The Renaissance: Featuring influence from Pico della Mirandola By: President Christian Cooper

What was the Significance of The Renaissance? The Renaissance was a rebirth in society! During this time period, society started to modernize and focus on the classics. There were technically two types of The Renaissance: Northern and Italian. Society ways of thinking “changed” during this time period through the four “isms:” Humanism, Individualism, Secularism, and Scientific Naturalism. Each one lead to changes in lifestyle for everyone and increased the effort to go against the Church.

Pico della Mirandola Pico della Mirandola was an Italian Renaissance philosopher who was born in Mirandola grew up in Modena, where his family had significant power in the Duchy of Modena. Throughout his life, Mirandola wrote numerous significant writings, such as Oratio de hominis dignitate (Oration on the Dignity of Man, 1486) and De animae immortalitate (1541). Both of these incorporated ideas of humanists thoughts individual achievement. In 1494, Mirandola was poisoned by an unknown person and died because of that.

Works of Mirandola Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486) Excerpt from Oration on the Dignity of Man Mirandola’s Commentary on a Canzone of Benivieni

Analysis of His Works In all of his works, Mirandola incorporated numerous accounts of the four “isms,” especially with humanism (liberal arts studies) and secularism (less spiritual). For example, in Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man, humanism was shown by describing in the piece that there should be an importance in a human’s quest of knowledge. Also in this work, he seemed to show an understanding of physics, which would go along with scientific naturalism(study of the natural world). In Mirandola's De animae immortalitate, he uses the idea of secularism by saying “a man’s possession of an immortal soul freed him from the hierarchical stasis,” which describes how less spiritual society would end up being. Mirandola’s works are greatly known due to the uses of the four “isms.”

Spirit of The Renaissance Pico della Mirandola’s work does illustrate the spirit of the Renaissance in numerous ways. The renaissance was a rebirth in society in which modernization occurred. Mirandola wrote about knowledge and education, and that humans need more knowledge, and in the Renaissance there was a desire for education and learning. He would also write about astrology and greek mythology, which goes along with the idea of humanism.