MAGIC 1206 · Pico della Mirandola Simulacrum — Christian Kabbalah and the 900 Theses

Led by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola Simulacrum

1. Module 6 ○ Open

   Pico della Mirandola Simulacrum — Christian Kabbalah and the 900 Theses

   Led by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola Simulacrum

   The question

   Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) — Count of Mirandola and Concordia, philosophical prodigy, friend and occasional disagreer of Ficino, the first Christian philosopher to study the Hebrew Kabbalah seriously and to integrate it explicitly into a Christian-Hermetic-Platonist framework — staged in Rome in 1486-1487 the most ambitious philosophical event of the Renaissance: the *900 Theses* (*Conclusiones Nongentae*), which he proposed to defend in public disputation against any philosopher in Christendom, prefaced by the magnificent *Oratio de Hominis Dignitate* (the *Oration on the Dignity of Man*). Innocent VIII halted the disputation; thirteen of the theses were condemned; Pico fled to France and was briefly imprisoned. The *900 Theses* and the *Oration* together set out Pico's vision: a synthesis of Greek philosophy, Hermetic theology, Hebrew Kabbalah, Arabic philosophy, scholastic theology, and Christian doctrine into a single integrated philosophical-religious framework. The Christian-Kabbalist tradition Pico inaugurates would shape the next two centuries of Renaissance and early-modern occult thought. What did Pico actually claim, and what did he add to the Ficinian framework?

   Outcome

   The student has read the *Oration on the Dignity of Man* in full (any modern translation; Forbes-Wallis-Miller in *The Renaissance Philosophy of Man* is a standard; Borghesi-Riva-Papio's recent edition with full commentary is the best modern English), the magical and Kabbalist theses from the *900* in modern translation (Farmer 1998; selections in Copenhaver's *Magic and the Dignity of Man*), and an introduction to Pico's project (Copenhaver, Wirszubski, or Yates).

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   Practice scenarios

   The Oration and the Magical-Kabbalist Theses

   Pico Simulacrum walks you through the *Oration on the Dignity of Man* and a selection of the most provocative theses from the *900* — particularly the magical theses and the Kabbalist theses (Farmer 1998 organises these helpfully; Copenhaver's *Magic and the Dignity of Man* discusses many of them). Read the *Oration* in full and at least twenty of the magical-Kabbalist theses. Then write a 700-word analytical essay: what is Pico's vision of the human being and how does the doctrine of human indeterminacy ground his philosophical project; how does the Christian Kabbalah extend the Ficinian *prisca theologia*; what is at stake theologically in the claim that "no science gives more certitude of Christ's divinity than magic and Kabbalah"; and what does Pico's synthesis add to the Strand 2 framework that Ficino did not provide?

   Your goals

   • Read the *Oration* in full and at least twenty theses before drafting.
   • Render the doctrine of human indeterminacy and the Christian-Kabbalist project precisely.
   • Address the theological controversy: why was Pico condemned and what does the condemnation tell us about the limits of Renaissance synthesis?
   • Address the relation to Ficino — what does Pico extend, what does he disagree about, what does he add?
   • Engage at least one piece of secondary scholarship.
   • 700 words ± 100, scholarly register.

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