Pico della Mirandola
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) was a brilliant young nobleman from Mirandola near Ferrara. He attended the University of Ferrara and then went to Florence where he entered the circle of the Medici and lived in the Palazzo Medici for some years. While there he was a friend of two future Medici popes, Giovanni de' Medici (Leo X) and Giulio de' Medici (Clement VII) and the young Michelangelo. Among his many writings his most admired is his Oration on the Dignity of Man which is often called the "Manifesto of the Renaissance" with its celebration of the beauty and dignity of the human being (think of Michelangelo's David). The Oration seems a total reversal of the Medieval vision in which the human being and the human world is irrevocably damaged by sin.
