THE LIFE OF GIOVANNI PICO OF MIRANDOLA

...to have been [cheated] and to be able to be cheated: wherefore there is no need for a legal release of these expenses. If I owe you, I shall pay the money as soon as possible. If you owe me, either repay the debt now, if you are able, or in the future if the means are not presently available.

Benevolence toward friends

Indeed, he always treated his friends with great indulgence, and he was accustomed to use encouraging words with them to lead a good life. I knew a man who, while relying on Pico’s learning and reputation, spoke with him; when the conversation turned to morals, he was so moved by just two of Pico's sayings that he abandoned the path of vice and reformed his character.

Two most healthy remedies against vices

The words were of this sort: "If we kept before our eyes the death of Christ, suffered out of love for us, and if we likewise repeatedly meditated upon our own death, we would beware of vices." He displayed admirable modesty and kindness toward those whom he judged should be won over not by power or fortune, but by love and learning. He was accustomed to love those who, however slightly, were proficient in letters, or at least in the study of the liberal arts, and whom he saw to be industrious and capable.

Likeness is the cause of love

For likeness is the cause of love; and toward a wise man (as Philostratus Flavius Philostratus (c. 170–250 AD), author of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana. records Apollonius saying), there is a certain affinity. Knowledge also perfects a man, through which a man is made complete; and he who is perfected attains goodness. Furthermore, he did not doubt that other virtuous men ought to be loved. Otherwise, nothing was more intolerable to him than—

Horace

—(to use the words of Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65–8 BC), the Roman lyric poet.) to stand upon the thresholds of powerful citizens. He also harbored a great dislike for secular military service and the bond of marriage. When asked jokingly which of the two would seem easier to endure if he were forced by necessity or given the choice, he hesitated a little, wavering, and with a slight smile, he replied: "Marriage," provided that it did not also involve the servitude and the weight of danger that must be undergone in military service.

Freedom of the mind

He loved freedom beyond measure, a disposition prompted both by his nature and by his philosophical studies. For this reason, I believe he remained a wanderer for the most part, never choosing a permanent home for himself, although he stayed quite often in Florence and sometimes in Ferrara. I would think he established the former city as his domicile because he had cultivated his first studies of letters there after Bologna, and because the prince of that city Lorenzo de' Medici (the Magnificent). loved him wonderfully, joined to him by a kind of affinity.

Bianca Maria d'Este

Indeed, I myself was born from that prince's sister, namely Bianca Maria d'Este. Nor was it too far from his homeland, since Ferrara is distant from Mirandola by only thirty miles toward the rising sun. He loved and inhabited the other city [Florence] either for the pleasantness of the air, or the sweetness of his many friends, or the subtlety of the intellects there.

Angelo Poliziano

Among these friends, he bound two to himself most especially through a literary love: Angelo Poliziano, a man most learned in Greek and Latin, filled with the flowers of diverse literature, and almost the champion of the Roman tongue;

Marsilio Ficino

the other was Marsilio Ficino of Florence, a man redolent of every kind of literature, and the greatest of those now living in the Platonic Refers to the Neoplatonic school of philosophy which Ficino led in Florence. school, whose works Pico had used in mastering the Academics. He was not much devoted to the worship of external ritual; we are not speaking of that which the Church commands to be observed (for we saw him keep this before his eyes), but we mention those ceremonies which some people pursue and promote while neglecting the true worship of God, who is to be worshipped in spirit and truth. Yet he pursued God with the most fervent love in his internal affections. Sometimes that eagerness of soul would almost fade and fall away; but at other times, taking up strength with greater effort, I remember that he burned from God and toward God. Once, while we were walking along long paths in a certain orchard in Ferrara, discussing the love of Christ, he broke out into words of this sort:

Fervor of love for God

"Let me tell you this in secret: once I have finished and completed certain of my scholarly labors, I shall distribute the riches that remain to me to the poor. Then, armed with the crucifix and with bare feet, wandering the world through castles and cities, I will preach Christ." I heard later that he changed this purpose and decided to join the Order of Preachers The Dominicans.; meanwhile, of those things which he had [conceived]...