Course XXV - Teaching 10: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola is one of the most controversial figures in the literary and philosophical world. Even lights of the emerging and glorious Renaissance were unable to dissipate the medieval darkness of fraud and superstitions around the figure of this man, since he was truly one of the main connections between the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
About his birth, perhaps because of it, everything was of gloomy and old. De la Mirandola’s castle was this way, with its pointed towers, high and bare ramparts, its creaking drawbridges, placed among the dark mountains of Central Tuscany.
Born of an old family, of Noble lineage, predestined to wars and weapons, this was the environment of the child. But a miracle occurs. This boy with blond and long hair, huge blue eyes, and oval and feminine face, stands out against all. Those tough warriors, habituated to blasphemy and shout, do not dare to open their mouths before him.
His sweetness prevails, his modesty attracts and his physical beauty shines like a flame bearing an inner life. He gets bored with all old things; wars, habits, way of living. He loves only one old thing: books; and as if from a pure spring, and from the lips of the boy, the most beautiful poems pour out spontaneously.
Nobody can overcome him; his sweetness overcomes all. His father is already resigned not to make of him a man of arms, or a priest, but to leave him free to follow his own daydreams.
And Pico is just 10 years old; but already he is a new expression, a living image of Renaissance, to which he will contribute so much.
At the age of 14, he is already in Bologna discussing subjects of canonical right with the oldest doctors, defeating scholastics and pondering Greek philosophy.
But still there is more. At the same age is a laureate boy.
But, who can appease his ardent of knowledge? The world is small for him; the time is short.
Year by year, as a pilgrim of knowledge, he runs through all universities, knows all centers of studies and attends to lectures of all famous sages in those days. This pilgrimage lasts seven years.
We are told that at the age of 18 he knew 22 languages, and was aware of the official sciences of those days.
When may settle this Renaissance man, but in Florence, cradle of the new era, hatchery of men of science, arts and letters?
Lorenzo the Magnificent, Duke of Florence, acquires a deep affection for this wise adolescent; he cannot dispense of him. He does not write poetry, or publishes them without his approval. In spite of the stigmas rumored about intimacies of these two friends, this was one of the most beautiful and lasting friendships that only death could separate; and for very short time.
Then the young Pico published his ninety propositions named “De Omni Re Scibili”, which were condemned by the Pope. By them he intended to stimulate the study of all universal and human questions; but he failed because of ecclesiastical intransigence.
The most wonderful work of Pico della Mirandola was his cooperation with Marsilius Phicinus, the great Platonistic philosopher, for a revival of the study and love for Greek philosophers and for the foundation of the famous Florentine Academy.
Since he was deeply religious and wished to be instructed about the esoteric part of Christianism, he contacted venerable priests and influenced Lorenzo de Medici’ mind to send for Girolamo Savonarola from Florence.
Girolamo and Pico were two completely different characters. The severe, hard and apocalyptic aspect of the friar contrasted with the beauty, seigniory and refinement of the poet. For sure, it should exist in these two souls only one spiritual aspiration when so close intimacy united them.
In those days, in Florence, also there were some Initiates of Fire, lovers of astrology, metaphysics and kabalah. Pico was not a person limited to only one concept. He knew these persons and studied strenuously occult sciences; if he had lived some few years more, for sure he would cooperate with them in the foundation of the Secret Order of Fratres Lucis, established in 1498.
His mission had already finished; Greek philosophy was in its apogee, being steadily established. For centuries and centuries, men would not help but to admire it and to study it. Now Pico could retire to higher worlds.
Lorenzo the Magnificent died in 1492 and other great friend, the poet Angelo Policiano, on September 29, 1494.
On November 17, the same year, at the age of just 31, while Charles VIII was in the city of Florence with a powerful army, this Great Initiate would abandon the terrestrial plane.
Some few months earlier, a Savonarolian seer, Camilla Rucellai, had predicted him the hour of his death and he, scared, had tried to take the Dominican habit; but delayed the project from one day to another, and he was unable to achieve it.
However, in his last hour, like Policiano, asked his friend Savonarola to be buried wearing the white and black suit of the Order of Preachers; Savonarola promised and honored his word.
If one cannot know exactly whether Pico della Mirandola knew the great mission on Earth, which the Initiates of Fire entrusted to him, certainly he recognized this mission at once in the last hour, since from the convent, where she was praying, Camilla Rusellai saw the soul of Pico della Mirandola raising to Heaven in a halo of fire.