Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Oil painting by an unknown painter in the Uffizi

Giovanni Pico (Conte) della Mirandola (born February 24, 1463 in Mirandola in what is now Emilia-Romagna , † November 17, 1494 in Florence ) was an Italian philosopher of the Renaissance . He is best known today for his speech on human dignity , in which he asked about the nature of human beings and their position in the world and emphasized free will as a characteristic feature of human beings. With his extraordinary education and eloquence, Pico greatly impressed his contemporaries.

Life

Portrait of Pico on a bronze medal, around 1484/1495. On the back the three graces , here interpreted as beauty, love and lust

Giovanni was a son of Count Gianfrancesco I. Pico della Mirandola and Giulia Boiardo. He was the fifth and youngest child of his parents. After the death of his father (1467) he was raised by his mother and prepared for a career in the church. At the age of 14 he was already occupied with philosophy and the classical languages. In 1477 he began to study law ( canon ) at the University of Bologna , which he broke off. After the death of his mother (1478) he moved to Ferrara in 1479 , where he turned to the studia humanitatis , and in 1480 to Padua to study philosophy. Padua was a center of Italian averroism , which Pico now grappled with. In 1483 he moved to Florence and worked there in the circle around Lorenzo il Magnifico , who u. a. Marsilio Ficino and Angelo Poliziano belonged to. Since then he has had a lifelong close friendship with Ficino, which has not been tarnished by later philosophical differences of opinion. In this context, Pico expressly acknowledged the ideal of friendship between the Pythagoreans . From July 1485 to March 1486 he stayed in Paris, where he firmly professed averroism, but soon returned to Italy. He learned the Arabic , Hebrew and Aramaic languages.

In 1486 he began studying Kabbalah and commissioned the Jewish convert Raimundo Moncada ( Flavius ​​Mithridates ) to translate Kabbalistic literature into Latin. He was the first Christian scholar to study Kabbalah intensively without being of Jewish origin himself. At the same time he was preparing a trip to Rome, where he wanted to publicly defend 900 philosophical and theological theses that he had written in front of all interested scholars in the world. To this end, he decided to invite to a large European congress, which should take place in the presence of the Pope and the College of Cardinals; He wanted to bear the travel expenses of the participating scholars himself. His goal was to show a fundamental agreement of all philosophical and religious doctrines, which are ultimately all contained in Christianity, and thus to contribute to global understanding and peace. On the way to Rome he fell in love with a married woman whom he abducted at her request. The husband had the fugitives pursued and tracked down; the woman was brought back, Pico was injured and had to go into hiding for months. Lorenzo de 'Medici protected him from arrest. After this delay, he did not arrive in Rome until November 1486. There he published the theses on December 7, 1486. ​​The public disputation planned for January 1487 did not take place, however, because Pope Innocent VIII appointed a sixteen-member commission to examine the orthodoxy of the views represented in the theses. Pico was not ready to appear before the commission. After a heated debate, the commission came to the conclusion that thirteen of the theses were heretical and should therefore be condemned. Initially, this did not result in any action against Pico. But when he defended himself in a justification, the Apologia , without waiting for a statement from the Pope, he was resented in the Curia . In a bull dated August 4, 1487, the Pope condemned the theses in their entirety and ordered the burning of all copies, but he postponed the publication of the bull. But when he found out that Pico had had the Apologia printed, he saw its spread as an open rebellion, which he never forgave Pico. In this threatening situation, Pico left Rome in November, which was interpreted by his critics as a flight, because he was now under suspicion of heresy. Since the Pope asked for his arrest, he was arrested near Lyon on the way to Paris . However, he gained the favor of King Charles VIII , who released and protected him. Therefore, he was able to return to Florence in freedom in 1488, where he was under the protection of Lorenzo. There, as well as in Fiesole and Corbole near Ferrara , he spent the rest of his life in philosophical and religious studies. Religious topics came more and more to the fore. In the last phase of his life he professed the views of the radical preacher Girolamo Savonarola . On June 18, 1493, Pope Alexander VI. all measures imposed against Pico by his predecessor Innocent VIII.

Pico died on November 17th, 1494 after three days of suffering. Savonarola gave the funeral oration; the funeral took place in his Dominican monastery of San Marco . According to Pico's nephew Gianfrancesco, the cause of death was a fever. The unexpected death of the promising scholar caused great consternation, and rumors soon spread that he had been poisoned by his secretary, Cristoforo da Casalmaggiore. The findings of an investigation after the exhumation of the bones in 2007 confirmed the suspicion of murder; it was arsenic poisoning .

Works

The beginning of Pico's biography written by Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola in the complete edition of the works, Basel 1557

The early deceased Pico did not leave behind an extensive work. He published only three of his writings: the 900 theses (Conclusiones nongentae) , the Apology and the 1489 Heptaplus , an allegorical interpretation of the beginning of the biblical book of Genesis , in which he went back to the medieval exegetical tradition and incorporated kabbalistic ideas. Two years after his death, his nephew Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola published some of the writings he left behind, but it was not until the complete editions of Basel (1557, 1572–73 and 1601) contained the entire inventory known today. Some works are lost.

The posthumously published works include the treatise On Beings and One (De ente et uno) written in 1490, the commentary on a song of love from 1485/1486 in which the Canzona d'amore by Pico's friend Girolamo Benivieni is commented on, an interpretation of the Lord's Prayer (Expositio in orationem dominicam) , a pamphlet against astrology in twelve books (Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem) , numerous letters and 19 Latin and 46 Italian poems. About beings and the one was part of a large, planned but not completed work in which Pico wanted to show a fundamental agreement between Plato and Aristotle . He started from an Aristotelian interpretation of Plato, which was directed against the Neo-Platonic view of Plotinus and Ficino. The writing against astrology also belonged in the context of a larger project, a defense of the Christian faith against seven enemies ( atheism , polytheism , Judaism, Islam, superstition, astrology and magical arts, heresy and indifference of Christians). Pico's death prevented this project from being completed. The work known as the Speech on Human Dignity is Pico's introductory speech to the planned Roman disputation, which failed because of the Pope's objection. Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola published the speech in 1496. Originally it had no title; De hominis dignitate (On the dignity of man) was initially only a marginal note, but it seemed so apt that it was made a title in the 1557 edition.

Teaching

Relationship to philosophical traditions

Because of his strong interest in metaphysics and theology, Pico, like Ficino, was not a typical Renaissance humanist, because usually the humanists were very distant from the metaphysical speculations typical of scholasticism ; their philosophical interest was usually limited to moral philosophy. Pico even defended - completely untypical for a humanist - the scholastic philosophers against the criticism of Ermolao Barbaro with the argument that the content of philosophical texts was more important than the aesthetic quality of their style (which was highly deficient among the scholastics from a humanistic point of view). The letter De genere dicendi philosophorum addressed to Ermolao , in which he took this position, caused a sensation.

In his last creative phase, Pico sought an apologetic demarcation of the specifically Christian. This tendency shows the influence of Savonarola. Here there is a contrast to the efforts of the early days; Initially, Pico tried to prove that all philosophical traditions were in principle compatible.

Pico's relationship with Ficino was not a one-sided teacher-student relationship. Although he belonged to the circle of more or less Neoplatonic oriented humanists inspired by Ficino , he did not consider himself a Platonist; he did not want to limit himself to adherence to a particular philosophical school. He emphasized his independence by occasionally distancing himself from Ficino's views. A main difference was in the understanding of unity and being; while Ficino viewed the divine one as overriding, Pico said that unity and being cannot be separated and that God ( the one in the sense of Neoplatonism) also belongs to beings.

anthropology

Pico's anthropology is set out in the speech on human dignity . This is one of the most famous texts of the Renaissance, as it is considered a program writing in which the principles of a modern humanistic anthropology are proclaimed. The speech was interpreted in this sense by Jacob Burckhardt , who described it as "one of the noblest legacies of the cultural epoch" (the Renaissance).

The starting point is a quote from an ancient hermetic work, the treatise Asclepius, wrongly attributed to Apuleius : “Man is a great miracle.” God created man after he had created the lower living beings (animals and plants) and the higher (angels and heavenly spirits) had their respective unchangeable destinations and places assigned. The Creator has given man as the only being the quality of not being fixed. Hence the human being is “a work of indefinite form”. All other creatures are naturally endowed with properties that limit their possible behavior to a certain framework, and accordingly they are assigned permanent homes. Man, on the other hand, is freely placed in the middle of the world so that he can look around there, explore everything that is available and then make his choice. In this way he becomes his own designer who decides according to his own free will how and where he wants to be. Herein lies the wonderful thing about his nature and his special dignity , and to that extent he is the image of God. He is neither heavenly nor earthly. Therefore, according to his decision to become an animal, he can degenerate or vegetate like a plant or develop his rational faculty in such a way that he becomes angelic. Finally, he can even “withdraw into the center of his unity, satisfied with no role of the creatures”, where he unites with the deity “in the secluded darkness of the Father”. Because of these diverse possibilities and the constantly changing and self-transforming nature of humans, Pico compares him to a chameleon. He exuberantly praises the special position of humans in creation.

Based on Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita , Pico sees the ascent to God as a three-stage process. Purification ( purgatio ) is followed by enlightenment (illuminatio) and then perfection ( perfectio ). Purification takes place through the sciences: through moral philosophy, which enables passions to be tamed, and logic, which guides us to the right use of the powers of the mind. The natural philosophy serves for enlightenment , which explores the wonders of nature and makes it possible to recognize the power of the Creator in the created. Theology leads to perfection as that discipline whose object is the direct knowledge of the divine. Together, the three levels or areas of knowledge form a three-part philosophy (philosophia tripartita) . According to Pico, their contents are not only common to the various directions of Christian philosophy, but also to the teachings of pre-Christian and Islamic philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Avicenna , Averroes ).

Jacob Burckhardt's perspective is based on a popular interpretation of the oratio as a manifesto of a proud self-glorification of man who made himself the master of his fate, typical of the Renaissance. This interpretation is viewed as one-sided by recent research; she exaggerates one aspect and does not do justice to Pico's overall concern.

In Heptaplus , Pico emphasized that the human being as a microcosm not only participates in everything, but dominates everything earthly. No created substance refuses to serve him. The earth, the elements and the animals are there for him, and heaven and the angels also take care of his well-being.

Pliny manuscript

Pico owned a 1481 copy of the Historia naturalis by the ancient writer Pliny . The painter of the illustrations in this manuscript, not known by name, is now named after the owner as Master of Pliny of Pico della Mirandola (Italian Maestro del Plinio di Pico della Mirandola). The elaborate work shows the interest of scholars like Pico in ancient scientific writings.

Text editions and translations

Several works

  • Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: De hominis dignitate, Heptaplus, De ente et uno, e scritti vari . Edited by Eugenio Garin . Vallecchi, Firenze 1942
  • Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Selected Writings . Published by Arthur Liebert . Diederichs, Jena and Leipzig 1905 (contains German translations of the following works: Letters from and to Pico, Heptaplus, About Being and Unity [extracts], About human dignity [extracts], Apologia [extracts], Theological Aphorisms, Against the Astrology [extracts])
  • Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Carmina Latina . Edited by Wolfgang Speyer . Brill, Leiden 1964 (critical edition of Pico's Latin poems)
  • Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Human dignity. Along with a few letters and the biography of Pico della Mirandola. Translated by Herbert Rüssel . Sabat, Kulmbach 2016, ISBN 978-3-943506-36-5
  • Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Lettere (= Studi Pichiani , Volume 19). Edited by Francesco Borghesi. Olschki, Florenz 2018, ISBN 978-88-222-6574-6 (critical edition).

Individual works

  • Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: About beings and the one. De duck et uno . Edited, translated and commented by Paul Richard Blum et al. Meiner, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-7873-1760-8 (critical edition of the Latin text and German translation)
  • Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: De hominis dignitate. About human dignity . Published by August Buck . Meiner, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 978-3-7873-0959-7 (Latin text with a German translation by Norbert Baumgarten)
  • Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Oratio de hominis dignitate. Talk about human dignity . Edited by Gerd von der Gönna. Reclam, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 978-3-15-009658-1 (Latin text and German translation)
  • Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Commentary on a song of love . Edited by Thorsten Bürklin. Meiner, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7873-1552-7 (Italian text and German translation)
  • Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Nine hundred theses . Edited and translated by Nikolaus Egel. Meiner, Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-7873-3183-3 (Latin text and German translation)
  • Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Conclusiones nongentae. Le novecento Tesi dell'anno 1486 . Published by Albano Biondi. Olschki, Firenze 1995, ISBN 88-222-4305-6 (Latin text and Italian translation)
  • Pic de la Mirandole: Les 900 conclusions. Edited by Delphine Viellard. Les Belles Lettres, Paris 2017, ISBN 978-2-251-44694-3 (critical edition with French translation)

literature

Overview representations

Monographs, studies

  • Walter Andreas Euler: "Pia philosophia" et "docta religio". Theology and Religion with Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola . Fink, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-7705-3280-5 .
  • Heinrich Reinhardt : Freedom to God. The basic idea of ​​the systematist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494) . VCH, Weinheim 1989, ISBN 3-527-17669-1 .
  • Alexander Thumfart : The perspective and the signs. Hermetic encodings by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola . Fink, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7705-3051-9 .

Collection of articles

  • Michael V. Dougherty (Ed.): Pico della Mirandola. New essays . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (Massachusetts) 2008, ISBN 978-0-521-84736-0 .

bibliography

  • Leonardo Quaquarelli, Zita Zanardi: Pichiana. Bibliografia delle edizioni e degli studi . Olschki, Florence 2005, ISBN 978-88-222-5488-7 .
  • Thomas Gilbhard: Paralipomena Pichiana. Speaking of a pico bibliography . In: Accademia. Revue de la Société Marsile Ficin , Vol. 7, 2005, pp. 81-94.

Web links

Wikisource: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Giovanni Pico della Mirandola  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ On Pico's knowledge of the three Semitic languages, see Paul Oskar Kristeller : Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and his sources . In: L'opera e il pensiero di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola nella storia dell'umanesimo. Convegno internazionale (Mirandola: 15-18 Settembre 1963) , Vol. 1: Relazioni , Firenze 1965, pp. 35-142, here: 70-72.
  2. ↑ Chaim Wirszubski: Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism , Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1989, p. 64; Walter Andreas Euler: "Pia philosophia" et "docta religio". Theology and religion with Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola , Munich 1998, p. 27.
  3. ↑ Louis Valcke, Roland Galibois: Le périple intellectuel de Jean Pic de la Mirandole , Sainte-Foy 1994, p 123rd
  4. ↑ See on these processes Louis Valcke, Roland Galibois: Le périple intellectuel de Jean Pic de la Mirandole , Sainte-Foy 1994, pp. 125–129.
  5. ↑ Avner Ben-Zaken: Reading Ḥayy Ibn-Yaqẓān , Baltimore 2011, p. 93 and p. 151 Note 2. See Malcolm Moore: Medici philosopher's mystery death is solved (February 7, 2008, online ).
  6. ↑ A congress on this work was held in Mirandola and Ferrara in 2004; Congress files: Marco Bertozzi (Ed.): Nello specchio del cielo. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola e le Disputationes contro l'astrologia divinatoria , Firenze 2008.
  7. ↑ Louis Valcke, Roland Galibois: Le périple intellectuel de Jean Pic de la Mirandole , Sainte-Foy 1994, p 161 and note the 58th.
  8. ↑ Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Heptaplus 5,6, edited by Eugenio Garin: G. Pico della Mirandola: De hominis dignitate, Heptaplus, De ente et uno, e scritti vari , Firenze 1942, p. 304.
personal data
SURNAME Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Picus; Picus Mirandolensis, Iohannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian humanist
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1463
PLACE OF BIRTH Mirandola (Emilia-Romagna)
DATE OF DEATH November 17, 1494
Place of death Florence