Cover: Magic and the Dignity of Man: Pico della Mirandola and His <i>Oration</i> in Modern Memory, from Harvard University PressCover: Magic and the Dignity of Man in HARDCOVER

Magic and the Dignity of Man

Pico della Mirandola and His Oration in Modern Memory

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HARDCOVER

$61.00 • £53.95 • €55.95

ISBN 9780674238268

Publication Date: 11/19/2019

Text

704 pages

6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches

22 illus.

Belknap Press

World

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  • List of Figures*
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • I. Dignity
    • 1. Vile Bodies and Naked Dignity
      • 1. The Honored Dead
      • 2. Missing Persons
      • 3. Kant’s Dignity and Pico’s Dignitas
      • 4. Manetti’s Dignitas 1
      • 5. Cicero’s Dignitas
      • 6. Christian Dignitas
      • 7. Manetti’s Dignitas 2
      • 8. Manetti’s Dignitas 3
      • 9. Beyond Freedom and Dignity?
  • II. Stories about Pico
    • 2. Pico Dignified
      • 1. Swiss Facts about Italy
      • 2. Exalted Premonitions
    • 3. Pico Resurgent
      • 1. Yorick, Papini, and Pico
      • 2. Oreglia and the Blood Libel
      • 3. Festivities in Mirandola
      • 4. Gentile’s Pico
      • 5. Garin’s Pico
      • 6. Gentile’s Pico Again
      • 7. Anagnine’s Pico
      • 8. Papini’s Kingdom
    • 4. Pico Existentialist or Actualist?
      • 1. Gentile Dead or Alive?
      • 2. Actualism and Autoctisis
      • 3. Existentialism and Modernism
      • 4. Against ‘Humanism’
    • 5. Pico Sainted
      • 1. Practicing Death
      • 2. Two Epistolaries and a Hagiography
      • 3. Reading for a Nun
      • 4. Ficino’s Letters
      • 5. Savonarola
      • 6. First Letters from Pico
      • 7. More Letters from Pico
      • 8. Last Letters from Pico
      • 9. Pico Boxes
    • 6. Pico Raving
      • 1. Scholars and Syncretists
      • 2. Judaizers and Stargazers
      • 3. Schwärmer and Wound-Worms
    • 7. Liberty, Enthusiasms, and Grace
      • 1. Se vuol ballare Signor Contino…
      • 2. Philosophy Dying
      • 3. The Soul Has Wings
    • 8. Pico Reviled and Redeemed
      • 1. Pico with Dignity?
      • 2. Pico for Philosophers and Theologians
    • 9. Pippa Passes Pico
      • 1. English Enthusiasms
      • 2. The Italy of Savonarola Brown
      • 3. Pictures of Pico
    • 10. Pico across the Seas and Back
      • 1. Pico Our Paladin
      • 2. A Textbook Case
      • 3. A Hermetic Pico
      • 4. Festivities Again in Mirandola
  • III. Pico’s Oration
    • 11. Pico Orates
      • 1. Secrets and Codes
      • 2. Abulafia’s Ladder
      • 3. Counting on Flavius
      • 4. Oration I, 1–10
      • 5. Oration II, 11–15
    • 12. Pico Consults and Disputes
      • 1. Oration III, 16–19
      • 2. Oration III, 20–25
      • 3. Oration III, 26–32
      • 4. Oration III, 33–35
      • 5. Oration IV, 36–45
      • 6. Oration IV, 46–55
    • 13. Pico Defends Magic and Kabbalah
      • 1. Oration V, 56–62
      • 2. Oration VI, 63–68
      • 3. Oration VII, 69–72
  • Conclusion: Real Picos and Why They Matter
  • Appendix A. Pico’s Oration
  • Appendix B. Contents of Pico’s 900 Conclusions
  • Appendix C. Selections from Pico’s 900 Conclusions
  • Appendix D. Glossary
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Illustration Credits
  • Index
  • * Figures
    • 1. “Dance of Death,” Nuremberg Chronicles, 1493
    • 2. The Creation of Adam, Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo, 1508–1512
    • 3. David, bronze by Donatello, Bargello, mid-fifteenth century
    • 4. The Trent blood libel, Nuremberg Chronicles, 1493
    • 5. The Bari Prefettura’s stamp on Anagnine’s book, 1937
    • 6. “The Torments of Hell,” Seelenwurzgarten, 1483
    • 7. “Death Takes a Nun,” Hans Holbein the Younger, 1538
    • 8. “Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism,” Hogarth, 1762, detail
    • 9. “Savonarola Brown,” Max Beerbohm, 1919
    • 10. Lorenzo and Isabella, John Millais, 1849
    • 11. “A Supper in the Rucellai Gardens,” Frederic Leighton, 1862
    • 12. Miracle of the Sacrament, Cosimo Rosselli, 1484–1486
    • 13. Miracle of the Sacrament, Rosselli, detail
    • 14. Medal picturing Pico, attributed to Niccolò Fiorentino, before 1490
    • 15. Three Portraits of Pico
    • 16. The Childhood of Pico della Mirandola, Paul Delaroche, 1842
    • 17. Ten Sefirot in the usual array
    • 18. “Chameleon,” Alciato, Emblems, 1534
    • 19. Abraham travels south
    • 20. Ethiopic characters in a manuscript of the Oration, before 1494
    • 21. Three Trinities in the Sefirot
    • 22. Pico de Paperis Reads a Family Chronicle

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