Pico della Mirandola
By
Thomas More et al.
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) was a scholar and philosopher
who stood at the cusp of the old mediaeval scholasticism and the new Renaissance
humanism. Trained as one, he made himself into the other. His boundless energy
and photographic memory made him one of the leading scholars of the age – he
was said to have by heart the complete works of every known Greek and Latin
writer, and was deeply immersed in the study of Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic
texts before his untimely death. In addition to numerous philosophical
writings, he was the first Christian to study the Jewish Cabbala seriously, and
translated a number of Cabbalistic classics into Latin. His biography was
written by his nephew and heir (also Giovanni Pico della Mirandola) and came to
prominence in England when it was translated, along with some of his writings,
by Thomas More. This is the edition presented here; to which we have added an
essay by the Victorian scholar Walter Pater.
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