Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

“The cherub glows with the splendor of intelligence. The seraph burns with the fire of love. The throne stands by the steadfastness of judgment.” These are the things that people are supposed to immolate according to Pico. He believes that people should study and ponder life and their surroundings to reach the cherub’s level of thinking. He thinks that people should strive for the love of God to reach the seraphic level of passion for God. The thrones were those who sat close to God and were the judges. It is Pico’s belief that we should study and go back to the teaching of the ancient fathers to see how each of these types of categories responded to life. To strive to be equal to each of these types of heavenly beings the human beings will climb the ladder to a more successful, holy lifestyle. All of these things are the important qualifications to ascend to the heavens. By taking action to be more like the Cherub, Seraph and the Throne then it is a preventative action to falling down the ascent to heaven and becoming a brute.

How this connects to the Renaissance: he is a firm believer in the will power and the betterment of man. He thinks that man has the capability to reach the heavenly beings but they also have the ability to fall from grace and level themselves with the worms. It is a Renaissance ideal because he is not denying the existence of God but more supporting the creation of mankind. He obviously believes in education because he thinks that philosophers, like himself, are the humans that are closest to being heavenly beings. He thought that by studying philosophy it was possible to climb the ladder to reach the glory that the angels have. This would represent the subcategories of the Humanistic connection to the Renaissance. I think he also shows a bit of the virtuosity that is found in the Individualism category from the Renaissance. Since he listed philosophers as the closest to heaven he has high aspirations in the importance of his profession. It also evokes the idea of Secularism. Despite the fact that this has to do with God and how he gave humans the abilities to become heavenly beings; Pico states that it is up to the person themselves to climb the ladder and achieve that status. There is still the vertical ascent towards heaven instead of the horizontal embrace of the material world, but there is no interference from God and the humans are able to have choice and free-will. I am not sure it this shows historical-self-consciousness. I did not see any example of that; but it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I think that because Pico had such high hopes and trust in human kind there is a little window for the belief that he is living in a significantly important time.