Renaissance Superman

The short, incandescent life of Pico della Mirandola

I'm excited for my upcoming course, Secret Histories and Spiritual Revolutions, where we will delve into the history, main ideas, and practices of Western esotericism. As part of the seminar, we’ll explore the life and work of key figures in the hermetic tradition from Classical times until today.

I thought I would offer short profiles of a few of these characters as we approach the start of the course. Many of them led extraordinary, radical lives. One crucial forerunner of modern occultism is the preposterously precocious Renaissance philosopher and humanist, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463 - 1494), who changed the trajectory of Western thought at the tender age of twenty-three.

As much as anyone, Pico embodied the curious, questing spirit of the Renaissance. Born in Mirandola, Italy to an aristocratic family, he was an incredible polymath with an extraordinary memory. He excelled in a wide range of fields, including philosophy, theology, mathematics, and languages. By his early twenties, he had not only mastered Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, but had written several treatises on theology and philosophy. He wandered across Italy with an entourage of tutors, fellow scholars, lovers, and attendants. Together, they reveled in new ideas and ancient texts.

The Renaissance rediscovery of hermetic and Classical ideas inspired Botticelli (1445 - 1510)

Pico’s circle of friends included Marsilio Ficino (1433 - 1499), the leading Renaissance Platonist of the time. Among other achievements, Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin. This led to the revival of hermetic thought that has continued, in fits and starts, until today. Together, they shared a vision of a renewed humanism that was based on the idea of an inherent human dignity and the pursuit of knowledge and self-realization.

In 1486, Pico famously wrote his "Oration on the Dignity of Man," where he optimistically asserted that humans were capable of achieving anything they desired through the power of free will. Sadly, he was never able to deliver it. In the text, he wrote:

"O supreme generosity of God the Father, O highest and most amazing felicity of man, to whom it is granted to have whatever he chooses, to be whatever he wills!"

Pico's optimism about human potential was reflected in his famous manifesto, "900 Theses." In this work, he attempted to synthesize all the major philosophical and theological traditions of the world into a single unified system of knowledge. He planned to organize a public debate with the leading intellectuals and theologians of his day at the Vatican in Rome to win universal support for his world-changing project. Alas, Pico’s initiative was stopped by the Church; his writings were declared heretical and dangerous. The open debate he craved never took place.

One of the main reasons for the Church’s attack on him was Pico’s fascination with Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah. According to Chaim Wirszubski and Paul Kristeller in Pico’s Encounter with Jewish Mysticism, Pico “maintained that the divinely revealed Kabbala was handed on in unbroken succession from Moses to Ezra, by whom it was set down in writing in seventy books… Pico's notion that the Jews were in possession of a divinely revealed mystical interpretation of the Law was unheard of in the Christian world at that time, and, to judge by the history of Christian Kabbala, its effect was overpowering when it first burst upon an unsuspecting public.” Pico himself read all seventy books, writing enthusiastically:

These are the books of the knowledge of the cabal, in which Esdras rightly declared in the first place that the understanding, that is, the ineffable theology of the supersubstantial deity, the source of wisdom, that is, the exact metaphysics of intelligible and angelic forms, and the river of knowledge, that is, the most brilliant philosophy of natural things ... When I had procured these books at no mean expense to myself, when I had read them with the greatest care, with tireless labors, I saw in them (God is witness) a religion not so much Mosaic as Christian, there the mystery of the Trinity, there the incarnation of the Word, there the divinity of the Messiah. There I read about original sin, about its atonement through Christ, about the heavenly Jerusalem, about the fall of demons, about the orders of angels, about purgatory, about the punishments of the underworld; the same things that we read every day in Paul and Dionysius, in Jerome and Augustine.

An idealist, Pico believed his logical arguments would inspire all of the Jews to convert to Christianity (perhaps Muslims as well), ushering in a new age of harmony.

In 1487, Pope Innocent VIII condemned 13 of Pico's 900 theses and placed his writings on the Index of Forbidden Books. This put Pico's life and freedom in jeopardy. He fled from Italy to France, where he continued to write and teach for a few years.

Pico died in 1494 at the age of 31, under mysterious circumstances. Many historians believe he was poisoned — probably by agents of the Medici family, who were threatened by his ideas and influence. As Luke Slattery wrote in The New Yorker (2015):

The tragedy of Pico’s death, as well as the memory of his brief, incandescent life, has been revived in recent years. In 2007, his remains, together with those of the man who may have been his lover, the scholar-poet Angelo Poliziano, were disinterred from the Dominican Convent of San Marco, in Florence. Both contained toxic levels of arsenic. The results confirmed the suspicions of the doctors who examined the bodies in 1494 (poison was the murder weapon of choice, the digestible bullet, in Renaissance Florence) and brought Pico’s name back into circulation

Despite his curtailed career, Pico’s legacy remains tantalizing. Today, we have reached a new threshold — of rapid technological innovation; philosophical, metaphysical and scientific insight. Perhaps we can attain a new unity of knowledge, or at least make an attempt. It is, therefore, a great moment to reconsider the ideas of this hermetic genius who sought to define a new path for humanity.

By exploring the Western esoteric tradition in Secret Histories and Spiritual Revolutions, I hope we can reach a deeper understanding of where we are now, and options for our future. Enrollment for the course is open. We have a new special offer for early birds who sign up before April 15th.

I hope you will join me for this unique opportunity to explore the secret tradition of Western hermeticism with a community of like-minded seekers and seers, furthering your own personal quest for illumination.