Giovanni Pico della Mirandola lived just thirty-one years, but in that short time he conceived one of the boldest projects in European intellectual history: to show that all the great traditions of wisdom, from Greek philosophy to Christian theology, from Hermeticism to Jewish Kabbalah, converge in a single truth. From this project arose a current with a long future ahead of it, Christian Kabbalah.
A young count among Europe's universities
Pico was born in 1463 in Mirandola, into the family of the city's lords. He received an exceptional education: he studied canon law in Bologna, philosophy in Ferrara and Padua, where he became deeply versed in Aristotelianism and the Arabic commentators, and then in Paris. In Florence he came into contact with Marsilio Ficino and the Medici circle.
He learned Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, and took an interest in Arabic. Such a multilingual training was extremely rare for a Christian of his time and proved decisive for his interests.
The teacher Flavius Mithridates
To gain access to Kabbalistic texts Pico relied on a remarkable figure, Flavius Mithridates, a Sicilian Jew who had converted to Christianity and was known for his learning. Mithridates translated thousands of pages of Kabbalistic works into Latin for him and taught Semitic languages to his pupils.
These translations, not always faithful and sometimes enriched with Christianising interpolations, were Pico's main gateway into the world of Kabbalah.
The nine hundred theses
In December 1486 Pico published in Rome the Conclusiones nongentae, nine hundred theses on philosophy, theology, magic and Kabbalah. His plan was to invite scholars from all over Europe to a great public disputation, even offering to pay their travel expenses.
The theses were arranged by tradition: Latin Aristotelians, Arabic commentators, Platonists, Hermes Trismegistus, the Chaldeans, Pythagoras, Jewish Kabbalists, and finally the theses Pico presented as his own. Among these was one bound to cause a stir: no science gives greater certainty of Christ's divinity than magic and Kabbalah.
The condemnation
The disputation never took place. Pope Innocent VIII appointed a commission that judged thirteen theses suspect or heretical. Pico replied with an Apology, which made matters worse. In 1487 the pope condemned the whole book.
Pico fled to France, where he was arrested and briefly detained. Thanks to the intervention of several Italian princes, including Lorenzo de' Medici, he was able to return and settle in Florence. There he lived under Medici protection, writing works such as the Heptaplus, a Kabbalistic and philosophical commentary on the creation account in Genesis. He died in Florence in 1494, the same year the Medici were driven out of the city.
The Oration on the dignity of man
The speech Pico had prepared to open the disputation was never delivered. It was published after his death and only later received the title by which it is famous, Oratio de hominis dignitate. It contains the image of God addressing Adam and explaining that he has not given him a fixed place in creation: the human being can sink toward the lower creatures or be reborn toward the divine ones, according to their own choice.
The text is often read as a manifesto of humanism, but its context is also esoteric: its second part presents natural magic and Kabbalah as instruments of this ascent.
What Pico meant by Kabbalah
Pico distinguished two aspects of Kabbalah:
- a science of letters and divine names, based on combinations of the Hebrew alphabet;
- a science of the sefirot, the ten emanations or divine attributes that structure reality.
He was convinced that Kabbalah preserved an oral revelation received by Moses on Sinai and that, read correctly, it confirmed Christian truths such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. Hence the idea of a "Christian" Kabbalah, different from the one cultivated by Jewish masters.
The heirs
The seed Pico sowed sprouted quickly. The German Johannes Reuchlin, who had met him in Italy, published De verbo mirifico in 1494 and De arte cabalistica in 1517, foundational works of Christian Kabbalah. In Italy the Venetian Franciscan friar Francesco Giorgi wrote De harmonia mundi in 1525, and Cardinal Giles of Viterbo studied Kabbalistic texts at length.
For Studio Esoterico Cornelio, Pico's story shows both the value and the risks of dialogue between traditions: openness to other kinds of knowledge can enrich the spiritual search, but it requires respect for what that knowledge means to those who created it.
In short
- Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) studied philosophy, theology and Semitic languages at several European universities.
- In 1486 he published in Rome 900 theses for a public disputation that never took place and was condemned in 1487.
- The Oration, published posthumously, describes humanity's freedom to choose its own nature.
- Pico founded Christian Kabbalah, later developed by Reuchlin, Giorgi and Giles of Viterbo.