Pico della Mirandola on Trial: Heresy, Freedom, and Philosophy

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola has been a beacon of progress in modern times, and the Oration on the Dignity of Man has been the engine of his fame.But he never wrote a speech about the dignity of man.The prince's speech announced quite different projects: persuading Christians to become Kabbalists in order to annihilate themselves in God; and convincing philosophers that their path to saving wisdom was concord rather than disputation. Pico della Mirandola On Trial: Heresy, Freedom, and Philosophy shows that Pico's work was in no way progressive - or 'humanist' - and that his main authorities were medieval clerics and theologians, not secular Renaissance intellectuals.The evidence is Pico's Apology, his self-defence against heresy charges: this public polemic reveals more about him than the famous speech that he never gave and that deliberately kept its message secret.The orator's method in the Oration was esoteric, but the defendant in the Apology made his case openly in a voice that w