The Life Of Pico Thomas More

The Life of Pico Della Mirandola

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.

The Life of Pico

Presented to modern readers in English for the first time in 500 years, The Life of Pico is a biography of one of the Renaissance¿s most famous figures: Giovanni Pico de la Mirandola (1463-94). Given More¿s demanding personal spiritual life, one would assume that More wishes to praise a famous and virtuous man. But what emerges from this book is quite different. Pico turns out to be an extraordinarily virtuous, talented, and wealthy man, but a man nonetheless, who is missing something essential. And so More calls Pico "a very spectacle" of virtue.More sees Pico as very much like himself, as the two turn out to have very similar life experiences. Both carry some scars from difficult or missing relationships with their fathers, both are extremely talented and powerful in their time, and both had been steered toward a religious vocation which they did not embrace. The book is as much a riddle about More as it is an explanation of Pico. More's great-grandson and biographer, Cresacre More, claims that Thomas More as a young man sought to emulate Pico once he decided that his path in life was marriage and not the cloth. The book's first half contains the abridged account of Pico's life. The second half is More's rhymed verse on the 12 rules of spiritual battle, the 12 weapons of spiritual battle, and the 12 properties of a lover, followed by Pico's prayer to God. In the last analysis, this biography of Pico becomes an exercise in the discernment of true virtue, in the contradictions and difficulties one encounters in the immersion into the world, and at the same time, in the life of God.

GIOVANNI PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA