THE LIFE OF GIOVANNI PICO OF MIRANDOLA

...to receive/to reveal to the multitude of men when it is expedient, this most holy law of divinity: as we are taught by the same Dionysius Dionysius the Areopagite, a 5th-century Christian theologian whose writings on the Celestial Hierarchy were deeply influential to Pico. in his book On the Celestial Hierarchy, so that through the first things following, one may be raised toward the most majestic light. Those who doubt are surely ignorant of divine letters, and are of an insolent and stubborn disposition; for in those letters it is seen that divine future mysteries are sometimes revealed not only through good men, but even through wicked men and false prophets. What prevents us from having faith in this man Brother Girolamo Savonarola. who is so powerful in both doctrine and so many virtues, and who has already predicted many future events which have now come to pass? And he did not testify to this dreamily, but affirmed it with certainty. Add to this that the Aristotelian philosophy original: "Aristotelis phīa" does not cry out against these things, and Platonic teachings support them—though I would not accept such a weighty testimony unless it were by the authority of the divine Scriptures. Yet, it is not absurd to cite these external sources as well, so that the web of the malevolent may recoil upon its authors with greater force than it was sent.

But we must now return to ourselves. We should not mourn so much that we have lost such a man, but rather give thanks to the King God. in whom all things live, for having had him and for still having him. Indeed, having completed the duty of his mortal life, let him now depart from those with whom he long dwelt—whom he had bathed in no small amount of light—and as he enters the inaccessible and infinite light of the heavenly fatherland, he shall enjoy, without end, the ineffable divinity that will bring us aid day by day.

The Epitaph of Mirandola.

Here lies Giovanni of Mirandola. The rest is known
To the Tagus and the Ganges, and perhaps even the Antipodes.
original: "Ioannes iacet hic mirandula. Cætera norunt / Et tagus & ganges/forſan & Antipodes." This famous couplet suggests Pico's fame reached from the river Tagus in the West to the Ganges in the East, and even to the opposite side of the world (the Antipodes).

A poem by Caecilius Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, concerning the Wood of the Cross:

There is a place which we believe to be the center of the whole world,
Which the Jews call Golgotha in their ancestral tongue:
Here, I remember, a tree cut from sterile oak
Was planted and brought forth healthy fruits.
Yet it did not offer these to those who settled there as farmers;
Strangers possessed the blessed fruits
Of this tree. This species rises from a single trunk,
And soon extends its arms into twin branches,
Just as a ship’s sails stretch out when full and heavy,
Or like the yoke when young oxen are uncoupled from the plow.
That which this tree bore, fallen from the first mature seed,
The earth conceived; soon—marvelous to say—
On the third light The third day; i.e., the Resurrection. it brought forth again
A branch, fearful to both the earth and those above, blessed with the fruit of life.
But in twice twenty days Forty days; the time between the Resurrection and Ascension. that branch was strengthened,
It grew into the immense sky, and with its highest peak
It touched the heavens, and at last joined its holy head to the heights,
While yet it brought forth enormous branches of twelve-fold weight,
Stretching out and scattering them throughout the whole world,
So that for all nations it might provide sustenance and eternal life.