. For instance, Elijah (this is the standard English
form of this name, not 'Elia') Delmedigo is mentioned (p. 39) beside
"another converted Jew, Guglielmo Raimondo de Moncada," a
formulation which will lead non-expert readers to assume that
Delmedigo was also a converted Jew, which he was not. The account
(pp. 39-40) of Pico's famous letter to Lorenzo, in which Pico
compares the poets Dante, Petrarch and Lorenzo himself, does not
include the fact that Pico expresses a preference for the poetry of
Lorenzo over that of Dante or Petrarch. It is unclear why Borghesi
emphasizes Alemanno's competence in "reading Arabic sources in
Hebrew" (p. 42), while both Delmedigo and Mithridates were just as
competent. Alemanno brought into play his expertise and sincere
interest in Kabbalah. In this regard he differed from both Delmedigo
(a rational Aristotelian thinker in the Averroist tradition who
famously rejected the standard way of understanding and interpreting
Averroës in the Latin West by philosophers with no knowledge of
Arabic) and Mithridates (a translator of Kabbalistic texts who was
not specially engaged with the subject).
Michael Papio
provides a reliable account of the printed editions of Pico's Oration (pp.
45-51). A sharper and more consistent distinction is needed,
however, between a critical edition of the text, on the one hand,
and translations of the text, on the other; in this light the phrase
'English editions' (p. 51) is inaccurate and misleading.
The last two
sections of Part I are an account of different interpretations of
the Oration by Francesco Borghesi and an "Overview of the
Text" by six participants in the Pico Project. Part II contains the
Latin text (i.e., Bausi's critical text) and a new English
translation.
One could agree with
Borghesi's critique of Farmer and his obsession with the concept of
syncretism (in the latter's edition and translation of Pico's 900
theses),[1] as
well as with Borghesi's preference for "concord" instead (p. 54 and
n. 13 there). However, it is much more difficult to understand his
remark about "the proposition that God 'is above Being' -- a thesis
maintained by Plato's Academy" (p. 55). This is mere speculation and
is not attested by the ancient sources we have (we in fact have very
little information about what was actually going on in Plato's
Academy). If Borghesi is referring to the Academy as a school of
thought (i.e., the students and followers of Plato in the first
generations after his death), then there is an even more serious
problem since, as is well-known, the Academy during most of this
period held a skeptical approach.
One should be more cautious and critical with regard to phrases such as
"mystical vocation" (p. 59) or "mystical aspect" (p. 60), which are
not very helpful in explaining Pico's ideas. The same goes for the
speculations concerning an "inclusive" or "exclusive conception of
Christianity" (p. 60), which immediately bring us to a very
dangerous account of religion as culture -- so far away from the
fifteenth-century notion of Christianity -- and then, to "a
pluralistic Christian theological doctrine," a contemporary idea
that again has very little in common with Pico or any other
Renaissance philosopher or theologian. Identifying "concordism" with
"religious pluralism" (p. 60) is again very problematic, and
reflects a very confused historiographical account which is missing
(see e.g., the crucial studies of Charles Trinkaus, Salvatore
Camporeale, John O'Malley and John D'Amico on Renaissance humanism
and Christianity).[2] In
this regard, the discussion on pages 60-65 is a step backwards. A
phrase such as 'concordistic theology' (p. 64) does not really
explain the novelty of Pico, who stands outside many unhelpful
historiographical categories.
The purpose of the
last section of Part I is not entirely clear. This "Overview of the
Text" contains much speculation on various sections of Pico's text.
On too many occasions, the discussion resembles an undisciplined
stream of consciousness concerning different "possibilities." What
would the reader gain from the observation that
Pico takes this
stance [that man has no place or nature of his own] not only in
order to exalt man's free will, flexibility, and perfectibility but
also, and especially, in order to argue that the ultimate goal of
man is the attainment of a reality that transcends every image,
so that humans become in effect the image of a nonimage (p. 67)?
Beyond the obvious
confusion and the effort to say something new at all costs we should
remember that no such argument concerning transcending images can be
found in the Oration or in any other text by Pico. Having
the ability to choose provides humanity with the possibility of
emulating the angels and even going above the angels in the cosmic
hierarchy, and this is why Pico immediately discusses the three
angelic orders in the context of human progression. This progression
has a very remote connection with Diotima's speech in Plato's Symposium,
or with the "cave analogy" in Republic 7, and the word
'parallelism' (p. 69) is much too strong and unjustified. On the
other hand, the emphasis on the importance of Pseudo-Dionysius the
Areopagite (e.g., pp. 72-73) is fully justified, but there is, of
course, nothing new in this.
In the overview,
Massimo Riva's discussion of Enoch and Metatron (pp. 74-78) is on
the one hand, full of speculations regarding "possible cabalistic
(and Gnostic) references" (p. 75) and unhelpful references to
Cassirer's "symbolic thought" (p.75, n. 29). His competence in
matters concerning Kabbalah, Hebrew and Aramaic, on the other hand,
is doubtful; so, for instance, we find the Hebrew word מטבצ instead
of מטבע (p. 77 and on pp. 132-133 in Pico's text), and we
have חשמים instead of השמים (p. 89), but who nowadays can read
Hebrew?
The overall level of
Michael Papio's discussion of the next section of Pico's Oration (pp.
78-89) is better. But even here we find statements such as "Pico
syncretically embraces the best of the Logica antiqua and Logica
modernorum" (p. 83), or, "What emerges is a mode of thought
that seems to succeed in blending Neoplatonism and Aristotelian
Scholasticism quite productively" (pp. 83-84), which are far too
general and thus quite meaningless. Papio gives several references
to Maimonides (pp. 87-89), but does not suggest that he used the
Arabic text of the Guide of the Perplexed, only the 1995
English translation. It is unclear which version of the Zohar he
used (pp. 86-87).
Two disturbing
aspects of this section of "free" commentaries on Pico's Oration are
the many repetitions and its lack of a coherent and synthetic
analysis. The obvious reason is that the section has multiple
authors, but that explanation does not eliminate the problem.
Another disturbing aspect is the endless praise given to Pier Cesare
Bori who played a leading role in the Pico Project. The authors in
this section all contiually refer to Bori's works and theses about
Pico, whether they make sense or not. There is, for example, an open
clash between Bori and Bausi. Bausi is more cautious and does not
see "a plurality of diverse and parallel spiritual itineraries" (p.
93, a citation from Bori's book), but rather justly points out the
priority assigned by Pico to Christianity (p. 93, n. 56). Melloni,
Papio, and Riva choose not to decide between the two. However, the
fact that Bori's account is in the main text and Bausi's in the
footnote is not accidental.
A general disregard
of the scholastic tradition and its enormous influence on Pico is
yet another disturbing aspect of the overview. Instead there is an
inflation of fashionable phrases such as 'hermeneutical stance' and
'hermeneutical practice' (p. 99). The biblical fact that Joshua ben
Nun was the leader of the people of Israel after Moses is presented
with the formulation: "according to various biblical narratives" (p.
101). The fact that Pico was in touch with, and learnt from, three
Jewish scholars does not mean that he "acquired these requisite
skills [linguistic and theological background]" (p. 103) for
becoming competent in independent reading of Kabbalistic texts, an
issue which was thrown in doubt many years ago by Chaim Wirszubski.
Kabbalah was already a very popular trend in the Jewish world by the
fifteenth century and not "relatively new within Judaism" (pp.
103-104), and among its few opponents we find Delmedigo. It is very
difficult to know what Riva means when he referes to "the cabalist
tradition . . . from Maimonides to Abulafia" (p. 104, n. 68), since
Maimonides is known for his rational and anti-mystical approach.
Speculations concerning Pico's "conversion to the Cabala" (pp.
104-105) can hardly be qualified as "scholarship."
Let us move now to
what is probably the volume's most significant scholarly
contribution, the new annotated English translation (Part II, pp.
107-277). It can generally be said that it is quite reliable and
provides the Latin-less reader with a mostly adequate translation
together with some useful information in the footnotes. There are,
of course, some minor issues regarding certain decisions taken by
the translators. Consider the following examples. The "dignity of
man" theme (p. 111, n. 7) has many ancient and medieval accounts
that should have been at least partially referred to, given the
importance of the theme; scholastic discussions might have been
crucial here considering Pico's scholastic formation. The words 'supremi
spiritus' are translated as 'the Intelligences' (pp. 118-119)
and no explanation is provided for this decision. The words 'emolumenta'
and 'dignitatem' are translated as 'dignity' and 'value'
(p. 163) although it would have been rather easy in this case, and
also more accurate, to keep the plural in 'emolumenta' and
render it as 'benefits', which is better in this context (the
benefits we gain from the liberal arts), and render 'dignitatem'
as 'dignity'. On the same page, the exclamation 'by Hercules!' is
not in the Latin and there is no explanation for it in note 116
(only a reference to Bausi's edition, where there probably is an
explanation). Pico's important critical account of the status of
philosophy in his own time (pp. 182-183) should have been
contextualized (i.e., dealing with the question of why Pico thinks
that philosophical activity in his time is derided and disparaged),
beyond following Bausi's reference to Cicero' De finibus (p.
183, n. 180) and even the important information provided (page 185,
nn. 181-182) is not enough. The mention of the word 'conscientia'
(pp. 188 and 196) required some scholarly account of this important
concept in the ancient and especially the scholastic contexts. The
same applies to 'disputandi genus' (p. 190) which surely
deserved a discussion of some scholastic practices. Important
remarks on Thomas and Scotus, for instance, (p. 200) or on Giles of
Rome, Francis of Meyronnes, Albert the Great and Henry of Ghent, (p.
204) did not receive any serious discussion in the footnotes. Pico's
remark on the unique feature that each philosophical school has (p.
202), as well as the addition in the Palatino manuscript ( p. 213,
n. 249) concerning "the privileges of truth," both deserved a
scholarly account in the light of his "concordism".
To conclude: this
volume and the Pico Project as a whole are probably going to
increase the availibility of Pico's Oration. But with
regard to the second part of thecredo of the scholars
participating in this project, to provide "a better understanding,"
much more work is still needed.
[1] S.A.
Farmer [ed. and trans.], Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900
Theses (1486) (Tempe, Ariz. 1998). See also the critical notes
on this edition in Luc Deitz, 'De omni re scibili: et de
quibusdam aliis. A New Attempt at Understanding Pico's 900
"Theses"', in Neulateinisches Jahrbuch 7 (2005), pp.
295-301. Seen in this light, Bori's assessment of Farmer’s edition
as being "important" (p. 19, n. 28, in the volume under review) is
problematic.
[2] These
four scholars of the last generation, who paid a great deal of
attention to the relationship between humanists and theology,
developed the notion of a specifically humanist theology, which they
interpreted in various ways: Charles Trinkaus, concentrating mainly
on Petrarch, Salutati, and Valla, used the term 'rhetorical
theology'; Salvatore Camporeale, focusing primarily on Valla, used
the term 'teologia umanistica'; and John O'Malley, who
studied sermons delivered in Rome, coined the term 'Renaissance
theology'. See Charles Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness:
Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought, 2 vols.,
(London 1970); The Scope of Renaissance Humanism (Ann Arbor
1983); Salvatore I. Camporeale, Lorenzo Valla: umanesimo e
teologia (Florence 1972); Lorenzo Valla: umanesimo, riforma
e controriforma, studi e testi, (Rome 2002); John O’Malley, Praise
and Blame in Renaissance Rome: Rhetoric, Doctrine, and Reform in
Sacred Orators of the Papal Court 1450-1521 (Durham, North
Carolina 1979). See also the historiographical remarks in
Camporeale, Lorenzo Valla: umanesimo… (2002), p. 247, n.
60; p. 346, n. 12. For the relation between Roman humanism and
religion see John F. D'Amico, Renaissance Humanism in Papal
Rome: Humanists and Churchmen on the Eve of the Reformation (Baltimore
1983), especially pp. 144-168. D'Amico on p. 167 prefers, for his
historical context, the term 'theologia erudita' or 'docta' to
Trinkaus' 'theologia rhetorica'.
Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486): The Evolution of Traditional Religious and Philosophical Systems With a Revised Text, English Translation, and Commentary by Stephen A. Farmer, Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola (MRTS: Medieval and Renaissance Texts & Studies) Born to the noble family of the Counts of Mirandola and Concordia near Modena, Pico lived on the edge of two distinct cultural periods, the former rooted in medieval scholasticism, the latter characterized by the humanistic revival of classical thought. Pico's bright intellectualality and strong curiosity led him to study thoroughly both medieval and classical traditions in the most renowned cultural centers of learning of his time.. His multifaceted interests in all kinds of knowledge, his peculiar life, as well as his precocious death constituted the basis for the rapid flourishing of his fame and for the spreading of his legendary biography also beyond Italian borders.
The myth of the "phoenix of his time", as the young Count was designated already by his contemporaries, has affected scholarly interpretations of Pico's intellectual speculation. Throughout the centuries, Pico's system of thought has been viewed as one of the earlier, more faithful, and most complete expressions of humanism. But his true originality actually becomes in Christianizing the Jewish kabbala and beginning a long line of Christian kabbalaistic speculation and magic.
Of scrupulous significance in this regard is the role played by hermetic theosophy in Pico's attempt to create an all-inclusive system of comprehension, deliberate to embrace and merge the most diverse philosophical and theological authorities. His plan of launching a concurrent syncretism (concordia) between a variety of religions and philosophical canons was unquestionably based upon scholarly fundamentals of his day.
Pico realized he had found in Jewish kabbala one of the major links between rational and religious systems of thought.
In 1486, while composing his famous 900 Theses, he resorted for
the first time to a wide range of Jewish kabbalistic works, which
had been translated on his request by the Jewish convert Flavius
Mithridates (ca. 1450-1489). Pico plan was to submit and discuss all
his Theses (which he had printed at the end of 1486) during a
conference to be held in
In one of the Conclusions condemned by the Church, Pico affirmed that 'no knowledge gives us more certainty about Christ's divinity than magic and Kabbalah'. In order to defend this ambiguous claim, Pico made an effort in his Apology to distinguish a good from an evil form of magic, as well as a positive from a negative Kabbalah. According to this distinction, the term Kabbalah was employed by the Jews to point out two distinct hidden disciplines, one dealing with a method for combining letters of the Hebrew alphabet (such a device, according to Pico, was not dissimilar from Ramon Llull's Ars), the second dealing with an investigation of the celestial beings dwelling above the sphere of the Moon; this second discipline was considered by the humanist as the higher form of natural magic. Thus, if investigation of supernal entities could be carried out by means of natural magic, this sort of kabbalistic magic would certainly allow the initiate to penetrate the mysteries of the divinity of Christ. In of the many ways his 900 Theses was a work that never received the explication it deserved and was planned, because it was aborted by the church, suspicious of syncretic systems as corrosive to dogma, and hence, to faith.
Farmer has come a long way in reconstructing the probable systems that Pico would have used to synthesize all knowledge as represented by these Theses arranged historically. Besides being the first full and only modern translation of the 900 Theses, using the special numbering system and a computer analysis of the language, Farmer makes a strong case for a much more original synthesis than has been conjectured by other modern scholars who have tended to look at the 900 Theses in a piecemeal fashion.
According to Farmer, ‘By the time of Pico's proposed the
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