craven2005 style and substance in the early writings of giovanni pico della mirandola

8/19/2019 Craven2005 Style and Substance in the Early Writings of Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

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Style and Substancein the Early Writings of

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

W. G. CRAVEN

he fifth centenary of the death of the philosopher Giovanni Pico della

Mirandola was commemorated in 1994 by an exhibition in Florence and an

international congress in Mirandola. Pico had been the subject of an active

and extensive scholarly literature over the previous sixty years, and the centenary

observances and the publications issuing from them could be seen as an appropriateoccasion to take note of recent work and to consider where significant advances

might have been achieved.1

Pico has conventionally been taken as a symbol of his times and an embodiment

of the interests and enthusiasms of the Italian Renaissance. In his short lifetime

(1463–94) he produced a wide variety of writings. He composed a list of nine

hundred propositions for debate and an oration that was to have opened the

proceedings, then an apologia defending thirteen of the propositions which had been

condemned by a papal commission. In the last five years of his life he wrote the

Heptaplus, a seven-fold commentary on the first twenty-seven verses of Genesis, a

1 Pico, Poliziano e l’Umanesimo di fine Quattrocento, Bibliotheca Medicea Laurenziana 4

novembre–31 dicembre 1994, ed. by Paolo Viti, Studi Pichiani, 2 (Florence: Olschki, 1994);

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Convegno internazionale di studi nel cinquecentesimo

anniversario della morte (1494–1994), ed. by Gian Carlo Garfagnini, Studi Pichiani, 5, 2 vols

(Florence: Olschki, 1997). For bibliographies of works on Pico, see Fernand Roulier, Jean Pic

de la Mirandole (1463–1494), humaniste, philosophe et théologien (Geneva: Slatkine, 1989),

pp. 19–36; Antonio Raspanti, Filosofia, teologia, religione: L’unità della visione in G. Pico

della Mirandola (Palermo: Edi Oftes, 1991), pp. 323–27; Louis Valcke and Roland Gallibois,

Le périple intellectuel de Jean Pic de la Mirandole (Sainte-Foy: Les presses de l’Université

Laval-Sherbrooke, 1994), pp. 329–35.

T


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brief treatise on Being and the One, and an encyclopaedic polemic against astrology

in twelve books. In addition he composed a short, early work on the Platonic

doctrine of love, in the form of a commentary on a poem by his friend Girolamo

Benivieni, poems in Latin and the vernacular, letters, commentaries on several

psalms and brief spiritual writings.

Centenary celebrations are not, perhaps, where one should expect to find the

keenest edge of critical scholarship. Nevertheless, it is somewhat disappointing to

note in the conference proceedings the resilience of traditional formulae and

expectations, still accepted without question or comment. While several papers

showed evidence of significant progress in particular areas, such as Pico’s

knowledge and use of Kabbalistic sources, there were also numerous uncritical

general statements about his doctrine of protean man and his pursuit of the single

truth underlying all philosophies and faiths. The address by Charles Trinkaus was

perhaps symptomatic of the occasion. Making no reference to his own earlier, more

incisive views, he affirmed that the Heptaplus was a central work, one which

revealed Pico’s vision of the universe and man within the parameters of his Christian

faith, as well as his basic hypotheses and method. It exemplified his vision of

concordia, and of the single truth that he believed had been disseminated by God in

a great variety of philosophies. Trinkaus also emphasized the similarity and

complementarity of the views of man in the Heptaplus and the Oratio. A quarter of a

century earlier he had admitted that he found it difficult to regard the Heptaplus as

‘genuinely philosophical’, and had acknowledged the contrast between the dynamic

view of man in the Oratio and the ‘surprisingly non-operative, extraordinarily

passive, almost statuesque’ view in the Heptaplus.2

Rather than attempting to review the whole range of contributions, let alone the

wider field of Pico scholarship, my intention in this paper is to examine the work of

two scholars who participated in the centenary observances but whose approaches, I

will suggest, do open the way to new understandings of Pico’s intellectual

development. Louis Valcke delivered a paper at Mirandola in 1994, while Francesco

Bausi contributed to the catalogue of the exhibition in Florence. Valcke’s

interpretation of the course of Pico’s intellectual and philosophical development had

been elaborated in a series of articles and in a long introductory essay which

complements the French translations by Roland Gallibois of two of Pico’s works.3

2 Charles Trinkaus, ‘L’ Heptaplus di Pico della Mirandola: Compendio tematico e

concordanza del suo pensiero’, Convegno internazionale, I, 105–25 (esp. pp. 105, 116, 122);

and ‘In Our Image and Likeness’: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought , 2 vols

(London: Constable, 1970), II, 519–20.3 Louis Valcke, ‘Des Conclusiones aux Disputationes: Numérologie et mathematiques chez

Jean Pic de la Mirandole’, Laval théologique et philosophique, 41 (1985), 43–56; and by the

same author see: ‘Magie et miracle chez Jean Pic de la Mirandole’, in Ficino and Renaissance

Neoplatonism, ed. by Konrad Eisenbichler and Olga Zorzi Pugliese (Ottawa: Dovehouse,

1986), pp. 155–73; ‘Entre raison et foi: Le Néoplatonisme de Pic de la Mirandole’,


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The Early Writings of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola 345

Bausi published a study of the language, style and sources used in Pico’s early works

in 1996, and has since produced editions with exhaustive notes of two of Pico’s

important early letters.4 Their interests converge on the question of Pico’s different

stylistic registers and their possible significance for the interpretation of his works.

Style and its significance was a subject of explicit interest to Giovanni Pico, and was

the theme of one of his early letters. The variety of styles he employed is something

that forces itself on the attention of readers. Most obvious is the contrast in style

between the Conclusiones, the nine hundred propositions he proposed to defend in

Rome in 1487, and the Oratio, the speech intended to introduce the disputation. In

an introductory note to the Conclusiones Pico warned that they were written in the

terse, unpolished style of the disputations conducted at the University of Paris, the

style used by nearly all the philosophers of the time. The Oratio, in striking contrast,

is an elaborate and florid rhetorical tour de force.

I propose to show why I believe that the work of these two scholars is particularly

valuable, but also to suggest that their approaches are complementary in quite

specific ways. By examining their publications in detail, I hope to promote the kind

of intensive scholarly interaction most likely to lead to fuller understanding. At the

same time, the encounter between the two approaches may serve to exemplify a

wider issue: the delicate interplay between style and substance in Renaissance texts,

and the sensitivity required to recover their meanings.

Louis Valcke and the Significance of Neoplatonism

At the heart of Valcke’s interpretation is his conviction that for a brief but significant

period Pico’s thought was under the spell of Neoplatonism. He let himself succumb

Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, 54 (1987), 186–237; ‘Humanisme et

scolastique : Le “conflit des deux cultures” chez Jean Pic de la Mirandole’, Recherches de

théologie ancienne et médiévale, 56 (1989), pp. 164–99; ‘Jean Pic et le retour au “style de

Paris” : Portée d’une critique littéraire’, Rinascimento, 2 s. 32 (1992), 253–73; ‘Jean Pic de la

Mirandole et le chant néoplatonicien’, Laval théologique et philosophique, 49 (1993), 487– 504; ‘Giovanni Pico della Mirandola e il ritorno ad Aristotele’, Convegno internazionale, I,

327–49. Valcke and Gallibois, Le périple.4 Francesco Bausi, Nec rhetor neque philosophus: Fonti, lingua e stile nelle prime opere

latine di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Studi Pichiani, 3 (Florence: Olschki, 1996),

subsuming the author’s two earlier studies: ‘Il “dissidio” del Giovanni Pico tra umanesimo e

filosofia (1484–1487)’, in Pico, Poliziano e l’Umanesimo di fine Quattrocento, ed. by Paulo

Viti (Florence: Olschki, 1994), pp, 31–58; and ‘Per Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Tre

schede filologico-linguistiche’, Interpres, 14 (1994), 272–89. His works on Pico’s letters are:

‘L’epistola di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola a Lorenzo de’Medici: Testo, traduzione e

commento’, Interpres, 17 (1998), 7–57; Ermolao Barbaro and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola ,

Filosofia o eloquenza?, ed. by Francesco Bausi (Naples: Ligouri, 1998).


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346 W. G. CRAVEN

to its fascination while living in Florence in 1486. It was not simply the diffused,

domesticated Neoplatonism which had long since been absorbed into the scholastic

tradition, nor was his enthusiasm due merely to the influence of Marsilio Ficino. The

ideas he found so intoxicating came from his own direct knowledge of the Enneads

of Plotinus. In the Oratio the precision of his quotations and allusions showed that

he had assimilated the thought of Plotinus to the point where he adhered to it totally

and had made it his own. He took up the idea of the cathartic function of philosophy,

serving as the preamble for ‘holy theology’, purifying the soul for mystic union with

God. Neoplatonic propositions occupied a crucial place in his lists of topics for

disputation, located at the interface between familiar and esoteric material.

Neoplatonism was undoubtedly the hidden bond which Pico claimed as existing

between his propositions. His own Conclusiones paradoxae clearly showed the

dominance of Plotinus, especially his defence of a higher knowledge which the soul

attains preceding mystical ecstasy. His account of natural magic was also based on

Plotinus. The Heptaplus, the seven-fold commentary on Genesis which he published

in 1489, was still heavily dependent on Neoplatonic doctrines. It invoked as its basic

framework the affinities between the worlds, the real foundation of analogical

language and of that mystic participation which was presupposed by the vision of

man the microcosm. Pico was, however, becoming increasingly uneasy about the

incompatibilities between Neoplatonism and Christian theology, and De ente et uno

marked the end of his fascination with it. His return to Aristotelianism was given

unequivocal expression in the Disputationes, his attack on astrology. There he

rejected the Orphic vision of the universe along with its magical and astrological

concomitants. Whereas the monism of Plotinus had blurred or obliterated the

distinction between the first cause and secondary causes, Pico now drew a clear line

between what belonged directly to the first cause and what pertained to the order of

secondary causes, whose autonomy, relative though it was, Pico vindicated. His

intellectual development was characterized, therefore, not by one decisive turning

point or conversion, but by two.5

The question of Pico’s different styles intersected with Valcke’s account of his

intellectual development. One of Valcke’s articles discussed the disputes between

exponents of humanism and scholasticism that constituted the background and

context of Pico’s writing. In relation to this issue too Pico changed his alignment

twice. In a letter to him, the humanist Ermolao Barbaro had written slightingly of the

scholastic philosophers, those barbarous Germans and Teutons whose crude,

unpolished style condemned them to oblivion or ignominy. He urged Pico not to

waste his time and energy on them. Pico’s reply was, according to Valcke, a

passionate speech in their defence, addressed, through Barbaro, to the whole

5 Valcke and Gallibois, Le périple, pp. 52–53; Valcke, ‘Raison et foi’, pp. 201–08, 221–23;

‘Numérologie et mathematiques’, pp. 50–56; ‘Le chant’, p. 502; ‘Il ritorno’, esp. pp. 340–49. I

have adopted the convention of using the past tense when describing the views of other

historians, and the present tense when proposing my own.


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humanist tradition. He affirmed that the only important consideration in philosophy

was the quality of the thought, and that the philosopher’s approach was quite

incompatible with that of the rhetorician. While Valcke acknowledged the use of the

literary artifice of a fictional speaker, he interpreted the letter as an expression of

Pico’s own convictions at the time. It was, furthermore, a blanket rejection of all the

humanistic pursuits. Pico ridiculed their preoccupation with details of the myths of

Niobe and Andromache, and concluded with an apparently frank expression of

disgust with grammarians. He was silent about the prophetic role of poetic language,

an idea with which he must have been familiar. His letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici,

dated the previous year, seemed by implication to reduce poetry to a mere diversion.

Valcke’s conclusion was that Pico was expressing a well-considered opinion, and

was deliberately taking the side of the scholastic philosophers against the humanists.6

The Oratio represented a radically different position; so, paradoxically, did the

Conclusiones. Pico the orator allowed himself liberties that as a philosopher he had

denounced. Poets were treated as authorities, mythological figures were invested

with profound significance, and the reasoning of the philosopher was subordinated to

the intuition of the poet. In the Conclusiones, ostensibly so austere in style , Pico

used the resources of scholasticism to exalt poetic theology and esoteric forms of

knowledge. This reversal of alignment in the debate between humanism and

scholasticism coincided with Pico’s conversion to Neoplatonism.7

Valcke used the expression ‘alternation of styles’ to describe the changes. In

introducing the Conclusiones Pico noted that he had adopted the style of Paris

disputants, the language used by nearly all philosophers of the time. Deliberately and

with full awareness he decided to substitute scholastic for humanist style. There

would be a later parallel in the dedicatory epistle for the De ente et uno, where he

explained his choice of a simple style in terms of the need for clarity and precision.

Pico alternated between what he himself called the splendour of Roman language

and the plain style used by philosophers of his time. The alternation was further

corroboration of the influence of Plotinus on him. Far from scorning rhetoric,

Plotinus stated explicitly that a writer must change styles to match his purpose. The

style appropriate for exposition was different from the style employed to persuade.

The dominant influence of Plotinus at this period of Pico’s life largely explained

why he indulged in classic oratorical style in the Oratio so soon after his virulent

attack on all forms of rhetoric, and then changed back to the bare Paris style in his

Conclusiones, Apologia and De ente. In those works he wanted to expound ideas

with all possible clarity and rigour, whereas in the Oratio he wanted to win over his

hearers.8

6 Valcke, ‘Humanisme’, pp. 164, 168–74, 179–80.7 Valcke, ‘Humanisme’, pp. 181–82.

8 Valcke, ‘Humanisme’, pp. 187–89.


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348 W. G. CRAVEN

Valcke reiterated the point and developed it further in a subsequent article. The

letter to Barbaro had argued for a radical dichotomy between philosophical and

rhetorical speech. That dividing line ran right through Pico’s work. All his properly

doctrinal treatises were written in scholastic style, whereas his letters and the

introductions to his treatises sparkled with stylistic brilliance. He often made explicit

the transition from one style to the other. He practised a systematic alternation

between styles. It did not match exactly the boundaries of his enthusiasm for

Neoplatonism. He enlisted the plain Paris style in the service of Neoplatonic

propositions in the Conclusiones, and the Heptaplus treated Neoplatonic themes in a

sober style, closer to that of the Paris philosophers than to that of the humanists. On

the other hand, the De ente, which announced the end of his Neoplatonic enthusiasm,

was also written in the style of the philosophers. The same was true of the

Disputationes, with its explicit rejection of correspondences and the whole

Neoplatonic cosmology.9

Francesco Bausi: Philosophy and Eloquence

The approach of Francesco Bausi has been in some respects complementary,

although he has arrived at different conclusions. He set out explicitly to analyse

Pico’s style, while immediately acknowledging that it could only be studied in

relation to the development of his ideas. The great merit of his intensive analysis is

that it demonstrates clearly the complexity of the texts and the dense web of

references and assumptions that Pico shared with different groups of readers. His

vocabulary, in the letters to Barbaro and to Lorenzo de’ Medici as well as in the

Oratio, drew heavily on Silver Age authors such as Gellius, Pliny and Apuleius, and

the reader was assumed to be thoroughly familiar with texts such as Cicero’s De

oratore, the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius and Seneca’s epistles.

Bausi rejected Valcke’s theory of ‘alternation of styles’ as too schematic and too

synchronic. Instead he proposed a development in style which paralleled the

generally acknowledged evolution in the content and sources of Pico’s thought.

Several historians had pointed out that Pico progressively abandoned esoteric

branches of knowledge, such as prisca theologia, as well as magic and astrology.10

They had been characteristic of his thought up to the Roman incident of 1487,

whereas by the Disputationes his attitude towards them had cooled to the point of

hostility. His style, Bausi believed, could be shown to have followed a similar line of

evolution, from the ornate, contrived style of the early letters to the stylistic severity

of the Disputationes.

9 Valcke, ‘Le retour’, pp. 260–62, 264–72.10 For example, Giovanni Di Napoli, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola e la problematica

dottrinale del suo tempo (Rome: Desclée, 1965), pp. 278–79.


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The two letters to Barbaro and to Lorenzo were written in an elaborate, Apuleian

style, with a vocabulary drawn from Silver Age authors and a profusion of rhetorical

figures. The texts in fact consisted of a mosaic of quotations and allusions. The style

of the later writings was certainly different, but they could not simply be lumped

together as exemplifying Pico’s ‘other’ style, his severe, philosophical style. The

Heptaplus dispensed almost completely with poetic and literary references, and its

quotations were overwhelmingly from Scripture. On the other hand, there were few

technical scholastic terms, it avoided the stylistic characteristics of medieval Latin

and it used expressions from Pico’s preferred Silver Age authors. The language of

the De ente was more strongly technical in character, but had little in common with

the Conclusiones and Apologia. Moreover, the passage in the dedicatory letter to

Poliziano where Pico excused himself for a lack of elegance and for using terms

which were not authentic Latin revived the ambiguity characteristic of the early

letters. It echoed a well-known text of Manlius which had been used by Poliziano

not long before. In terms of style, the De ente went further in the direction set by the

Heptaplus. The Disputationes went further still, allowing no deviation from sober,

abstract language other than rare invectives and a final exhortation.11

For Bausi, Pico’s position in his early letters was not a rejection of eloquence or

humanistic studies but an oscillation between philosophy and eloquence. The

sentiments of the fictional ‘barbarian’ philosopher could not be attributed to Pico. He

denied that he agreed with them, and claimed to be acting like Glaucon, in Plato’s

Republic, who spoke against justice only in order to provoke Socrates to speak in its

defence. Furthermore, the speech itself was deliberately and flagrantly incongruous.

The vocabulary was drawn from Silver Age authors, there were words and

expressions from poetic usage, and a barrage of rhetorical figures. Pico deliberately

laid himself open to Cicero’s paradox concerning Socrates in Plato’s Gorgias. In a

well-known passage in De oratore, Cicero remarked that if the arguments of

Socrates against oratory carried the day, it was because he was the better orator.12 In

what must have been a conscious parallel, Pico composed a deliberately self-refuting

speech, showing the necessity of eloquence even to reject eloquence. Barbaro and

Poliziano were quite justified in taking up and exploiting the reference to De oratore

in their responses. As if to increase the vulnerability of his fictional speaker, Pico

misrepresented well-known texts, reversing their point, and signalling their source

for good measure. Yet despite all the layers of paradox and ambiguity, at least part of

the speaker’s case corresponded to Pico’s own convictions. His statement of

exasperation, ‘Some grammarians make me sick’, occurred13 outside the rhetorical

11 Bausi, Nec rhetor , pp. 187–90.12 Cicero, De oratore, III.32.129; Bausi, Nec rhetor , pp. 18–19.13 Bausi, Nec rhetor , pp. 14–19, 30–35, 58–62; Commento, in De hominis dignitate,

Heptaplus, De ente et uno, ed. by Eugenio Garin (Florence: Vallecchi, 1942), p. 548.


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350 W. G. CRAVEN

framework of the letter, and the speaker’s earlier reference to true and false gold was

repeated in another of Pico’s writings from the same period.

From this vantage point, Bausi reassessed the letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici in

which Pico compared Lorenzo’s poetry with that of Dante and Petrarch. The point of

the letter was not much different from the arguments of the fictional ‘barbarian’ in

the letter to Barbaro. Bausi made the point that the names of the two poets

represented two ‘types’ rather than the two historical figures. Dante stood for content

at the expense of style: his content was profound but his style was rough. Petrarch

stood for the opposite. His content was trivial, though under an elegant exterior.

Lorenzo miraculously combined wisdom and eloquence, and was therefore superior

to both. Of the two types, however, Pico clearly preferred Dante, who was

comparable with the ‘barbarous’ philosophers of the letter to Barbaro. (In the

Heptaplus Moses would be identified as another such figure.) The terms of the

comparison were taken from De oratore. Petrarch was made to exemplify the

‘Asian’ style, using excessive refinement to mask poverty of ideas. Lorenzo’s poetry

was praised in the terms used by Cicero and Quintilian to characterize the ‘Attic’

style, distinguished by its sobriety. There was ambiguity here too, however. Pico

praised Lorenzo’s Attic sobriety in the same contrived, far-fetched Apuleian style as

he used in the letter to Barbaro. Ornate praise of Lorenzo’s stylistic restraint

paralleled the incongruously rhetorical defence of the ‘barbarous’ style of the

philosophers. The two letters, which Pico sent together to Beroaldo in 1491, could be

considered as two panels of a diptych about the relationship between philosophy and

eloquence.14

On the basis of his analysis of the letters, Bausi formulated a hypothesis. Their

ambiguity was the expression of an ambivalence characteristic of Pico’s ‘first

period’. He was devoting himself to a demanding programme of philosophical

studies. At the same time, he was applying himself to humanistic and literary studies,

composing Latin and vernacular poetry, and employing a prose style marked by

extreme linguistic and stylistic refinement. The philosopher and the humanist

coexisted in him, though not without discomfort. His undated letter to Poliziano, in

which he described himself as trying to sit on two stools at once and missing both in

the attempt, expressed the tension between the two. From the end of the 1480s, he

made philosophy his definitive option. His increasingly severe style reflected this

choice.15

From the perspective of Bausi’s evolutionary interpretation, the Conclusiones and

Apologia constituted an anomaly. They did not fit into the line of evolutionary

14 Bausi, Nec rhetor , pp. 67–84. Pico sent the two letters together to Beroaldo, see Opera

Omnia (Basel: Henricpetri, 1557), p. 347. More recently, Bausi has argued convincingly that

the letter to Lorenzo was composed after, not before, the letter to Barbaro: ‘L’epistola’, pp.

14–21.

15 Bausi, Nec rhetor , pp. 91–92.


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development. Their exceptional character could be explained, he believed, in terms

of the particular circumstances and demands of the Roman disputation. The nature of

the exercise required that the propositions be formulated in the Latin of university

philosophers, and, equally, that the same style be used in defending them before the

papal commission. The topics to be argued demanded a language and style that had

been developed over centuries to treat just such material. Pico incorporated sections

of the Oratio in the Apologia because his defence of disputation in general and of his

own specific project was relevant, and because time was short. When he came to

defend the theses singled out by the commission, he bridged the gap between

rhetorical and scholastic styles not with an explanation or an apology, but with an

insult, as if the change had been imposed on him by the linguistic deficiencies of the

commission members. This kind of consideration might seem to have been leading

back to something like Valcke’s theory of alternating styles. Certainly, every genre

demanded particular stylistic characteristics, and Pico wrote in many different

genres. Nevertheless, Bausi argued, the pattern of linear development was there to

see.16

There was a comparable problem for Valcke’s interpretation. At what should have

been the height of his Neoplatonic fervour, Pico was composing what was to become

his Commento on the canzone of Girolamo Benivieni. Although in an earlier article

Valcke insisted that it was a critique of Marsilio Ficino’s approach and

methodology, not of Neoplatonism as such, he acknowledged that it did involve a

rigorous analysis of fundamental concepts of Neoplatonism. Pico’s demand for

rigour was reflected in his rejection of ‘facile concordism’ and his refusal to

acquiesce in glossing over incompatibilities between philosophical ideas and

Christian doctrine. It was this clear-sightedness which always prevented him from

giving himself unreservedly to philosophy. Valcke regularly qualified his statements

about Pico’s enthusiasm for Neoplatonism, acknowledging that there were always

reservations.17 He saw this reserve reflected in the hypothetical character of several

of the propositions. The primacy of Pico’s religious quest was one of Valcke’s

themes, and the Commento showed his consciousness of fundamental

incompatibilities between Christian faith and Neoplatonism.18

It would not only be presumptuous but premature as well to hazard a verdict

between the two interpretations. Bausi has certainly demonstrated that there are far

greater complexities in the texts than scholars had hitherto considered, and he has

shown the intense scrutiny which is required before confident pronouncements can

16 Bausi, Nec rhetor , pp. 195–98.17 Valcke, ‘Il ritorno’, pp. 334 (‘Convinto, o quasi convinto’); and 340 (‘Quel fascino,

però, non fu mai radicale e sotto un entusiasmo letterario apparentemente senza limiti, Pico

nutriva le più serie riserve nei confronti del neoplatonismo’). See also Valcke, ‘Le chant’, pp.

491, 498; Valcke and Gallibois, Le périple, pp. 142, 150.

18 Valcke, ‘Raison et foi’, p. 198; Valcke and Gallibois, Le périple, p. 144.


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352 W. G. CRAVEN

be made. His work on the early letters sets a challenging standard for future

scholarship. One would hope that the same kind of analysis would now be applied to

the Heptaplus and the later, ‘minor’ works, especially the ascetical letters and the

commentaries on the psalms. Valcke, in emphasizing the important place of Plotinus

in Pico’s thinking in the 1480s, has cast welcome light on some of the more

mysterious Conclusiones paradoxae, and on Pico’s attitude to magic. He has

produced a plausible and satisfying theory to explain why Pico turned away from

magic and astrology, making it an intellectual recognition rather than a religious or

moral conversion. More generally, he has freed himself almost completely from the

myths and stereotypes which have so persistently misdirected Pico scholarship. At

the same time, however, he appears to have exaggerated the intensity of Pico’s

commitment to Neoplatonism in the late 1480s, and in doing so to have created

problems of inconsistency if not incoherence in the early writings. While his theory

of ‘alternation of styles’ is vulnerable to Bausi’s objections, it has the virtue of

highlighting the different genres and different intentions that characterize Pico’s

works.

As a contribution towards an assessment of the respective strengths of the two

interpretations, it may be helpful to compare how each contributes to the

understanding of Pico’s most famous work, the Oratio. Again, the views of each

scholar will first be described and then assessed. Suggestions will also be offered as

to how their divergences might be reconciled.

Continuity and Liberty: Valcke’s Interpretation of the ‘Oratio’

Valcke’s approach to the Oratio reveals a significant ambivalence. His position was

that considering both Pico’s letter to Barbaro and his later practice, the Oratio stood

apart. It was exceptional, even marginal. According to Valcke’s theory of the

alternation of styles, it should not have been a doctrinal work. He affirmed that the

fissure between philosophy and eloquence ran right through Pico’s output. All his

properly doctrinal treatises were written in scholastic style. Valcke followed through

the logic of his position, declaring that the Oratio was not properly doctrinal. It was

not a treatise or an essay in conceptual elaboration. It was a preamble, giving scope

for oratorical flights; it was a literary text, allowing him liberties which, as a

scholastic philosopher, he had reproved. Its literary character meant that he could

develop themes dear to him, without always having to employ the rigour and

precision which philosophical discourse would have required. He did not try to

provide justification or arguments in a strict sense. Valcke insisted that Pico was not

abandoning the separation between philosophy and rhetoric. Even though

Neoplatonic doctrine offered him the opportunity to integrate philosophy and


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eloquence, he did not take it up. In the Oratio he was aligning himself with humanist

theses, and seemingly adopting a humanist point of view.19

Nevertheless, Valcke still wanted the content of the Oratio to be accorded

recognition at a philosophical level. He wanted it to be acknowledged as something

more than a rhetorical flight. In his view, it was significant evidence of Pico’s

commitment to Neoplatonism. Twice, in one of his earlier writings and in his latest

on the subject, he remarked that Pico was writing as a humanist, and humanists

tended to identify rhetoric and philosophy.20 The implication seems to be that the

Oratio was philosophy by humanist standards, even if not by those of philosophers.

This would be a position not unlike the notorious doctrine of ‘Double Truth’. What

might be more to the point is Valcke’s reflection that Pico was a philosopher not in

the Aristotelian sense of a seeker after causes, but in the Plotinian sense of a seeker

after salvation. This was certainly the kind of philosophy that Valcke found in the

Oratio: philosophy as catharsis, an ascetical process purifying the soul and yielding

knowledge that is a means to salvation in mystical union.21

Even at this first stage of his intellectual development, Valcke believed, Pico’s

pursuit of knowledge was always a means, not an end in itself. His goal was spiritual

salvation. At this time he believed that philosophy was the means by which he could

attain it. It was a preparation, even if a necessary one, for ‘holy theology’. In the

Oratio, moral philosophy, dialectic, and natural philosophy were presented as the

stages of a catharsis leading to mystical union. In all these respects, he showed the

imprint of the Enneads of Plotinus on his thinking. Plotinus had taught that

philosophy was not to be pursued for its own sake, but as a means to salvation. It

was an ascetical process that purified the soul, and the knowledge to which it gave

access was a means towards mystical union. Valcke pointed out parallels in the

Oratio. For example, there was the theme of flight from the world, the idea of

mystical drunkenness, and the description of mystical absorption in God that is

nevertheless not an annihilation of the soul’s identity. While conceding that Pico was

drawing on recurrent themes of mystical literature, he insisted that the philosophical

basis of that literature was in Neoplatonic doctrine. He also believed that Pico’s

formulations were close enough to Plotinus to show that he had assimilated the

doctrine from its source, to the point where at this time he adhered to it totally and

had made it his own.22

19 Valcke and Gallibois, Le périple, p. 86; Valcke, ‘Le retour’, pp. 264, 269; ‘Humanisme’,

pp. 181, 183, 199.20 Valcke, ‘Raison et foi’, p. 201; Valcke and Gallibois, Le périple, p. 86.21 Valcke, ‘Raison et foi’, pp. 202–03.22 ‘Par la précision des reprises et des rappels de Plotin, Pic montre à sufficance qu’il a

longuement fréquenté et qu’il a véritablement assimilé la pensée plotinienne, au point qu’à

cette époque il y adhérait totalement et l’avait faite sienne’: Valcke, ‘Raison et foi’, p. 204; see

also pp. 194, 202–04.


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354 W. G. CRAVEN

Valcke found particular significance in Pico’s use of the symbol of Jacob’s

Ladder. It was, he believed, the central symbol of the Oratio, giving unity and

meaning to each of its developments. The ‘intermediaries’ of Plotinus had not

succeeded in establishing a true continuity between the One and matter, because

each hypostasis was homogeneous in itself and ontologically distinct from any other.

Ficino, however, with his theory of primum in aliquo genere, did succeed in

describing a continuity without hiatus. Pico interpreted the allegory of Jacob’s

Ladder as a faithful depiction of that continuity: of procession from, and conversion

to, the One, uniting our multiple, variable world to the immutable unity of its

Principle. It was the unifying intuition of the Oratio.23

The other theme that Valcke chose to emphasize was the traditional one of human

liberty. Under the hyperbole and the rhetorical layers the fundamental theme of the

Oratio was undoubtedly human liberty, understood as liberty to reach out towards a

salvation which is not of this world. It would constitute banalization to reduce it to

the affirmation that man is free, for better or for worse, to choose his level of moral

existence. To appreciate the significance of Pico’s ideas, it was only necessary to

reread the first few pages of the text about man’s unique privilege. Taken literally,

the words would even suggest that Pico placed a higher value on the freedom of

choice than on the ultimate end whose attainment it allowed, an implication that he

would certainly not have intended. The wording was an example of the greater

freedom permitted in a literary work, as distinct from a philosophical treatise.

Another traditional idea that Valcke defended was that the Oratio attributes to man a

cosmic role or mission. In Pico’s story about the creation of man, God wanted

someone to appreciate the plan of his work, to admire its beauty, and to wonder at its

greatness. Moreover, the idea of man the microcosm, underlying the whole Oratio

and expressing man’s cosmic participation, became the basis for human dignity.24

Valcke’s discussion of human liberty and the value Pico placed on it again brings

out the ambivalence of his position. He wanted to find substantial philosophical

content in a text which was admittedly not ‘properly’ doctrinal, the work of a

philosopher who was writing as a humanist, not to be taken literally though certainly

to be taken seriously.

There is no question that Valcke has made a useful and enlightening contribution

to the process of understanding the Oratio. He has drawn attention to the very

particular regard in which Pico held Plotinus, and to ideas, themes and images that

appear to derive from his reading of the Enneads. His treatment of the idea of

philosophy as catharsis, or as a kind of asceticism, brings back into focus what is

23 Valcke and Gallibois, Le périple, pp. 97–99. On Ficino, see Paul Oskar Kristeller, The

Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, trans. by V. Conant (New York: Columbia University Press,

1943, repr. Gloucester, MA: Smith, 1964), pp. 135–58.

24 Valcke, ‘Raison et foi’, pp. 231–35; ‘Humanisme’, p. 194.


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certainly the main theme of the central core of the work. At the same time, it could

be suggested that he has overstated his case.

His analysis of the passage about Jacob’s Ladder is a good example. Valcke

declared it the central, unifying symbol of the Oratio, and he emphasized its

Neoplatonic credentials. Pico explicitly invokes the authority of Dionysius for his

interpretation of the angelic orders and their functions. Valcke, however, saw the

symbolism of the Ladder as being founded in the doctrine of Plotinus, further

modified by Ficino.25 Pico first describes the figura of a ladder with many steps

extending from the lowest earth to the highest heavens. The Lord is seated at the top,

and angels engaged in contemplation are alternately ascending and descending. Pico

has just exhorted his listeners to aspire to the angelic way of life, imitating in turn

the Thrones, the Cherubim and the Seraphim. According to Dionysius the three

ranks of angelic beings correspond to the ‘three ways’, and it is these three stages, of

purification, illumination, and perfection, in which we are to be exercised. This same

exhortation is then reiterated through a procession of figures, symbols and allegories.

The meaning is first established with the authority of Saint Paul, as interpreted by

Dionysius, then reinforced by Old Testament and gentile sources. The same three-

fold pattern is found in each case. In each case it yields the same message.

Jacob’s Ladder is the first of the Old Testament references, and it presents an

immediate challenge to Pico’s ingenuity. The Ladder has many rungs. How can it

serve as a symbol for three stages? His third Old Testament symbol, the tabernacle

of Moses, is more tractable: the three stages are outside the tabernacle, inside the

Sanctuary and, finally, the inner part of the temple. Pico’s solution in the case of

Jacob’s Ladder is to make the whole Ladder correspond to the second stage, with the

ground as the first, and above the Ladder as the third. Valcke concentrated his

attention on the Ladder and its rungs, which he saw as representing the unbroken

continuity of procession and conversion between the world and its Principle. As Pico

uses it, however, it could represent continuity only within the second stage. His

scheme reproduces the three distinct ‘ways’ of the Pseudo-Dionysian Celestial

Hierarchy, and the Ladder stands for only the second of those ways. Certainly the

antecedents of the scheme were Neoplatonic, but what Pico is invoking is the

domesticated Neoplatonism of the Christian mystical tradition rather than something

drawn directly from Plotinus. At the same time, despite Valcke’s opinion to the

contrary, it does appear to be closer to the doctrine of Plotinus, with his ontologically

distinct hypostases, than it is to Ficino’s version, where differences were not of kind

but only of degree.

25 Valcke, ‘Le chant’, pp. 491–92; Valcke and Gallibois, Le périple, pp. 97–99. Oratio, in

De hominis dignitate, pp. 114–16; ‘Oration on the Dignity of Man’, trans. by Elizabeth

Livermore Forbes, in The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed. by Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar

Kristeller and John Herman Randall (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1948), pp. 223–54

(pp. 229–30).


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356 W. G. CRAVEN

Another idea to which Valcke attached crucial significance was the possibility of

attaining the contemplation of God in this life. Pico was so drawn to Plotinus,

Valcke believed, because there he found a method, an intellectual and ascetical

technique for achieving this goal. The evidence is a sentence in the Oratio which

takes the form of a rhetorical question: ‘Who would not desire [...] to become the

guest of the gods while yet living on earth, and, made drunk by the nectar of eternity,

to be endowed with the gifts of immortality though still a mortal being?’.26 Valcke

interpreted these words as expressing the distinctively Plotinian promise that the

soul, purified by an intellectual asceticism, could rise from the sensible to the

intelligible and be united with its Principle.27 Again, however, this passage is only

one in the series of descriptions of the highest, ‘theological’ stage, in this instance

the first of the testimonies drawn from pagan sources. After the apostle Paul and the

Old Testament references, Pico turns to the gentiles and the theology of the ancients.

First the mysteries of the Greeks are invoked to show ‘the advantages for us and the

dignity of these liberal arts about which I have come to dispute’. The degrees of

initiation into the mysteries are again made to correspond to the three stages with

their respective disciplines. The third stage affords ‘a vision of divine things by

means of the light of theology’, and this is the prospect which prompts the rhapsodic

rhetorical questions which follow. The passage does not occupy a climactic location

in the text, as one might expect if it represented a claim or promise more specific or

more significant than the other descriptions of the third stage. The imagery of pagan

mythology is employed, so there is less reason to suppose that the prospect being

held out is to be taken as a literal possibility in this life. Furthermore, there is

specific evidence against a literal interpretation. As Valcke explicitly acknowledges,

Pico flatly denies the possibility of attaining the highest state in this life in the

Commento, the text he was composing at the same time as the Oratio.28

26 The full sentence reads: ‘Quis humana omnia posthabitens, fortunae contemnens bona,

corporis negligens, deorum convivia adhuc degens in terris fieri non cupiat, et aeternitatis

nectare madidus mortale animal immortalitatis munere donari?’: Oratio, in De hominis

dignitate, p. 122; trans. by Forbes, p. 233.27 Valcke, ‘Le chant’, pp. 494, 496, 502; see also ‘Raison et foi’, p. 194. The idea of being

drunk on the nectar of the gods occurs in Plotinus, Enneads, VI.7.35; trans. by A. Hilary

Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1966–), VII, (1988), 197. Valcke repeatedly draws a parallel with the

youthful Augustine, who also found in Neoplatonism the hope of attaining beatitude in this

life through the perfect knowledge of God: e.g., ‘Raison et foi’, p. 192.28 ‘Termina el suo cammino, nè gli è licito nel settimo, quasi sabbato del celeste amore,

muoversi più oltre’: Commento, in De hominis dignitate, p. 569. The translation given above

is from the Commentary on a Canzone of Benivieni, trans. by Sears Jayne (New York: Lang,

1984), p. 160. The conflict is acknowledged in Valcke, ‘Il ritorno’, p. 341; and Valcke and

Gallibois, Le Périple, p. 146.


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Pico argues that progress through the first two stages is achieved through an

ascetical programme consisting of philosophical disciplines. As Valcke noted,

philosophy as purification or asceticism was a central theme in the doctrine of

Plotinus. It is also a central theme, even the central theme, of the first part of the

Oratio. For all that, the resemblance is not a close one. Plotinus deals at length with

the theme in the third tractate of the first Ennead . There, however, he refers only to

dialectic, even though he does so in a wide-ranging fashion, considering its essential

role in other branches of philosophy.29 In Pico’s programme, moral philosophy and

dialectic are proper to the first stage, while natural philosophy belongs to the second.

In the case of Jacob’s Ladder, those who would climb it must be purified by moral

philosophy and instructed in how to climb by dialectic before they may set foot on it.

Once purified and instructed, they go up and down the rungs of the Ladder, which

represents nature.

Eventually they may hope for the consummation of theological bliss, in the

bosom of the Father who is above the Ladder. Valcke believed that Pico’s

characterization of this highest stage, mystic union, contained echoes of Plotinus. He

spoke, in fact, of a ‘faithful paraphrase’. Again, however, the similarities are not as

close as he seems to suggest. He referred specifically to the passage already

examined, where the experience of epopteia is described as ‘being made drunk by

the nectar of eternity’. The comparison with a drunken state occurs again in the next

allegory, when Bacchus, as leader of the Muses, ‘will make us drunk with the

abundance of the house of God’. Plotinus in the sixth Ennead compares the

experience of union to being made drunk with nectar, and uses the analogy of

entering the house of a god.30 Valcke also saw a similarity between Pico’s

description of union, ‘We shall now be not ourselves, but Himself who made us’,

and that of Plotinus, ‘There were not two, but the seer himself was one with the

seen’.31

Similarities are there, understandably, but they are less than conclusive. One

notable difference between the two descriptions of the highest state is that whereas

for Plotinus there is ‘not even any reason or thought’, Pico’s highest state is

somehow identified with ‘holy theology’.32 Just as philosophical disciplines are

matched with the first two stages, theology characterizes the third, and the exercise

29 Enneads, I.3; trans. by Armstrong, I, 157–61.30 ‘Aeternitatis nectare madidus’: Oratio, in De hominis dignitate, p. 122; trans. by Forbes,

pp. 233–34; Enneads, VI.7.35, trans. by Armstrong, VII, 195–97.31 ‘[...] iam non ipsi nos, sed ille erimus ipse qui fecit nos’. Oratio, in De hominis dignitate,

p. 124; trans. by Forbes, p. 234; Enneads, VI.9.11; trans. by Armstrong, VII, 341. See also,

however: ‘It comes to Intellect and accords itself to it, and by that accord is united to it

without being destroyed, but both of them are one and also two’: Enneads IV.4.2; trans. by

Armstrong, IV, 143.

32 Enneads, VI.9.11; trans. by Armstrong, VII, 341–43.


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358 W. G. CRAVEN

of reason continues, however rapturous the union. In the sense in which Pico’s

audience would have understood it, ‘theology’ meant the exercise of reason on the

materials of biblical revelation.33 In the Oratio, theology is the culmination of a

series, all three members of which demand the exercise of reason. One can only

conclude that for all the ecstatic language of mystical union, what Pico is describing

is something other than the experience Plotinus strove to elucidate.

The Oratio, it must be said again, was intended to introduce a disputation to be

conducted in the style of the University of Paris. The participants would have been

professional, academic philosophers and theologians. The theses that Pico defended

in the Apologia give us some idea of the severely rational style of discussion and

argument. In one particularly interesting passage Valcke raised the question of

whether Pico should really be called a philosopher, and concluded that he was a

philosopher in the Plotinian sense rather than the Aristotelian or Thomistic sense of

one who seeks causes and explanation. For Pico, philosophy was always a means to

an end, and the end was salvation.34 Whatever may be said about his other works,

however, the Conclusiones include a great many propositions which are philosophy

in the scholastic sense, and others for which, even if their subject-matter is esoteric,

the mode of discussion is scholastic. When Pico is defending his intention to debate

so many theses, he says of the teaching of the Platonists, ‘Now for the first time, as

far as I know, [...] it has after many centuries been brought by me to the test of

public disputation’.35 Material both familiar and unfamiliar was being put into

propositional form and subjected to the ordeal of disputation. Valcke saw it as using

the weapons of scholasticism in the service of the Neoplatonic vision of the world.

As Pico describes it, however, it is more a case of Neoplatonism and the esoteric

doctrines being subjected to scholastic method and put through the scholastic sieve.

When Pico spoke of ‘theology’ as the pursuit appropriate to the third and highest

stage, the word would have conveyed to his hearers an activity with which they were

professionally very familiar. The best evidence we have of how the disputation

might have proceeded is Pico’s defence of his propositions in the Apologia. It is not

the kind of activity associated with the attainment and enjoyment of mystical union.

On the contrary, it seems barely compatible with any kind of mysticism. To

associate scholastic theology and disputation with mystical heights was a

paradoxical proposal. Interpreting the claim solemnly misses the point and blunts its

rhetorical impact. Equally, scholastic philosophy, conducted in the manner of the

disputants of Paris, was a very different pursuit from the philosophy of salvation

33 It is difficult to see any basis for the assertion of Raspanti that, unless specified as

‘Christian theology’, ‘theology’ in the Oratio meant all inquiry de rebus divinis, including the

ancient Egyptians, Aristotle and Plato, and the Platonists (p. 186, n. 37).34 Valcke, ‘Raison et foi’, p. 202.35 ‘Sub disputandi examen est in publicum allata’: Oratio, in De hominis dignitate, p. 142;

trans. by Forbes, p. 244.


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taught by Plotinus. The association becomes more understandable if we are prepared

to consider that Pico might have been using the familiar Pseudo-Dionysian language

of the three ways, Neoplatonic in origin, certainly, but familiar none the less to his

hearers, to make extravagant claims for the practice of philosophy and theology.36

In itself, the Oratio does not provide persuasive evidence for a strictly

Neoplatonic interpretation. Valcke has buttressed it, however, with evidence from

other works from the same period in Pico’s life, notably the Conclusiones and the

Apologia. He has singled out and analysed some distinctively Neoplatonic

propositions, notably from the category identified as ‘paradoxical’ conclusions in

accordance with Pico’s own opinion. They include propositions concerning a higher

form of knowledge, non-Aristotelian in character, and how contradictories are

resolved in intellectual nature and in the One. There are also propositions concerning

Pythagorean numerology, one of them specifically criticizing Aristotle in a way

which suggests that his doctrine was to be subordinated to Plato’s in Pico’s

reconciliation of the two.37 Furthermore, there are the propositions concerning

magic, along with Pico’s introduction to them in the Oratio and his defence of them

in the Apologia. In Valcke’s judgement, Pico’s ideas about magic presupposed the

cosmology of Plotinus and an Orphic vision of the universe.38 More generally,

Valcke has argued that in each of the two series of propositions making up the

Conclusiones, the strategic placement of the Neoplatonic propositions was of great

significance. In both series, those according to the opinion of others and those

according to his own opinion, they were placed to serve as the bridge or interface

between conventional and esoteric philosophy. Each of the series was arranged so as

to constitute an ordered progression, a scheme that was itself Neoplatonic in

inspiration. The progression began with traditional and familiar sources and themes,

then ascended through Arab philosophers and Greek Aristotelians to Neoplatonists.

They were the gateway to the esoteric doctrines of Pythagoreanism, Orphism,

Zoroastrianism, Hermetism and magic, culminating in Kabbalah. Each series

reproduced the ascent of the soul, according to the doctrine of Plotinus, to union with

the Principle, losing itself in ecstasy beyond comprehension. In this progressive

36

It must be acknowledged that Pico repeated these ideas in a very different (though stillhortatory) context in his commentary on Psalm 17. There, the three ‘ways’ are enumerated,

and the moral fruits of philosophy are emphasized, including those of natural philosophy,

while theology impels and exhorts us ‘ut integram retineamus humanam dignitatem’. See

Garin, La cultura filosofica del Rinascimento italiano (Florence: Sansoni, 1961), p. 248. Garin

saw it as another case where Pico reused material from the unpublished Oratio. See also

Roulier, p. 446 and n. 83; Raspanti, pp. 244–45.37 Conclusiones nongentae: Le novocento Tesi dell’anno 1486 , ed. by Albano Biondi

(Florence: Olschki, 1995), pp. 78, 80, 106; Valcke, ‘Numérologie et mathematiques’, pp. 45–

49; ‘Raison et foi’, p. 206; ‘Le chant’, pp. 493–95; ‘Il ritorno’, pp. 329–35.38 Valcke, ‘Magie et miracle’, pp. 157–58; ‘Raison et foi’, pp. 210–11; ‘Il ritorno’, pp.

335–37.


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360 W. G. CRAVEN

intellectual asceticism, Neoplatonic doctrines occupied the key position between

natural human knowledge and hidden teachings.39

Again, however, the interpretation is questionable. We do not know whether the

esoteric propositions, or how many of them, were part of the original scheme. Pico’s

letter to Benivieni mentions that there had been seven hundred propositions before

his friend’s visit. The letters of the previous months are brimming with enthusiasm

for esoteric languages and knowledge.40 The impression from the letters is that these

sources were at the forefront of his mind towards the end of 1486, and were most

likely to have provided the additional theses. If this was the case, the plan of the two

series of theses, those in accordance with the opinions of others and those in

accordance with his own opinion, must have changed as further groups of theses

were added. In the earlier version of the Oratio, he asserts the need to go back to the

Hebrew, Chaldaic and Arabic sources from which the Latins derived their

knowledge. When he lists the distinctive attributes of individual philosophers and

schools, however, he mentions only scholastics, the Arabs, the Greek Aristotelians,

and the Platonists.41 It seems quite possible that the two series of theses were

arranged so that they began from the more familiar and proceeded to the less

familiar, without any suggestion that they represented the Neoplatonic ascetical

progression. Furthermore, there is no evident correlation between the arrangement of

the series and the three-stage scheme of the Oratio. The theological propositions are

the fourth group, while the magical conclusions, which Pico insists are part of

natural philosophy, are the ninth of the eleven groups. Valcke’s theory is interesting

but not conclusive.

A more general issue that must be confronted is the status of these topics for

disputation. Valcke mentioned the hypothetical character of several of the theses.42

For him it could have been a symptom of possible conflicts between philosophy and

Christian doctrine. Some, certainly, are quite explicitly hypothetical, including

several of those to which the commission objected. In a broader sense, however, they

were all provisional, precisely because they were propositions for debate. In the

Apologia, Pico appeals to the conventions followed at such occasions. Cryptic

propositions, he protests, are customary in disputations. Setting up topics for debate

is not the same thing as composing a treatise. The propositions are brief, ambiguous

and bristling with difficulties. The ambiguities will be distinguished and the

difficulties explained and resolved in the course of the exercise. As he says in the

Oratio when introducing his Platonic theses, the doctrine is being brought to the test

39 Valcke, ‘Raison et foi’, pp. 204–08, 208–14; Valcke and Gallibois, Le périple, pp. 71–

73.40 See the letters to Ficino, 8 September, to Andrea Corneo, 15 October, and to an

unknown friend, 10 November, in Opera omnia, pp. 367–68, 378, 385.41 Garin, La cultura filosofica, pp. 238–39.

42 Valcke, ‘Raison et foi’, p. 197.


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of public disputation.43 In this sense, all the theses had a provisional character,

pending the outcome of the debate. Before attributing particular views to disputants,

we need to keep in mind that public disputations were performances with

conventions of their own.

Valcke’s remark about the hypothetical character of some of the theses followed

his consideration of what was to become the Commento. Without retracing the

complex editorial history of this work,44 it should be remembered that at the time

when he was compiling his topics for disputation and composing the Oratio, Pico

was also writing the components of what was, in effect, an incisive critique of

Marsilio Ficino’s interpretation of Platonic doctrine and of his philosophical method.

In an early article, Valcke discussed the Commento briefly under the heading

‘Respect for the Integrity of Doctrines’. He insisted that it was not a critique of

Neoplatonism as such. It showed that Pico clearly distinguished philosophical and

theological orders, and that he rejected Ficino’s glossing over the doctrinal

incompatibilities between Neoplatonism and Christian doctrine.45 His complaint was

not that Ficino expounded Neoplatonic doctrine, but that he was insufficiently

rigorous in doing so. In his more recent articles Valcke allowed that the Commento

showed the beginnings of that critique of Neoplatonic doctrine which was to

culminate in the De ente. In this latter work Pico argued, contrary to the Neoplatonic

position, that Plato had not espoused the priority of the One over being in the

Parmenides. It marked his return to Aristotle. In the Commento he had taken a more

Aristotelian position on the way beauty is perceived, and, as noted earlier, he denied

that the human soul can attain the contemplation of God in this life. Instead of

drawing a veil over the differences between Neoplatonism and Christianity, as

Ficino had done, Pico pointed out that on several essential questions the authentic

Plotinian tradition was incompatible with Christianity.46 For one as committed to

Christian religion as Pico was, a commitment on which Valcke has insisted, such

incompatibilities must have imposed severe limitations on his adherence to

Neoplatonism.

The Commento is, therefore, a major stumbling block for Valcke’s interpretation.

In the paper he delivered at Mirandola he did little more than restate the problem.

Feverish exaltation supposedly masked Pico’s profound reservations and recurrent

43 Apologia, in Opera omnia, p. 148; Oratio, in De hominis dignitate, p. 143; trans. by

Forbes, p. 244.44 See the introduction by Sears Jayne to his English translation of the Commento, pp.

2–20.45 Valcke, ‘Raison et foi’, pp. 196–97, 199. Also: ‘C’est qu’en effet aucun texte de Pic

antérieur au De ente ne contient de critique a l’égard de la doctrine de Plotin ou de

néoplatonisme en general, bien au contraire’ (p. 223).46 Valcke and Gallibois, Le périple, pp. 147–48; Valcke, ‘Il ritorno’, p. 340 and ‘Le chant’,

p. 497. See also Jayne, ‘Introduction’, pp. 30, 31, 39.


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362 W. G. CRAVEN

doubts, yet it was in a mood of profound mistrust towards philosophical thought in

general and Neoplatonism in particular that he wrote his Commento. But the ‘other’

Pico, the Pico of the Oratio, of the Florentine Academy, not yet distanced from

Ficino, had hoped that the doctrine of Plotinus could bring about reconciliation

between philosophy and theology, between revelation and reason.47 How did the two

Picos coexist? How would he have been able to clear his mind and assume another

outlook whenever he turned from one project to the other? Valcke even toyed

repeatedly with the idea that Pico might have made use of the doctrine of ‘Double

Truth’.48 The problem remains, nevertheless, that at the height of his supposed

Neoplatonic fervour, he demonstrated a clear-headed awareness of the radical

incompatibilities between Neoplatonism and Christianity. However much he may

have admired Plotinus, he could not have been a committed disciple. There is

enough evidence to call into question Valcke’s repeated assertion that at this stage of

his intellectual development he was a committed adherent of the philosophy of

Plotinus.49

If, on the other hand, the Oratio is not as distinctively Plotinian as Valcke argued,

the problems diminish. If in fact its Neoplatonism belongs rather to that

domesticated, assimilated variety from which Valcke wanted to set it apart,50 then it

need no longer be seen as such an anomaly. It would no longer be necessary to

regard it as exceptional or ‘marginal’. The impulse to classify it as in some sense a

doctrinal treatise would abate, and the separation between philosophy and eloquence

that Pico had proclaimed would not be infringed. The theory of alternation of styles

could come into play quite naturally. The themes of the Oratio, especially

philosophy as asceticism, would still be indebted to the Neoplatonic, and Platonic,

tradition, but their presence would be for rhetorical impact rather than as a literal,

programmatic statement.

The other substantial doctrine that Valcke found in the Oratio was the one

traditionally seen in its opening pages. Its fundamental theme, he believed, was

human liberty. In this respect he did accept what I have characterized as the myths

and stereotypes which have dominated so much scholarship about Pico. Valcke

readily agreed that Pico had no intention of working out a metaphysic of liberty, and

that any Promethean interpretation would be groundless. At the same time, he

ridiculed the idea that the celebration of the range of human possibilities was simply

the basis for a moral exhortation, where Pico exalted human liberty only to urge his

listeners to strive for the heights. For Pico, he asserted, it was liberty that set

47 Valcke, ‘Il ritorno’, pp. 341, 346.48 Valcke, ‘Raison et foi’, pp. 196–97; ‘Le chant’, p. 497 ; ‘Il ritorno’, p. 344; Valcke and

Gallibois, Le périple, p. 148. The idea was originally suggested by Eugenio Garin in his

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Vita e dottrina (Florence: Le Monnier, 1937), p. 28.49 Valcke, ‘Raison et foi’, p. 204.



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humankind in the centre of the cosmic ladder. For confirmation, it was enough to re-

read the opening pages of the Oratio.51

The lines about man’s ability to rise or to fall in his level of existence according

to his free choice are, in fact, one of the places where Pico may have been echoing

Plotinus. In the third Ennead Plotinus explained why we must strive for the heights:

In man, however, the inferior parts are not dominant but they are also present; and in

fact the better part does not always dominate; the other parts exist and have a certain

place. [...] Therefore one must ‘escape’ to the upper world, that we may not sink to the

level of sense-perception by pursuing the images of sense, or to the level of the

growth-principle by following the urge for generation and the ‘gluttonous love of good

eating’, but may rise to the intelligible and intellect and God. Those, then, who

guarded the man in them, become men again. Those who lived by sense alone become

animals [...]. But if they did not even live by sense along with their desires but coupled

them with dullness of perception, they even turn into plants; for it was this, the

growth-principle which worked in them, alone or predominantly, and they were taking

care to turn themselves into trees. […] Who, then, becomes a spirit? He who was one

here too. And who a god? Certainly he who was one here.52

It would be difficult to establish direct dependence, however, because the idea,

already a commonplace in antiquity, had been taken up by so many Fathers of the

Church and transmitted through them to the Middle Ages.53

While agreeing that there is no basis for the more extravagantly Promethean

readings of the Oratio, Valcke sought to retain a cosmic function for man in Pico’s

thought. He drew attention to the reason given for the creation of Adam in Pico’s

story: that the Creator wanted someone ‘to ponder the plan of so great a work, to

love its beauty, to wonder at its vastness’. It was, as Valcke remarks, a cosmic role in

complete accord with Christian and biblical doctrine.54 It is also the role of a

contemplative observer, at the opposite pole to Eugenio Garin’s lord of the world of

forms with power to hurl everything into the darkness of chaos or to transform and

remake it.55 Another, more active role for man was in the exercise of magic, though

Valcke was careful to point out that it was as minister of nature, not creator.56

He also perceived an essential cosmic function for man as microcosm in the

Heptaplus, and went so far as to say that the concept of the microcosm, although a

commonplace, underlay the whole Oratio, where it expressed man’s cosmic

51 Valcke, ‘Raison et foi’, pp. 231–33.52 Enneads, III.4.2; trans. by Armstrong, III, 145–47. This particular resemblance seems to

have gone unremarked by Valcke.53 See Henri de Lubac, Pic de la Mirandole (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1974), pp. 184–204.54 Oratio, in De hominis dignitate, p. 104; trans. by Forbes, p. 225; Valcke, ‘Raison et foi’,

p. 235.55 Garin, Medioevo e Rinascimento, 2nd edn (Bari: Laterza, 1961), pp. 100, 156.



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364 W. G. CRAVEN

participation, becoming the foundation of the dignitas hominis.57 This is a puzzling

statement. The idea of man the microcosm is integral to the scheme of the

Heptaplus, but Pico explicitly sets it aside at the beginning of the Oratio as

insufficient for his purpose. One of the reasons traditionally given for the pre-

eminence of human nature that he mentions specifically is that man is the bond tying

the world together. This idea could be taken as equivalent to the microcosm. Pico

says about it, and about others he mentions, that it is a weighty reason, but not the

principal one.58 There is a significant tension between the idea of man free to choose

his own nature and man whose nature collects and unites all the natures of the world.

In the one case, man can become all natures; in the other, he is all natures. They are

two different perspectives on human nature: a dynamic or diachronic view of man

who is potentially all, and a static or synchronic view of man who is actually all. 59

That man is a microcosm is certainly not the reason why he is a great miracle in the

Oratio, even though that is precisely what it is in the Heptaplus. The difference

reflects the contrasting themes and purposes of the two works. In the Heptaplus Pico

uses the commonplace idea about man the microcosm so that what Moses said about

man could be applied to the universe, and what he said about the universe would

apply to man. In the Oratio he wants to dramatize the disparate possibilities open to

man depending on his choices. In no sense is the microcosm the foundation of the

dignitas hominis in the Oratio, nor even, more accurately, the reason why man is

dignum admirationis, worthy of wonder.

Indeterminacy and Concord: Bausi on Ideas and Language in the‘Oratio’

In Valcke’s view, there was a dramatic shift between the two early letters and the

Oratio. Bausi, instead, found continuity. His scrutiny of the style of the three

documents revealed that they were closely related. All three were characterized by

an ornate style, a Silver Age Latinity with a particular affinity with Apuleius, a

profusion of rhetorical figures, words and expressions from poetic usage and literary

citations and allusions. The Oratio displayed these same attributes of Pico’s ‘first

57 Valcke, ‘Humanisme’, p. 194; Heptaplus, in De hominis dignitate, p. 192.58 Oratio, in De hominis dignitate, p. 102. He invokes the idea of the microcosm later in

the Oratio (p. 124) to validate his eccentric interpretation of ‘Know thyself’ as an exhortation

to investigate nature.59 Di Napoli noted the contrast: ‘Nella Oratio la peculiare grandezza dell’uomo è vista

nella sua libertà, mentre nello Heptaplus essa è vista nella struttura dell’uomo come sintesi

riassuntrice di tutti i momenti o stadi del creato’ (p. 375). See also De Lubac, who was

convinced that Pico achieved a synthesis of the two, though how it was done remained unclear

(p. 89).


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style’ as the letters, the only difference being that they were further accentuated. This

stylistic continuity was reinforced by Bausi’s interpretation of the two letters. Pico’s

own highly elaborate rhetorical style showed that he was not rejecting eloquence

outright, while no disparagement of poetry was implied in his praise of Lorenzo’s

ability to combine it with public life.60 It was not necessary, therefore, to propose a

hypothetical conversion.

From an examination of the earlier version of the Oratio discovered by Garin,

Bausi proposed three phases of composition, involving prolonged editorial labour.

The third phase included the addition of the whole second part, in which Pico

defended his project of a public disputation against his critics. Bausi suggested that it

was added when criticisms were voiced following the publication of the nine

hundred Conclusiones in December 1486. He emphasized the contrast between the

two parts of the final document, including stylistic changes. The second part would

have been composed in a fairly short time, probably in the month between

publication of the Conclusiones and the time when the Oratio might have been

delivered. A sign of haste was the re-use of a page already composed for the

Commento. The addition of the second part would have altered the literary coherence

of the earlier text, with its tight organization and careful structure. Bausi drew

attention to the articulation of the text, built on the number three, a number rich in

symbolism.61

While the stylistic elegance of the Oratio had always been emphasized by

scholars, it had led some to underestimate the philosophical value of the work. They

saw it as a purely, or at least predominantly, literary, humanistic piece. It belonged to

the genre of introductory discourses or academic ‘prolusions’, allowing Pico to

present a less closely technical and more brilliantly poetic exposition of his thought.

There were two key ideas in the Oratio: the indeterminacy of man, which was the

basis of his uniqueness and privileged position within creation, and the concord of

philosophies, or, better, the capacity of each one to reveal a different aspect of truth,

contributing to more perfect knowledge. Bausi accepted these ideas from the existing

literature without further demonstration or justification, although he added that the

second, the concord of philosophies, was more strongly stated in the earlier version

of the text.62 He then went on to develop what can only be described as a very

60 Bausi, Nec rhetor , pp. 156–57. Valcke had found an implication that poetry was merely

a diversion, and that the poet was not to be taken seriously: ‘Humanisme’, pp. 179–80 and n.

57. But Bausi disagreed (p. 69, n. 88, p. 81).61 Bausi, Nec rhetor , pp. 113–16. The concluding section of the Commento is repeated in

the Oratio, in De hominis dignitate, pp. 156, 580–81; Commento, trans. by Jayne, pp. 169–70.62 Nec rhetor , pp 155–56, 158–59. Bausi quoted Di Napoli (p. 400) on the indeterminatio

of man; and for the concord of philosophies, see Garin, ‘Le interpretazioni del pensiero di

Giovanni Pico’, in L’opera e il pensiero di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (Florence: Istituto

Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, 1965), I, 18. The idea was reiterated by Jeder Jacobelli,

Pico della Mirandola, 3rd edn (Milan: Longanesi, 1986), ch. 13, ‘Alla ricerca della


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366 W. G. CRAVEN

elegant theory about the correspondence between the two ideas and the language in

which Pico proclaimed them. As has been noted, Bausi showed that the language of

the Oratio shared its composite character with the two letters, including rare Silver

Age words and poetic expressions. To these were now added a larger admixture of

late, Christian and medieval components. The result was an extremely variegated

language, a confluence of archaisms from Plautus and Christian medieval terms,

poetic allusions and philosophical technicalities, Apuleian hapax and neologisms.

This language, and the whole complex literary texture of the document, matched

and mirrored the ideas Pico was presenting. Just as the language and expression of

the letter to Barbaro communicated a message of its own, so here Pico’s language

was chameleon-like and protean, in continuous transformation. The same adjectives

which Pico used about the nature of man could be applied to the language in which

he characterized it: indiscreta, desultoria, versipellis, se ipsum transformans; varied,

manifold and inconstant, with no inborn image of its own but many assumed from

outside itself. Furthermore, this language also reflected, embodied and represented

the idea of the concord of philosophies and religions, cooperating in the quest for

Truth. In pursuing that quest Pico invoked the most diverse authorities: Chaldeans

and Greeks, Pythagorean and patristic sources, the prophets and Mohammed,

Delphic sayings and medieval philosophers. The language mirrored this very

diversity. Moreover, just as the concord of differing points of view consisted not in

reducing them to a common denominator, but in a reciprocal integration, each

retaining its own character like the pieces in a mosaic, so the language of the Oratio

did not aspire to a fluid uniformity but flaunted its composite character.63

Bausi also found particular significance in the concepts of participation and

analogy. Di Napoli had invoked them in explaining how Pico could marshal such an

array of authorities. It was not simply a rhetorical association. Participation and

analogy made it possible to express a concept under diverse figures and in diverse

terms. On this point there was a convergence, noted by Bausi himself, with Valcke’s

approach. The Heptaplus was to be the work most clearly inspired by the principles

of analogy and participation, with man the microcosm as its pivotal idea. The work

itself was also a microcosm, whose structure reflected that of creation. Bausi then

concordia’, esp. pp. 128–32; and by Jacques Queron, Pic de la Mirandole (Aix-en-Provence:

Université de Provence, 1986), pp. 4, 50, 107–08. It was mentioned repeatedly at the

Mirandola Convegno in 1994. See, for example: the introductory address by Ezio Raimondi

(pp. xxxi, xxxiii); the papers by August Buck (pp. 10–12) Charles Trinkaus (pp. 106, 116),

and Gian Carlo Garfagnini (p. 247); and the Conclusioni by Cesare Vasoli (pp. 650, 658, 663,

672). Fernand Roulier attempted to find a textual basis for the idea of the concord of all

doctrines in his Jean Pic de la Mirandole, pp. 98–99. He claimed over a hundred instances of

accorde. In contrast, the limited nature and extent of Pico’s comparisons was emphasized in

W. G. Craven, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Symbol of His Age (Geneva: Droz, 1981), pp.

94–107; and noted by Raspanti, p. 193.

63 Bausi, Nec rhetor , pp. 159–61; n. 64 explores the parallel with Apuleius.


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transferred this idea back to the Oratio. As in the Heptaplus, there was

correspondence between form and content. The language and style, and the

fundamentally ternary conformation, corresponded to Pico’s conception of the

world, of man and of knowledge. The work of the philosopher was of the same

nature as the work of God, not by literary contrivance but by virtue of the analogical

link between all the levels of the universe.64

Bausi’s theory is very appealing. He shows an impressive ability to draw themes

together and connect them in satisfying patterns. He links his stylistic studies of the

letters and the Oratio with ideas which have long been held to be the Oratio’s

significant content, as well as finding close analogies between it and the Heptaplus.

The whole pattern constitutes an impressive synthesis. It is unfortunate, however,

that the scholarly tradition set up for him ideas which were so invitingly congruent

with the characteristics he found in the language and style. In reality, neither the

indeterminacy of man nor the concord of philosophies is incontestably central to the

Oratio, and the apparent congruence may well be an illusion. On the other hand, the

ternary configuration, on which Bausi touched only in passing, dominates that

section of the Oratio that he identifies as the original text. The subject-matter of the

repeated triadic figures is barely mentioned in his account. He considered it

sufficient to quote Di Napoli, passing on without further comment to the next topic.65

The result is a serious dislocation of what is central to the Oratio.

Di Napoli, in the passage quoted, recapitulated the three ascetical stages of

Pseudo-Dionysius. He related them first to the passage about peace, then to the

tabernacle of Moses and the Delphic oracles. He identified the triadic pattern, and

the ascetical programme of philosophical disciplines and theology that constitutes its

substance. The passage quoted gave no idea, however, of the rhetorical impact of the

insistent repetition of that pattern, ten times in all, with its corresponding

variations.66 The series begins by establishing the three stages with the authority of

Saint Paul, as interpreted by Pseudo-Dionysius. The same three stages are then

discovered in, or extracted from, three Old Testament figures (Jacob’s Ladder, Job as

interpreted by Empedocles, and the tabernacle of Moses), and four examples from

the theology of the ancients (the Greek Mysteries, Delphic precepts, Pythagoras and

Zoroaster). The stages are then recapitulated in the personages of the archangels

Raphael, Gabriel and Michael. This triad is the structural ‘message’ of the Oratio,

and it is exactly congruent with the verbal message. Moral philosophy and dialectic,

natural philosophy and finally theology are disciplines corresponding to the three

stages of this ascent to the heights. The range of possibilities open to man, his

‘indeterminacy’, occupies only the opening pages. Its function is to

craven2005 style and substance in the early writings of giovanni pico della mirandola

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