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There are suggestions that More might have selected Pico as an example to follow in life, mainly for Pico's belief that our uniqueness as human beings stems from our freedom to carve out our own values, projects and natures. In this way, he typifies a classically-influenced optimism about the human capacity and what humans can hope to achieve if we exercise our highest desire.
"What most attracted More to the character and mind of Pico was the latter's spiritual fervour and his commitment to orthodox Christianity. Pico's combination of "cunning and virtue", his belief that God could be rather apprehended and communed with through love and "sapientia", than understood and known through intellect and "scientia", joined with his contempt of all earthly things - which More continually echoes - appealed powerfully to Sir Thomas' aspirations."
In terms of sheer intellectual convictions, the area of agreement and sympathy between Pico della Mirandola and Sir Thomas More was not very wide. However, More certainly drew important conclusions from Pico's work, and there are two things Pico highlighted that I believe More took to heart.
These are:
-That we have the freedom to carve out our own values.
-The importance of the human quest for knowledge.
Despite the several areas in which the two humanists do not agree, the areas in which they do agree deeply influenced More.
The End
Professor Vittorio Gabrieli, who studied Pico della Mirandola's influence on Sir Thomas More, said that More's writings suggest that Pico's life and ideas had indeed a seminal influence in the mind of the English humanist.
More regarded Pico's ambition to have his 900 conclusions publicly debated in Rome as "workings of pride".
Pico lived at the beginning of the Renaissance. One of the most distinctive intellectual movements within the Renaissance was humanism—the study of humanity. The main emphasis of humanism was secular education using Greek and Latin classics, rather than medieval sources. Humanistic philosophers associated themselves with Platonism, Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, or Skepticism, interpreting the classical texts and expanding on them.
Although he only lived to be 31, Pico della Mirandola was one of the most representative humanistic philosophers of the Renaissance. Pico emphasized that our uniqueness as human beings stems from our freedom to carve out our own values, projects and natures.
Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) translated Pico della Mirandola's (1463-1494) biography from Latin to English. It was in this way that he became familiar with Pico's philosophy. Pico's personality, work, and ideas had a strong influence on More.
Interesting insight can be gained by analyzing the changes and expansions (cuts and additions) carried out by More in translating Pico's biography and some of Pico's shorter writings. More changed what he did not agree with and expanded what he liked.
One of the letters sent by Pico to his nephew, Gianfranceso, seems to have made an impression on More, who focuses on Pico's "noble use of reason". More exhorts his readers to beware, "as Picus counselleth us, that we be not drunken in the cups of Circe, that is to say in the sensual affections of the flesh, lest we deform the image of God in our souls, after whose image we be made, and make ourself worse than idolaters".
More also disagreed with Pico's attempt to reconcile differing philosophical ideologies and even conflicting schools of religious thought, because of his "combative moral intransigence".
"Among all the contemporary Italian humanists, Pico was surely the one who lay nearest to More's heart and affected in the clearest way his spiritual development throughout his career."
More did not follow Pico's example of being alien to public service. Pico devoted his life to studying whereas More had a high sense of public duty.
Pico based his philosophical ideas chiefly on Plato, but retained a deep respect for Aristotle. It was always Pico’s aim to reconcile the schools of Plato and Aristotle, since he believed they both used different words to express the same concepts. It was perhaps for this reason his friends called him "Prince of Harmony".
Pico believed that human beings have the power to choose their paths and radically alter institutions and structures in society through science and planning, whereas More had a more traditional approach, believing that some institutions shouldn't be tampered with.
In his book "Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem", Pico presented arguments against the practice of astrology, mainly because of the conflict of astrology with Christian notions of free will. "Disputationes" is also influenced by the arguments against astrology by one of Pico's intellectual heroes, St. Augustine of Hippo.
Pico’s "Heptaplus", a seven-point exposition of the Book of Genesis, elaborates on his idea that different religions and traditions describe the same God.
"De Ente et Uno" or "Of Being and Unity", has explanations of several passages in Moses, Plato and Aristotle.
In the "Oratio de hominis dignitate" (Oration on the Dignity of Man, 1486), Pico justified the importance of the human quest for knowledge.
The Oration also served as an introduction to Pico's 900 theses, in which he proposes 900 basic principles for discovering knowledge in religion, philosophy and science.
Pico believed the theses provided a complete and sufficient basis for the discovery of all knowledge, and hence a model for mankind's ascent of “the great chain of being". On this view, there is a spectrum of existing things, from the lowest level of raw matter up to the highest level of God himself. Pico believed that divinity trickles down from God, into angels, and then into rational creatures with physical bodies.
Most of what we know about Pico's life and works comes from his nephew Gianfrancesco Pico's biography of Pico, "Ioannis Pici Mirandulae Vita", written in 1496. This biography was translated from Latin to English by Sir Thomas More in 1504.
Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was an Italian Renaissance philosopher. He was born in Mirandola, Italy on February 24th 1463, the youngest son of Francesco I, Lord of Mirandola and Count of Concordia and Giulia, daughter of Feltrino Boiardo, Count di Scandiano.
Pico was a precocious child with an amazing memory. At about 14 years of age, he went to Bologna to study canon law. At the sudden death of his mother three years later, Pico renounced canon law and began to study philosophy.