Disciple of Marsilio Ficino, he made a synthesis that became into the fundamental
base in the hermetic current. He acchieves the combination of the cabala
with the Gnostic-Hermetic-neoplatonic tradition.
After being exiled by the papacy and to take refuge in France, he resides
in Florence (of which academy is a master). He exalts the values of the
man, to whom he considers the maximum reality of the nature and reflection
of the existent harmony of the universe. He affirms that the human being
has been created to dominate the world, and that he has enough genius and
strong to do it. In “De Ente el Uno”, where he systematizes
the synthesis of platonic and aristotelian thesis, he proposes a natural
religion close to the pantheism. He probably is the first to use the word “humanists” to
define the new concept that the renascent culture represents.
With the contribution of his work, as well as the work of his master, a
re-discovery of the classic spirituality can be achieved, as a valid alternative
to the christianity. The moral authority of the church is challenged and
the ecclesiastic dogmas are beginning to be consider as obsolete. The humanist
gives the man a new thinking dimension, the nature is elevated and the
christianity acquires a new perspective and an undeniable lost in its absolute
postulates.
Pico found in the cabala as well as in the hermetic-neoplatonic tradition
the technique to abandon the body in meditative trances, in which the soul
explored more elevated kingdoms and ascended in its essence to the divine.
The adaptation of the cabala to the christianity by Pico was later developed
by JOHANNES REUCHLIN (1455 – 1522), who related the cabala to the
Pythagorean numerology. In the same manner, Reuchlin influenced two other
great men of his time: Trithemius and Agrippa. |