GIANFRANCESCO PICO DELLA

MIRANDOLA

(r 469-r 533)

ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D'HISTOIRE DES IDEES

INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

CHARLES B. SCHMITT

GIANFRANCESCO PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA

(1469- 1533)

AND

HIS CRITIQUE OF ARISTOTLE

Directors: P. Dibon (Paris) and R. Popkin (Univ. of Cali fomi a, La Jolla) Editorial Board: J. Aubin (Paris); J. Collins (St. Louis Univ.); P. Costabel (Paris); A. Crombie (Oxford); I. Dambska (Cracow); H. de la Fontaine-Verwey (Amsterdam); H. Gadamer (Heidelberg); H. Gouhier (Paris); T. Gregory (Rome); T. E. Jessop (Hull); A. Koyre t (Paris); P. O. Kristeller (Columbia Univ.); Elisabeth Labrouose (Paris); S. Lindroth (Upsala); P. Mesnard (Tours) ;J. Orcibal (Paris); I. S. Revah (Paris); G. Sebba (Emory Univ., Atlanta); R. Shackleton (Oxford); J. Tans (Groningen); G. Tonelli (Pisa).

CHARLES B. SCHMITT

GIANFRANCESCO PICO DELLA

MIRANDOLA {I469-1533)

AND

HIS CRITIQUE OF ARISTOTLE

SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V. - 1967

ISBN 978-94-011-9681-9 ISBN 978-94-011-9679-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-9679-6

Copyright 1967 by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague. NetherlandY in 1967

Ali rights reseroed, inciuding the right to translate or to

reproduce this book or paris thereof in any form

FOR KATE

PREFACE

The origins of this book go back to I956 when it was suggested to me that a study on the philosophy of Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola would furnish an important addition to our knowledge of the philoso­phy of the Italian Renaissance. It was not, however, until I960 that I could devote a significant portion of my time to a realization of this goal. My work was essentially completed in 1963, at which time it was presented in its original form as a doctoral dissertation in the Phi­losophy Department of Columbia University. Since then I have made many minor improvements and several chapters have been extensively reworked.

This study represents the first attempt in fifty years to give a detailed account of even a portion of Gianfrancesco Pico's life and thought. The most comprehensive previous study, Gertrude Bramlette Richards, "Gianfrancesco Pico della lv1irandola" (Cornell University Dissertation, I 9 I 5), which I have found very useful in preparing my own book, is largely based on secondary literature and is mistaken in a number of details. Furthermore, Miss Richards' treatment of Gian­francesco Pico as a thinker is very sketchy and is not an exhaustive study of his own writings. It is hoped that my present study, built in part on her extensive bibliographical indications, brings forth a certain amount of new information which will be of value for further research.

In the course of my research on Gianfrancesco Pico I have incurred numerous debts which it is now my pleasant duty to acknowledge. It is hoped that the end result is worthy of the inconvenience which it has caused so many people. The opportunity to consult many of the manu­scripts and rare editions, as well as the opportunity to devote my un­divided attention to this study for two full years, would hardly have been possible without generous grants from the United States Govern­ment for study in Italy during the years I96I-63. Especially am I

VIn PREFACE

grateful to Miss Cipriana Scelba and her staff of the Commissione Americana per gli Scambi Culturali con l'Italia for contributing in so many ways to making my stay in Italy both pleasant and fruitful. I would also like to thank Fordham University for making a grant availa­ble to me for aid in defraying the cost of the final preparation of the manuscript.

The libraries and archives in which the research for this book was carried out have in almost every case proved to be most helpful in providing the necessary materials. Special mention is due those two great establishments where by far the larger part of research was carried out: The Columbia University Libraries (with particular mention of the staff of Special Collections) and the Biblioteca N azionale Centrale of Florence (especially the staff of the "Sala di Consultazione" and the "Sala del Rinascimento"). The other libraries in which I have worked for periods of time varying from less than an hour to more than a month are many, but I feel that each should be given the proper credit. In the United States, I wish to thank the Boston Public Library; the Harvard University Libraries and the Andover Theological Seminary Library of Cambridge; the Yale University Library of New Haven; the Union Theological Seminary Library, the New York Public Library, the Pierpont Morgan Library, and the New York Academy of :Medicine Library, all of N ew York; the Princeton University Library; and the University of Chicago Library and the Newberry Library of Chicago. Among the many Italian libraries which I used the following must be remembered: the Biblioteca Comunale and the Biblioteca Universi­taria in Bologna; the Biblioteca Comunale in Carpi; the Biblioteca Comunale in Ferrara; the Archivio di Stato, the Biblioteca Marucel­liana, the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, the Biblioteca Riccardiana, the Biblioteca della Facolta di Lettere e Filosofia, the Library of the Kunsthistorisches Institut, and the Library of the Harvard University Center for Renaissance Studies (Villa I Tatti) in Florence; the Biblio­teca Governativa in Lucca; the Archivio di Stato, and the Biblioteca Comunale in Mantua; the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, the Biblioteca N azionale Braidense, and the Biblioteca Trivulziana in Milan; the Biblioteca Comunale in Mirandola; the Archivio di Stato, the Biblio­teca Estense, and the Biblioteca Universitaria in Modena; the Biblio­teca Antoniana, the Biblioteca Comunale, the Biblioteca del Semina­rio, and the Biblioteca Universitaria in Padua; the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma; the Biblioteca Comunale in Perugia; the Biblioteca Angeli­ca, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuale II, the Biblio-

PREFACE IX

teca Vallicelliana, and the Biblioteca del Convento di Santa Sabina in Rome; the Biblioteca Comunale in Siena; the Biblioteca N azionale Marciana in Venice; and the Biblioteca Bertoliana in Vicenza. The courteous and efficient staff and the incomparable collection of the Bi­blioteca Apostolica Vaticana made my task much easier in many ways. The other European libraries of which I made use and to which I must render thanks include: the Bodleian Library at Oxford and the British Museum Library in London; the Bibliotheque Royale in Brussels; the Bibliotheque N ationale and the Bibliotheque Mazarine in Paris; the Stadtbibliothek in Nuremberg, the Bayrische Staatsbibliothek and Universitatsbibliothek in Munich; and the Oesterreichische National­bibliothek in Vienna; and the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, the Bi­blioteca del Escorial, and the Biblioteca Universitaria in Barcelona. I would also like to thank the following libraries (in addition to some of the above) for providing me with photographic reproductions of mate­rials in their possession: the Cornell University Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library of Washington, D.C., the University of Illinois Library, and the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome.

Of those persons who aided me in the preparation of this study I should like to thank above all Professor Paul Oskar Kristeller of Co­lumbia University, who first suggested that I undertake this study and whose patient and knowing help at all stages of the work has been as generous as it had been illuminating. Thanks are also due to Professors Joseph Blau, Arthur Hyman, Joseph A. Mazzeo, John C. Nelson, and John Herman Randall, Jr., all of Columbia University, for many helpful suggestions. Especial thanks must go to Professor Sears R. Jayne of Queens College of the City University of New York and Professor Neal Ward Gilbert of the University of California (Davis) for having read the entire manuscript with care and thereby making many improvements - both stylistic and factual - on an earlier draft. Professor Edward P. Mahoney of Duke University has offered many helpful suggestions for the improvement of the manuscript and our many long discussions - both in Italy and in New York - of the Re­naissance philosophy, have increased immeasurably my own under­standing of the whole period. Dr. C. H. Clough's careful reading of Chapter I has saved me from several serious errors and several of his suggestions have resulted in major improvements. Professor Paul F. Cranefield of Rockefeller University and Professor Joseph I. Budnick of Fordham University have made helpful suggestions regarding the technical aspects of medicine and physics in so far as they touch my

x PREFACE

book. Professor Robert C. Fox of St. Francis College (Brooklyn), Professor Richard Goldthwaite of Kent State University, Profes­sor Paul Grendler of the University of Toronto, Professor Jerrold Seigel of Princeton University, and Professor Donald Weinstein of Rutgers University have all read parts of the present study and have given me suggestions which have made it better than it other­wise would have been. To Mr. Herbert }'1atsen of Converse College I am indebted for many helpful aids, both regarding the techniques of scholarly research in the Renaissance period and regarding practical hints for fruitful study in Italy. Professor Richard Popkin of the Uni­versity of California (San Diego) gave me several useful indications on the study of early modern scepticism. The members of that learned assembly, the Columbia University Seminar in the Renaissance, pa­tiently heard me read a portion of one chapter and their ensuing dis­cussions clarified several important points. Mr. Philip vVeimerskirch of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Library has called to my attention more than once to items of bibliographical importance which otherwise might have escaped my notice. Professor Renzo Amedeo of Garessio, Reverend Thomas Kaeppeli, O.P. of the Convento di Santa Sabina in Rome, Professor Eugenio Massa of the University of Pis a, and Professor Alessandro Perosa of the University of Florence helped to make my stay in Italy more fruitful by aiding my studies in various ways. To my friends at Mirandola, the late Giovanni Cavicchioli and Dott. Arrigo Marazzi, I am indebted for several kindnesses and I can only hope that this book in some way recalls the past glory of that citta antica e nobilis­sima. To Miss Eva Hoenig of New York, who has twice typed this dif­ficult manuscript, I tender my sincerest thanks; the inconveniences that she had to undergo to meet various deadlines few will know. Final­ly, to my wife Catherine, who bore our son in a then unfamiliar country and who had to undergo many hardships for the sake of this study, I offer my gratitude which must of necessity fall short of what which is due her.

The author gratefully acknowledges permission granted by the Renaissance Society of America to use substantial portions of the article "Who Read Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola?", which first appeared in Studies in the Renaissance XI (1964).

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Opera Ioannis Francisci Pici Mirandulae ... opera quae extant om­nia. .. (Basel, 16o I).

Cron An Cronaca della nobilissima Jamiglia Pico scritta da autore ano­nimo, Memorie storiche della cittil edell' antico ducato della

Mirandola, II (1874). Papazzoni Cronaca della Mirandola dei figli di ManJredi e della corte di

Quarantola scritta da Ingrano Bratti continuata da Battista Papazzoni, jVfemorie storiche ... della Mirandola, I (1872).

Papotti Annali 0 memorie storiche della Mirandola raccolte dal P. Francesco Ignazio Papotti 1\1. O. con note critico-illustrative, Memorie storiche ... della Mirandola, III (1876).

Sanuto I diarii di Marino Sanuto, ed. G. Berchet et al. (Venice, 1879-19°3).

Cron Mod I Cronaca modenese di Jacopino de' Bianchi detto de' Lancellotti, Monumenti di storia patria delle provincie modenesi (Parma, 1862).

Cron Mod II Cronaca modenese di Tommasino de' Bianchi detto de' Lance/­lotti, Monumenti di storia patria delle provincie modenesi (Parma, 1862 f.).

Ceretti BP Biografie pichensi, Memorie storiche ... della Mirandola,

XVII-XX (1907-13). Ceretti BME Felice Ceretti, "Bianca Maria d'Este," Atti e memorie

della RR. deputazioni di storia patria per Ie provincie dell' Emilia, new series, vol. III, part I (1878), pp. 119-67.

Ceretti AMP Felice Ceretti, "Anton Maria Pico della Mirandola," Atti e memorie ... per le provincie modenesi e parmensi, new series, vol. III, part II (1878), pp. 237-87.

Ceretti FT Felice Ceretti, "Francesca Trivulzio," Atti e memorie ... per Ie provincie dell' Emilia, new series, vol. V, part II, (1880), pp. 103-76.

XII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Ceretti LP Felice Ceretti, "Lodovico I Pico," Atti e memorie ... per Ie provincie dell' Emilia, new series, vol. VII, part II (1882), pp. 93-198.

Ceretti GIIP Felice Ceretti, "Galeotto II Pico," Atti e memorie ... per le provincie modenesi e parmensi, series III, vol. I, part II (1883), pp. 225-330.

Ceretti GIP Felice Ceretti, "Galeotto I Pico," Atti e memorie ... per le provincie modenesi e parmensi, series III, vol. II, part I (1884), pp. 70 - 10 1.

Ceretti LI Felice Ceretti, "Lettere inedite del conte Giovanni Francesco II Pico," Atti e memorie .. . per le provincie modenesi, series V, vol. III (1904), pp. 123-39.

Preface

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I GIANFRANCESCO PICO'S LIFE

Early Life (1469-1491) Pico Emerges as a Humanist and Philosopher (1491-99) The Prince of Mirandola (1499-1502) Gianfrancesco's Exile (1502-15 I I)

Success and Exile Again (1511-1514) The Return to Mirandola (1514-1533)

CHAPTER II GIANFRANCESCO PICO'S GENERAL

ATTITUDE TOWARD PHILOSOPHY

Giovanni Pico Girolamo Savonarola The Solution Worked Out in the "De Studio" (1496) The First Three Books of the "Examen Vanitatis" (1520) Conclusion

CHAPTER III THE GENERAL ATTACK ON ARISTOTLE

The Historical Context of Pico's Critique The Orientation of Pico's Critique Humanist Criticisms of Aristotle Criticism of Aristotle by his School The Obscurity of Aristotle's Style Criticisms of Aristotle by Other Schools Criticisms of Aristotle's Dependence on Sense Experience Aristotle's Own Uncertainty

CHAPTER IV THE REJECTION OF ARISTOTELIAN

"SCIENCE"

Introduction The First Way The Second Way

VII

XI

II

12 16 18 24 26

32 34 37 43 54

55 56 63 68 69 73 75 82

84 86 96

XIV

The Third Way The Fourth Way The Fifth Way

TABLE OF CONTENTS

General Conclusion to the Chapter

101

110

lI8 J22

CHAPTER V THE CRITIQUE OF ARISTOTLE'S PHYSICS

Introduction 128 Motion 131

TI~ 1~ Place 138 Vacuum 144 Conclusion 158

CHAPTER VI THE INFLUENCE OF THE EXAM EN

VANITATIS ON LATER THOUGHT

Introduction Mario Nizolio Giulio Castellani Latin Translations of SexLUs Empiriclls Giovanni Battista Bernardi Paolo Beni The Coimbra Commentaries Filippo Fabri Pierre Gassendi Tommaso Campanella Martin Schoock Leibniz

APPENDICES

Appendix A. The Works of Gianfrancesco Pi co 183 List of Abbreviations Used in this Appendix 185 Introduction 187 I. The Writings of Gianfrancesco Pico 19 1

II. Printed Primary Sources 203

III. Manuscript Sources 2 17 IV. Selected Secondary Sources 227

Appendix B. A Comparison of Gianfrancesco Pico's Translation of Sextus Em-piricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism with Henri Estienne's Translation 23 I

Appendix C. Did Gianfrancesco Pico Influence Agrippa? 237

Index 243