Magic and the Dignity of Man: Pico della Mirandola and His Oration in Modern Memory

Pico della Mirandola, one of the most remarkable thinkers of the Renaissance, has become known as a founder of humanism and a supporter of secular rationality. Brian Copenhaver upends this understanding of Pico, unearthing the magic and mysticism in the most famous work attributed to him, Oration on the Dignity of Man.

Table of Contents:
Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction Part One: Dignity 1. The Honored Dead 2. Missing Persons 3. Kant’s Dignity and Pico’s Dignitas 4. Manetti’s Dignitas 1 5. Cicero’s Dignitas 6. Christian Dignitas 7. Manetti’s Dignitas 2 8. Manetti’s Dignitas 3 9. Beyond Freedom and Dignity? Part Two: Stories about Pico 1. Swiss Facts about Italy 2. Exalted Premonitions 1. Yorick, Papini, and Pico 2. Oreglia and the Blood Libel 3. Festivities in Mirandola 4. Gentile’s Pico 5. Garin’s Pico 6. Gentile’s Pico Again 7. Anagnine’s Pico 8. Papini’s Kingdom 1. Gentile Dead or Alive? 2. Actualism and Autoctisis 3. Existentialism and Modernism 4. Against ‘Humanism' 1. Practicing Death 2. Two Epistolaries and a Hagiography 3. Reading for a Nun 4. Ficino’s Letters 5. Savonarola 6. First Letters from Pico 7. More Letters from Pico 8. Last Letters from Pico 9. Pico Boxes 1. Scholars and Syncretists 2. Judaizers and Stargazers 3. Schwärmer and Wound-Worms 1. Se vuol ballare Signor Contino . . . 2. Philosophy Dying 3. The Soul Has Wings 1. Pico with Dignity? 2. Pico for Philosophers and Theologians 1. English Enthusiasms 2. The Italy of Savonarola Brown 3. Pictures of Pico 1. Pico Our Paladin 2. A Textbook Case 3. A Hermetic Pico 4. Festivities Again in Mirandola Part Three: Pico’s Oration 1. Secrets and Codes 2. Abulafia’s Ladder 3. Counting on Flavius 4. Oration I, 1–10 5. Oration II, 11–15 1. Oration III, 16–19 2. Oration III, 20–25 3. Oration III, 26–32 4. Oration III, 33–35 5. Oration IV, 36–45 6. Oration IV, 46–55 1. Oration V, 56–62 2. Oration VI, 63–68 3. Oration VII, 69–72 Conclusion: Real Picos and Why They Matter Appendix A: Pico’s Oration Appendix B: Contents of Pico’s 900 Conclusions Appendix C: Selections from Pico’s 900 Conclusions Appendix D: Glossary Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Illustration Credits Index

Review :
Massive, lively, and learned...He explains how and why historians decided to put this Renaissance philosopher and his ideas not only in a box, but in the wrong one...Copenhaver analyzes the arguments of Pico's critics with precision and panache...[He] has cut through generations of misguided commentary and shown us how to read this complex, baffling text. -- Anthony Grafton New York Review of Books No one before Copenhaver has written such a careful and thorough review of the scholarship on Pico's Oration...He is one of the best Pico scholars of our generation, and Magic and the Dignity of Man offers the fruits of his long labors. It puts to rest old myths and offers new interpretations. It is essential reading for anyone working on Pico's Oration and will be of great interest to readers of the history of philosophy (and its historiography), especially late medieval and Renaissance philosophy. -- Denis J.-J. Robichaud Journal of the History of Philosophy Copenhaver painstakingly reconstructs the story, or rather stories, of how Pico and his Oration were read and misread over the centuries. This is very much a project of love. -- Eva Del Soldato Speculum Brian Copenhaver's Magic and the Dignity of Man is erudite, original, and eloquent. In it he carries out two major tasks, one of demolition and one of construction, with great skill and flair. The book reinterprets one of the most prominent thinkers of the Italian Renaissance in ways that will be widely discussed. No future interpretation of Pico's life or work, no future reading of Renaissance philosophy, will be able to avoid engaging with it. -- Anthony Grafton, Princeton University This is nothing less than the definitive study of a text long considered central to the understanding the Renaissance and its place in Western culture. Even though the effect of Copenhaver's reading is to demote the text from that status, this book will certainly be a must-read for anyone, especially historians of philosophy and intellectual historians, interested in the larger significance of the Renaissance. -- James Hankins, Harvard University