Overview

A groundbreaking edition of controversial theses proposed by the most famous philosopher of the Italian Renaissance. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), the most famous philosopher of the Italian Renaissance, had ambitions in line with his talents, especially in philosophical theology. His boldest venture urged Christians to save their souls with Jewish mysticism-Kabbalah-while also offering to debate anyone in Italy about his project. In 1486, he announced plans for a disputation in Rome on 900 theses, but Pope Innocent VIII quashed the event with an indictment for crimes against Christian orthodoxy. Pico's theses cited well-known scholastic authorities: Muslims like Ibn Rushd, Jews like Maimonides, and Christians like John Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas. But as Brian Copenhaver demonstrates in Nine Hundred Conclusions, many of Pico's scholastic sources were filtered through a less renowned Thomist theologian named Jean Cabrol (Capreolus). Pico also sought to enrich Christian theology with newly available authorities from the Platonic and Pythagorean traditions as well as theosophical texts associated with ancient Orphism and Hermetism. Supreme among his authorities were theses taken from medieval Jewish Kabbalah, which Pico regarded as an angelic revelation and tried to appropriate for Christianity. The present volume is a ground-breaking contribution, containing a new critical edition of the Latin text along with a new translation into contemporary English, a detailed introduction, and a commentary discussing each of the 900 theses individually.

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9780674298910

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Reviews

More than six decades ago, Frances Yates wrote that Pico's Conclusions are 'absolutely fundamental ... for the whole Renaissance', and yet it is only now, with the appearance of Copenhaver's edition and translation, that we have a modern, usable English version of the text. Pico's enigmatic theses come in at under 17,000 words; Copenhaver uses 158,000 to explain them. This is a feat of scholarship. If you wanted to discover exactly why Pico included the propositions '253. Every soul sharing in Vulcan's intellect is sown in the moon' or '254. From the foregoing conclusion I gather why all Germans are stoutly built and pale in colour, ' Copenhaver makes it possible.--Erin Maglaque ""London Review of Books"" (10/8/2025 12:00:00 AM)

Author Information

Brian P. Copenhaver is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and History at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he directed the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

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