As the name of Pico della Mirandola has been mentioned, it is impossible
not to bestow some attention on a man who was the glory and admiration
of Italy. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Conte della Concordia, was born
in the year 1463; his father, Gian Francesco Pico, was lord of Mirandola
and Concordia; his mother's name was Julia Boiarda. From his earliest
years he manifested an extraordinary understanding and memory: he was
naturally disposed to literary and poetic pursuits; but at the age of
fourteen, being destined, as a younger son, for the church, he was sent
to Bologna to study canon law. After two years spent in this way, he
resolved to give himself up to philosophy, and visited the most
celebrated schools of France and Italy, in which, studying under and
disputing with the professors of highest reputation, he acquired an
erudition that made him the wonder and delight of his contemporaries. To
Greek and Latin he added a knowledge of Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Arabic. He
relates how he was enticed by an impostor to purchase, at a high price,
seventy Hebrew manuscripts, which he was told were genuine, and composed
by order of Esdras, and contained the most recondite mysteries of
religion. These were the books of the Cabala, or of the Traditions,
which the Jews believe to have been collected at the command of Esdras.
At the age of twenty-three Pico visited Rome, during the reign of
Innocent VIII.; and here he published 900 propositions--dialectic,
moral, physical, mathematical, theological, &c. &c.--offering to
dispute with any one concerning them. These propositions still exist
among his works, a sorrowful monument of the pedantry of the age, which
could turn aside so admirable an understanding, from loftier and more
useful studies, to the subtilties and frivolities of scholastic
arguments. But, in those days, they caused Pico to be considered
something wonderful, and almost divine. Yet they led him into annoyance,
as envy caused other learned men to denounce thirteen among the
propositions to be heretical, and he wrote a long apology to clear
himself. This rather increased his difficulties; twice he was cited
before the papal tribunal, but was each time pronounced innocent. This
persecution caused him to reform his life. Handsome, young, rich, and of
attractive manners, he had hitherto enjoyed the pleasures usual to his
period of life; but henceforth he gave himself up to piety, burning his
love verses, and devoting himself to theology and philosophy. He spent
the last years of his life at Florence, in the society of Lorenzo and
his friends. He was beside Lorenzo at his last moments; and, in a
cheerful conversation with him, that amiable man spent his last hours,
saying, that he should meet death with more satisfaction after this
interview. Pico has been praised by every writer for his beneficence and
generosity; he died in the year 1494, in his thirty-second year only.