A. Primary Literature

In 1496, the Pico of the Commentationes (5) was his nephew’s creation. Now, more than five centuries later, Pico on the internet—even farther from his time and place—is an artifact of the last century’s scholarship, whose even older philosophical attitudes were shaped by Kant and Hegel. The Commentationes, edited posthumously by Gianfrancesco Pico, was the first printed collection of works by his uncle. Another early collection is (6)—often cited but not reliable. There is no complete modern set of vernacular translations based on trustworthy Latin texts.

The I Tatti Renaissance Library (ITRL), edited by James Hankins for Harvard University Press, has begun filling this gap with the Oration (39) in an English translation of a Latin text indebted to Bausi’s Italian edition (27). While Pico lived the speech was never printed. The first translation (7)—into German—waited until 1905. Italian versions [(8), (9)] followed during the Fascist period, and then another one (22) in 1995 under Silvio Berlusconi’s imprint. Modern versions in other languages are (14), (31), and (34). But (11), an Oration translated by Elizabeth Forbes, has been Pico’s main vehicle in English. Introduced by Kristeller, this version has been in print for 76 years, a best seller in the North American textbook market after Burckhardt, Cassirer, and Giovanni Gentile had made the prince’s speech famous.

The first book that Pico had printed was his 900 Conclusions, forthcoming in an ITRL edition (40); see other texts and translations in (20), (25), (26), (35), (36), and (38). Fornaciari’s Italian version (32) of Pico’s Apology (3)—which defended the condemned Conclusions—includes a Latin text. Along with the Oration, (14) provides English translations of De ente et uno and the Heptaplus, whose first edition was (4); see (15) for another English Heptaplus. Pico never finished De ente et uno or had it printed: Gianfrancesco published the Latin text in (5); Toussaint’s edition (21) provides a French translation; the translation by Bacchelli and Ebgi (33) is Italian. Eugenio Garin edited the large, unfinished and unpublished Disputations (12): better understanding of this consequential but bulky and difficult work awaits an improved edition and a vernacular translation.

For the smaller Commento—a favorite today left unfinished by the author and unpublished—see (16), (17), (18), and (28). The Latin text of Pico’s early letter in defense of philosophical terminology is in (37): see (13) for an English rendering. Minor works unpublished in his lifetime are (19) and (24). The Latin text and an English translation of Gianfrancesco’s Life is in (39) and in (23), which also contains prayers and religious remarks by Giovanni.

1. Conclusiones dcccc publice disputandae, Rome: Eucharius Silber, 1486.
2. Conclusiones dcccc publice disputandae, Ingolstadt: Printer of Lescherius, Rhetorica (Bartholomaeus Golsch?), c. 1487.
3. Apologia conclusionum suorum, Naples: Francesco del Tuppo, 1487.
4. Heptaplus Iohannis Pici Mirandulae de septiformi sex dierum Geneseos enarratione ad Laurentium Medicem, Florence: Bartolomeo de’ Libri, c. 1489.
5. Commentationes Ioannis Pici Mirandulae in hoc volumine contenta, quibus anteponitur vita per Iohannem Franciscum illustris principis Galeotti Pici filium conscripta…, Bologna: Benedictus Hectoris, 1496.
6. Opera omnia, reprint of the Basel 1557 edition, Hildesheim: Olms, 1969.
7. Ausgewählte Schriften, Arthur Liebert (trans.), Jena: Diederichs, 1905.
8. La Filosofia di Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni Semprini (trans.), Milan: Libreria Lombarda, 1936.
9. Dignità dell’uomo [De hominis dignitate], Bruno Cicognani (trans.), Florence: LeMonnier, 1943.
10. De hominis dignitate, Heptaplus, De ente et uno e scritti vari (Edizione nazionale dei classici del pensiero italiano, 1), Eugenio Garin (ed.), Florence: Vallechi, 1942.
11. “Oration on the Dignity of Man”, Elizabeth Livermore Forbes (trans.), in The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, Ernst Cassirer, Paul Kristeller and John Randall (eds), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948.
12. Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem, Eugenio Garin (ed.), Florence: Vallechi, 1946, 1952.
13. [Letter to Barbaro] in “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola on the Conflict of Philosophy and Rhetoric” by Quirinus Breen, Journal of the History of Ideas, 13(3): 384–412 (pages 394–402 for the letter itself). doi:10.2307/2707604
14. On the Dignity of Man; On Being and the One; Heptaplus, Charles Glenn Wallis, Paul J. W. Miller, and Douglas Carmichael, Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965.
15. Heptaplus: or, Discourse on the Seven Days of Creation, Jessie Brewe McGaw (trans.), New York: Philosophical Library, 1977.
16. Commentary on a canzone of Benivieni, Sears Jayne (trans.), New York: Lang, 1984.
17. Commentary on a Poem of Platonic Love, Douglas Carmichael (trans.), Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986.
18. Commento (in French, Collection Contemplation), Stéphane Toussaint (ed./trans.), Lausanne: L’Age de l’Homme, 1989.
19. Sonetti (Collezione di poesia, 243), Giorgio Dilemmi (ed.), Torino: Einaudi, 1994.
20. Conclusiones nongentae: Le novecento tesi dell’anno 1486, Albano Biondi (ed./trans. [to Italian]), Florence, Olschki, 1995.
21. L’Esprit du Quattrocento: Pic de la Mirandole: le De ente et uno et réponses à Antonio Cittadini, Stéphane Toussaint (ed./trans.), Paris: Champion, 1995.
22. De hominis dignitate: La dignità dell’uomo, Carlo Carena (trans.), Milan: Silvio Berlusconi Editore, 1995.
23. Pico della Mirandola, Gianfrancesco, “Life of Pico”, Thomas More (trans.) c. 1510, in English Poems, Life of Pico, The Last Thing (The Yale Edition of The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, volume 1), Anthony S. G. Edwards, Clarence H. Miller, and Katherine Gardiner Rodgers (eds/trans), New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997.
24. Expositiones in Psalmos, Antonino Raspanti (ed.), Giacomo Raspanti (ed./trans.), Florence: Olschki, 1997.
25. Syncretism in the West: Pico’s 900 Theses (1486): The Evolution of Traditional Religious and Philosophical Systems (Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 167), Stephen Farmer (ed./trans.), Tempe: MRTS, 1998.
26. 900 Conclusions philosophiques, cabalistiques e théologiques, Bertrand Schefer (ed./trans.) , Paris: Allia, 1999.
27. Discorso sulla dignità dell’uomo, Francesco Bausi (ed./trans.), Parma: Fondazione Pietro Bembo, 2003.
28. Kommentar zu einem Lied der Liebe, italienisch-deutsch, Thorsten Bürklin (ed./trans.). Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2001.
29. Oeuvres philosophiques: Texte Latin, traduction et notes, Olivier Boulnois and Giuseppe Tognon (eds/trans), 3^rd ed., Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1993.
30. Über das Seiende und das Eine: De ente et uno, Richard Blum et al. (eds/trans), Hamburg: Meiner, 2006.
31. De la dignité de l’homme (Oratio de hominis dignitate), Yyes Hersant (ed./trans.), 5^th ed., Paris: Éditions de l’Éclat, 2008.
32. Apologia: L’Autodifesa di Pico di fronte al Tribunale dell’Inquisizione, Paolo Fornaciari (ed./trans.), Florence: Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2010.
33. Dell’ente et uno con le obiezioni di Antonio Cittadini e le risposte di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Francesco Bacchelli and Raphael Ebgi (eds/trans), Milan: Bompiani, 2010.
34. Oration on the Dignity of Man: A New Translation and Commentary, Francesco Borghesi, Michael Papio, and Massimo Riva (eds/trans), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139059565
35. Der Mensch: eine geisteswissenschaftliche Zusammenschau. Die 900 Thesen Giovanni Pico della Mirandolas in ihrem Kontext lateinisch-deutsche Ausgabe, Christian Albrecht May (ed./trans.), Hamburg: tredition, 2017.
36. Les 900 conclusions, Delphine Viellard (ed./trans.), Paris: Les Belles Lettres. 2017.
37. Lettere: Edizione critica, Francesco Borghesi (ed.), Florence: Olschki, 2018.
38. Neunhundert Thesen, Nikolaus Egel (ed./trans.), Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2018.
39. Pico della Mirandola, Gianfrancesco, Life of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (I Tatti Renaissance Library 93), includes Giovanni Pico, Oration, edited and translated by Brian Copenhaver with Michael Allen, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2022. Latin and English.
40. 900 Conclusions (I Tatti Renaissance Library 100), Brian Copenhaver (ed./trans.), Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, forthcoming (planned 2025).

Other Primary Literature

• Manetti, Giannozzo, c. 1450, De dignitate et excellentia hominis. Translated as On Human Worth and Excellence (I Tatti Renaissance Library 85), Brian Copenhaver (ed./trans.), Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2018. (Scholar)
• Biblia latina cum glossa ordinaria, ed. M. Morard, based on the edition of Adolf Rusch and Antonio Koberger, Strasbourg, 1480.

B. Bibliographies

The bibliography of primary and secondary literature by Quaquarelli and Zanardi lists more than 700 studies after 1899 but only 160 for the preceding century, when even Italian scholars came late to the prince and not in large numbers:

• Quaquarelli, Leonardo and Zita Zanardi, 2005, Pichiana: Bibliografia delle edizioni e degli studi (Studi pichiani 10), Florence: Olschki. (Scholar)

See the additions in:

• Quaquarelli, Leonardo and Michael Dougherty, 2007, Pichiana: Bibliografia del xix e xx secolo, Florence: Olschki. (Scholar)

C. Secondary Literature

For more recent items (and a few less recent) not mentioned in Quaquarelli and Zanardi, see the list that follows, also the on-line bibliography compiled and maintained by Michael Dougherty at https://www.mvdougherty.com/pico.htm.

• Bacchelli, Franco, 2015, “Giovanni Pico, conte della Mirandola e Concordia”. Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 83. [Bacchelli 2015 available online] (Scholar)
• Bianchi, Luca, 2007, “Pierre Garsias, adversaire de Jean Pic de la Mirandole, entre nominalisme et ‘via communis’”, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge, 74: 85–108. doi:10.3917/ahdlm.074.0085 (Scholar)
• Black, Crofton, 2006, Pico’s Heptaplus and Biblical Hermeneutics (Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions 116), Leiden/Boston: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789047410645 (Scholar)
• Blum, Paul Richard, 2002, “Eintracht und Religion bei Giovanni Pico della Mirandola”, in Suche nach Frieden: Politische Ethik in der frühen Neuzeit, Bd 2 (Theologie und Frieden 20), Norbert Brieskorn and Markus Riedenauer (eds), Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 29–46. (Scholar)
• Busi, Giulio, 2006, “Who Does Not Wonder at This Chameleon? The Kabbalistic Library of Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola”, in Hebrew to Latin, Latin to Hebrew: The Mirroring of Two Cultures in the Age of Humanism: Colloqium Held at the Warburg Institute, London, October 18–19, 2004 (Berlin Studies in Judaism 1), Giulio Busi (ed.), Torino: Nino Aragno, 167–196. (Scholar)
• Busi, Giulio and Raphael Ebgi (eds), 2014, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Mito, Magia, Qabbalah (I millenni), Torino: Giulio Einaudi editore. (Scholar)
• Campanini, Saverio, 2008, “Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada (alias Flavio Mitridate), tradutorre di opere cabbalistiche”, in Perani and Pepi 2008: 49–88. (Scholar)
• –––, 2012, “El’azar da Worms nelle traduzioni di Flavio Mitridate per Pico della Mirandola”, in Perani and Corazzol 2012: 47–79. (Scholar)
• –––, 2021, “Receptum est in recipiente per modum recipientis: Traces of the Liber de causis in Early Kabbalah”, in Reading Proclus and the “Book of Causes”, Volume 2 (Studies in Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Platonic tradition 26), Dragos Calma (ed.), Leiden/Boston: Brill, 455–479. doi:10.1163/9789004440685_020 (Scholar)
• Caroti, Stefano, 2005, “Note sulle fonti medievali di Pico della Mirandola”, Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana, (Series 7) 84: 60–92. (Scholar)
• Copenhaver, Brian P., 1999, “Number, Shape, and Meaning in Pico’s Christian Cabala: The Upright Tsade, The Closed Mem, and the Gaping Jaws of Azazel”, in Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe (Dibner Institute Studies in the History of Science and Technology), Anthony Grafton and Nancy G. Siraisi (eds), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 25–76 (ch. 1). (Scholar)
• –––, 2015a, Magic in Western Culture: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment, New York: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9781107707450 (Scholar)
• –––, 2015b, The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment, London: Penguin. (Scholar)
• –––, 2019, Magic and the Dignity of Man: Pico della Mirandola and his Oration in Modern Memory, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/9780674242173 (Scholar)
• –––, 2022, Pico della Mirandola on Trial: Heresy, Freedom, and Philosophy, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780192858375.001.0001 (Scholar)
• –––, 2023, “Pico’s Conclusions: Setting, Structure, Text, Sources and Aims”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 86: 57–107. doi:10.1086/725098 (Scholar)
• –––, 2024, “From 737 Conclusions by Jean Cabrol to Giovanni Pico’s 900 Conclusions”, Mediterranea.: International Journal on the Transfer of Knowledge, 9: 53–105. doi:10.21071/mijtk.v9i.16396 (Scholar)
• Copenhaver, Brian and Daniel Stein Kokin, 2014, “Egidio da Viterbo’s Book on Hebrew Letters: Christian Kabbalah in Papal Rome”, Renaissance Quarterly, 67(1): 1–42. doi:10.1086/676151 (Scholar)
• Corazzol, Giacomo, 2013, “Le fonti ‘caldaiche’ dell’Oratio: indagine sui presupposti cabbalistici della concezione pichiana dell’uomo”, Accademia. Revue de la Société Marsile Ficin, 15: 9–62. (Scholar)
• Dietz, Luc, 2005, “De omni re scibili—et de quibusdam aliis: A New Attempt at Understanding Pico’s 900 Theses”, Neulateinisches Jahrbuch: Journal of Neo-Latin Language and Literature, 7: 295–301. (Scholar)
• Dougherty, M. V. (ed.), 2008, Pico della Mirandola: New Essays, Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Includes contributions by Michael Allen, Richard Blum, Francesco Borghesi, Michael Dougherty, Jill Kraye, Sheila Rabin, Carl Still and Michael Sudduth. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511619274 (Scholar)
• Ebgi, Raphael, 2024, Sette: Le avventure di un simbolo, Bolgna: Il Mulino. (Scholar)
• Edelheit, Amos, 2007, “The Scholastic Theology of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Between Biblical Faith and Academic Scepticism”, Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales, 74: 523–570. (Scholar)
• –––, 2008, Ficino, Pico and Savonarola: The Evolution of Humanist Theology 1461/2–1498 (The Medieval Mediterranean, 78), Leiden/Boston: Brill. doi:10.1163/ej.9789004166677.i-503 (Scholar)
• –––, 2010, “Henry of Ghent and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: A Chapter on the Reception and Influence of Scholasticism in the Renaissance”, in A Companion to Henry of Ghent, Gordon A. Wilson (ed.), Leiden/Boston: Brill, 369–397 (ch. 14). (Scholar)
• –––, 2022, A Philosopher at the Crossroads: Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola’s Encounter with Scholastic Philosophy (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 338), Leiden/Boston: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004509467 (Scholar)
• Engel, Michael, 2016, Elijah del Medigo and Paduan Aristotelianism: Investigating the Human Intellect (Bloomsbury Studies in the Aristotelian Tradition), London/New York: Bloomsbury Academic. (Scholar)
• Fellina, Sebastiano, 2017, “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola e l’insegnamento averroistico di Elia del Medigo: Note su alcune fonti delle Conclusiones nongentae (1486)”, Schifanoia, 52/53: 117–144. doi:10.19272/201710802011 (Scholar)
• Garin, Eugenio, 1937, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Vita e dottrina, Firenze: Le Monnier. (Scholar)
• Idel, Moshe, 2007, La Cabbalà in Italia: 1280–1510, Fabrizio Lelli (trans.), Firenze: Giuntina. (Scholar)
• Lelli, Fabrizio (ed.), 2014, Giovanni Pico e la cabbalà (Studi pichiani 16), Firenze: Leo S. Olschki. (Scholar)
• Licata, Giovanni, 2013, “Elia del Medigo sul problema della causalità divina. Un’edizione critica della Quaestio de efficientia mundi, (1480)”, Mediaeval Sophia: Studi e ricerche sui saperi medievali, 14: 59–81. (Scholar)
• –––, 2014, “An Unpublished Letter of Elijah del Medigo to Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: De nervis et sensu tactus”, Rinascimento, 54: 175–183. (Scholar)
• –––, 2017, “‘Magno in secta peripatetica’: Una nuova edizione commentata della lettera di Elia del Medigo a Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (Paris, BnF, ms. lat. 6508)”, Schede Medievali, 55: 103–143. (Scholar)
• Murano, Giovanna, 2022, La Biblioteca arabo-ebraica di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (Studi e testi 550), Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. (Scholar)
• Panizza, Letizia, 1999, “Pico della Mirandola e il De Genere Dicendi Philosophorum del 1485: L’encomio paradossale dei ‘Barbari’ e la loro parodia”, I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, 8: 69–103. doi:10.2307/4603712 (Scholar)
• Perani, Mauro and Luciana Pepi (eds), 2008, Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada alias Flavio Mitridate: un ebreo converso siciliano (atti del convegno internazionale, Caltabellotta (Agrigento), 23–24 ottobre 2004) (Machina philosophorum 13), Palermo: Officina di studi medievali.
• Perani, Mauro and Giacomo Corazzol (eds), 2012, Flavio Mitridate mediatore fra culture nel contesto dell’ebraismo siciliano del XV secolo (atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Caltabellotta, 30 giugno–1 luglio 2008) (Machina philosophorum 35), Palermo: Officina di studi medievali.
• Pignandi, Sante, 1964, “Pico della Mirandola e Pascal”, Studia Patavina, 11: 201–235. (Scholar)
• Toussaint, Stéphane, 2014a, “Jamblique, Pic, Ficin et Mithridates Platonicus”, Accademia. Revue de la Société Marsile Ficin, 16: 79–110. (Scholar)
• –––, 2014b, “Pic, Hiéroclès et Pythagore: La conclusion kabbalistque 56 selon l’opinion personelle de Pic de la Mirandole”, Accademia. Revue de la Société Marsile Ficin, 16: 111–120. (Scholar)