Complete Works

...he had shaken off from his shoulders the burden of the entire Christian commonwealth—a burden indeed, for which the greatest reward is prepared for those who undergo it, provided they embrace it unwillingly and only for the sake of obeying and helping. He was most firmly convinced that for a philosopher, it was not a matter of praise to have amassed riches or to have sought honors, but rather to have refused them. And he believed that by refusing shadowy glory, one attains the true glory which always accompanies virtues as their inseparable companion and follower. Contempt for human glory He held human glory as nothing. He said quite often that fame would profit the living somewhat, but the dead not at all; and we recognized that he valued his own learning only so far as it might conduce to the utility of the Church and to the elimination and investigation of opposing errors. Moreover, we perceive that he reached such a goal of perfection that he cared little if his commentaries were not published under his own name, Note provided that they brought to men the same benefit they would have brought under Pico's name. He was very little moved by other books, except for the Old and New Testaments, and he had decided to spend the remainder of his life always turning them over, unless public utility spurred him on, when he saw that so many and such great things which he had conceived and brought forth were not only demanded by everyone everywhere, but even required prematurely. The true disposition of a Christian mind And he valued the tiniest possible spark of devotion toward God in a little old man or a little old woman more than all his knowledge of human and divine things. He very often admonished his household during conversation to notice how much mortal things waver, and how fleeting and fluxional is this life we live, compared to how firm and stable is that which we shall be—whether, indeed, we be thrust down to hell or raised up to the heavens. He exhorted them to turn and incite their minds to love God, because this work outweighed any knowledge we could have in this life. This he also pursued most clearly in the book De Ente et Uno (On Being and the One) when, turning to Angelo Poliziano, to whom he dedicated the book, he spoke these words in the disputation itself: What he judged regarding loving and knowing God in this life "But see, my Angelo, what madness holds us; while we are in the body, we can love God more than we can either speak of or know Him. By loving Him, we profit ourselves more, we labor less, and we obey Him more; yet we always prefer never to find what we seek through knowledge, rather than to possess through love that which, without love, would even be found in vain." That saying of Saint Francis—"A man knows as much as he works"—was also frequent in his mouth. A maxim he frequently had in his mouth

But in him, liberality alone exceeded measure; Excessive liberality and he was so far from applying any care to earthly things that he was even stained by the blemish of carelessness. We find that he was also frequently admonished by his friends not to despise riches entirely. They asserted that this was a reproach to them, since it would be rumored—whether true or false—that he had provided an opportunity for theft to his stewards. Nevertheless, that mind, which always clung to contemplating and scrutinizing the designs of all nature, could not easily lower itself to weigh these lowest and abject things. I remember while I was staying with him at Ferrara, a steward sought approval of expenses by presenting a certain account. Seeing this, I was amazed, and asked whether he had finally applied his mind to that which he had neglected in times past. The companion replied that he had not only requested but demanded that Pico undertake this duty; he had done so to comply with them, but he actually had as much care for it as he had before. Furthermore, when his chief steward had interrupted him to ask that he order an audit to be made of the money he had handled for many years, so that he might provide more securely for his own peace of mind, and when he had brought such books before him, we understand that he answered him with these words: "I know that I have been asked very often by you and po- [postulated]..."