Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Giovanni Pico ( Conte) della Mirandola (* February 24, 1463 in Mirandola in today's Emilia-Romagna region, † November 17, 1494 in Florence ) was an Italian philosopher of the Renaissance. He is best known today. Especially by his speech about the dignity of man, in which he raises the question of the nature of man and his position in the world and the free will emphasize as a characteristic feature of the human With its exceptional form and his eloquence impressed his contemporaries Pico strong.

Life

Giovanni was a son of Count Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola. After his father's death ( 1467 ) he was raised by his mother and prepared for a clerical career. At the age of 14, he was concerned with philosophy and classical languages ​​. In 1477 he began studying law ( canon law ) in Bologna, but he broke off. After his mother ( 1478) 's death in 1479, he moved to Ferrara, where he turned to the studia humanitatis, and 1480 to Padua to study philosophy. Padua was the center of the Italian Averroism with which Pico now dealt. 1483 he moved to Florence and worked there in the circle of Lorenzo I de ' Medici, among other things, the Marsilio Ficino and Angelo Poliziano belonged. With Ficino since he formed a lifelong close friendship that was not clouded by later philosophical disagreements. In this context, Pico known explicitly to the ideal of friendship of the Pythagoreans. From July 1485 to March 1486 he stayed in Paris, where he decided pleaded for Averroism, but soon returned to Italy. He learned Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic.

In 1486 he began to study Kabbalah and instructed the Jewish converts Raimundo Moncada ( Flavius ​​Mithridates ), Kabbalistic literature translated into Latin. He was the first Christian scholar who, without being a Jewish, intensely focused on the Kabbalah. At the same time, he was preparing a trip to Rome, where he wanted to publicly defend against all interested scholars in the world 900 philosophical and theological theses which he had written. To this end, he decided to invite them to a major European Congress, which was to take place in the presence of the Pope and the College of Cardinals; the travel expenses of the participating scholars he wanted to wear themselves. His goal was to show a fundamental correspondence of all philosophical and religious teachings that were ultimately included in all Christianity, and thus contribute to global understanding and peace.

On the way to Rome, he fell in love with a married woman he kidnapped at her request. The husband could follow and locate the fugitives; the woman was returned, Pico suffered an injury and had to hide for months. Lorenzo de ' Medici protected him from arrest. After this delay, he arrived in Rome only in November 1486. There he published the theses on 7 December 1486th, however, planned for January 1487 public disputation did not take place, because Pope Innocent VIII appointed a sixteen -member commission that would consider the orthodoxy represented in the theses views. Pico was not prepared to appear before the Commission. After intense debate, the Commission came to the conclusion, thirteen of the theses were heretical and should be condemned. This had initially no action against Pico result. When he was a vindication, the Apologia, defended himself, without waiting for a statement of the Pope, he was resented at the Curia this. In a bull with the date of August 4, 1487 the Pope condemned the theses in total and ordered the burning of all copies, but he hesitated, the publication of the bull. But when he learned that the Pico Apologia had printed, he summed up their distribution on an open rebellion, which he never forgave Pico. In this threatening situation Pico traveled from Rome in November from what was interpreted by his critics as an escape, for he was now under suspicion of heresy. Since the Pope demanded his arrest, he was arrested on his way to Paris in the near Lyon. However, he gained the favor of King Charles VIII, who made ​​him free and protected. Therefore, he could return to freedom in 1488 to Florence, where he was under the protection of Lorenzo. There and in Fiesole and Corbole near Ferrara, he spent the rest of his life with philosophical and religious studies. This religious themes came more and more into the foreground. In the last phase of his life he confessed to the views of the radical preacher Girolamo Savonarola, in the Dominican convent of San Marco, he was then buried 1494. On June 18, 1493, Pope Alexander VI. all imposed by his predecessor Innocent VIII against Pico measures undone. Pico died of a fever; the unexpected death of the promising scholars caused great consternation, and it soon spread the rumor that he was poisoned by his secretary.

Works and teaching

The late lamented Pico has left no extensive body of work. From his writings he has published only three: the 900 theses ( Conclusiones nongentae ), incorporating the Apology and the 1489 Heptaplus authored, an allegorical interpretation of the beginning of the biblical book of Genesis, in which he draws on the medieval exegetical tradition and cabalistic ideas. Two years after his death, his nephew Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola published a part of the posthumous writings, but it was the total expenditure of Basel ( 1557, 1572-73 and 1601) contained the whole known today stock ( some works are lost ).

The posthumously published works include the 1490 authored treatise "On the being and the One " ( De ente et uno ), the 1485/1486 resulting " comment to a song of love " in which he Canzona d' amore his friend Girolamo Benivieni commented on an interpretation of the Lord's Prayer ( Expositio in orationem dominicam ), a polemic against astrology in twelve books ( Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem ), numerous letters and 19 Latin and 46 Italian poems. " About the being and the One " was part of a large planned but unfinished work, in the Pico wanted to point out a fundamental agreement between Plato and Aristotle. He came from an Aristotelian interpretation of Plato, which was directed against the neo-Platonic conception of Plotinus and Ficino. Also the font against astrology was in the context of a larger project unfinished, a defense of the Christian faith against seven enemies ( atheism, polytheism, Judaism, Islam, superstition, astrology and magic arts, heresy and indifference of Christians ). This late work, its completion prevented Picos death can, with his apologetic delineation of the specific Christian recognize the influence of Savonarola. It provides an antidote to the aspirations of the early days Picos, as he tried to prove the basic compatibility of all philosophical traditions.

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

Picos relation to Ficino was not a one- teacher -student relationship. Although Pico was one of the inspired by Ficino circle of more or less Neoplatonic oriented humanists, but did not consider himself as a Platonist; he would not be limited to followers of a particular philosophical school of thought. His self-reliance, he stressed by occasionally strongly distanced itself from views of Ficino. A main difference in the understanding of unity and beingness; Ficino during the Divine One looked about as existent, Pico said that unity and being are inseparable and even God ( the one in the sense of neo-Platonism ) belong to beings.

Oratio de hominis dignitate

Known as the " Speech on the Dignity of Man" plant one of the most famous texts of the Renaissance, as it is considered manifesto announcing the principles of modern humanistic anthropology. In this sense, the speech of Jacob Burckhardt was interpreted, which she described as " one of the finest legacies of cultural epoch " ( Renaissance ). This is the introduction to the speech planned, failed the opposition of the Pope Roman disputation. Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola Pico's nephew published the speech in 1496 originally had no title. ; De hominis dignitate ( " On the Dignity of Man" ) had begun as just a side note, but so aptly seemed that it was made in the edition of 1557 the title.

The starting point is a quote from an ancient hermetic work, the treatise ascribed wrongly Apuleius Asclepius: " A great miracle is man. " The people God has created last, after he had assigned to the lower forms of life ( animals and plants ) and the higher ( angels and heavenly spirits ) their respective immutable rules and places. The people as a single entity, the creator awarded the property to be not fixed. Therefore, the human being is " a work of indeterminate shape ." All other creatures are naturally endowed with properties that limit their potential behavior to a specific frame, and accordingly they are assigned fixed residences. Man, however, is set free in the center of the world, not to look around there, explore all available and then make their choice. He becomes his own designer, who decides according to his own free will, how and where he wants to be. Herein lies the wonder of his nature and his special dignity, and inasmuch as he is the image of God. He is neither heavenly nor earthly. Therefore, it can degenerate in accordance with its decision to animal or plant vegetate like or even develop reason system so that it is angel -like. Finally, he can even " with no role of creatures happy, retire to the center of its unity," where it joins " in the secluded darkness of the Father" with the deity. Because of these many opportunities and the ever-changing and self- transforming nature of man compares him Pico with a chameleon. Exuberant he praises the special position of man in creation.

The ascent to God summarizes Pico based on Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite as a three -stage process. In the cleaning ( purgatio ) enlightenment ( illuminatio ) and then the completion ( perfectio ) follows. The cleaning is done by science: by the moral philosophy, capable of taming the passions, and the logic that guides right to use the powers of the mind. For the enlightenment philosophy of nature, which explores the wonders of nature and makes it possible to realize the power of the Creator in the created serves. In order to complete the theology leads than that discipline whose object is the immediate knowledge of the divine. Together, the three stages or areas of knowledge a three-part philosophy ( philosophia tripartita ). Their contents are according to Picos conviction not only the different directions of Christian philosophy in common, but also the teachings of the pre-Christian and Islamic philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Avicenna, Averroes ).

On Jacob Burckhardt's view is based a popular interpretation of the Oratio as a manifesto for a typical Renaissance proud self- glorification of the man who had made ​​himself the master of his destiny. This interpretation is considered by recent research as a one-sided; she grabs one aspect out of hyperbole and does not meet the overall objective Picos.

Text editions and translations

• Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Selected Writings. Edited by Arthur Liebert. Diederichs, Jena and Leipzig, 1905 (contains German translations of the following works: letters to and from Pico, Heptaplus, On the existence and the unity [Excerpts ] On the Dignity of Man [ excerpts ], Apologia [Excerpts ], Theological Aphorisms, against the Astrology [Excerpts ] )
• Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Carmina Latina. Edited by Wolfgang Speyer. Brill, Leiden, 1964 ( critical edition of Pico's Latin poems )

• Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: About the being and the One. De ente et uno. Edited, translated and annotated by Paul Richard Blum, inter alia, 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. On the Dignity of Man. Edited 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. Speech on the dignity of man. Edited by Gerd from the Gönna. Reclam, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 978-3-15-009658-1 ( Latin text and German translation )
• Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: comment on a song of love. Edited by Thorsten Biirklin. Meiner, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7873-1552-7 (Italian text and German translation )
• Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Conclusiones nongentae. Le novecento Tesi dell'anno 1486th Edited by Albano Biondi. Olschki, Firenze 1995, ISBN 88-222-4305-6 ( Latin text and Italian translation )

Pliny manuscript of Pico

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola had a 1481 copy of the Historia naturalis -ending was the ancient writer Pliny. The unnamed painter of the illustrations of this manuscript is now named after the owner and master of the Pico della Mirandola Pliny (Italian Maestro del Pico della Mirandola di Plinio ). The elaborate work is a shining example of the interest of Renaissance scholars such as Pico ancient, secular and scientific writings.