THOMAS MORE et al.
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THE LIFE OF PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA
HERE IS CONTAINED THE LIFE OF GIOVANNI PICO EARL OF MIRANDOLA
A GREAT LORD OF ITALY AN EXCELLENT CUNNING MAN IN ALL
SCIENCES & VIRTUOUS OF LIVING. WITH DIVERS EPISTLES & OTHER
WORKS OF THE SAID GIOVANNI PICO FULL OF GREAT SCIENCE VIRTUE
& WISDOM WHOSE LIFE & WORKS BE WORTHY & DIGNE TO BE READ
AND OFTEN TO BE HAD IN MEMORY.
PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA
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Dedication
UNTO HIS RIGHT ENTIRELY BELOVED SISTER IN CHRIST JOYCE LEIGH[1]
THOMAS MORE GREETING IN OUR LORD.
IT is and of long time hath been my well-beloved sister a custom
in the beginning of the new year friends to send between presents
or gifts, as the witnesses of their love and friendship & also
signifying that they desire each to other that year a good
continuance and prosperous end of that lucky beginning. But
commonly also those presents that are used customably all in this
manner between friends to be sent be such things as pertain only
unto the body either to be fed or to be clad or some otherwise delighted: by which it
seemeth that their friendship is but fleshly & stretcheth in manner to the body only.
But forasmuch as the love & amity of Christian folk should be rather ghostly
friendship than bodily: sith that all faithful people are rather spiritual then carnal: for
as the apostle saith we be not now in flesh but in spirit if Christ abide in us: I therefore
mine heartily beloved sister in good luck of this new year have sent you such a
present as may bear witness of my tender love & zeal to the happy continuance and
gracious increase of virtue in your soul: and whereas the gifts of other folk declare
that they wish their friends to be worldly fortunate, mine testifieth that I desire to have
you godly prosperous. These works more profitable than large were made in Latin by
one Giovanni Pico Earl of Mirandola a lordship in Italy, of whose cunning & virtue
we need here nothing to speak, forasmuch as hereafter we peruse the source of his
whole life rather after our little power slenderly than after his merits sufficiently. The
works are such that truly good sister I suppose of the quantity there cometh none in
your hand more profitable: neither to th'achieving of temperance in prosperity, nor to
the purchasing of patience in adversity, nor to the despising of worldly vanity, nor to
the desiring of heavenly felicity: which works I would require you gladly to receive:
ne were it that they be such that for the goodly matter (howsoever they be translated)
may delight & please any person that hath any mean desire and love to God: and that
yourself is such one as for your virtue and fervent zeal to God can not but joyously
receive any thing that meanely soundeth either to the reproach of vice, commendation
of virtue, or honour and laud of God, who preserve you.
THOMAS MORE et al.
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THE LIFE OF GIOVANNI PICO, EARL OF
MIRANDOLA.
Giovanni Pico of the father's[2] side descended of the worthy
lineage of th'emperor Constantine by a nephew of the said
Emperor called Pico, by whom all the ancestors of this Giovanni
Pico undoubtedly bear that name. But we shall let his ancestors
pass, to whom (though they were right excellent) he gave again
as much honour as he received. And we shall speak of himself
rehearsing in part his learning and his virtue. For these be the
things which may account for our own, of which every man is more properly to be
commended than of the nobleness of his ancestors: whose honour maketh us not
honourable. For either they were themselves virtuous or not: if not, then had they
none honour themselves had they never so great possessions: for honour is the reward
of virtue. And how may they claim the reward that properly belongeth to virtue: if
they lack the virtue that the reward belongeth to. Then if themselves had none honour:
how might they leave to their heirs that thing which they had not themselves. On the
other side if they be virtuous and so consequently honourable, yet may they not leave
their honour to us as inheritance: no more than the virtue that themselves were
honourable for. For never the more noble be we for their nobleness: if our self lack
those things for which they were noble. But rather the more worshipful that our
ancestors were, the more vile and shameful be we: if we decline from the steps of
their worshipful living: the clear beauty of whose virtue maketh the dark spot of our
vice the more evidently to appear and to be the more marked. But Pico of whom we
speak was himself so honourable, for the great plenteous abundance of all such
virtues, the possession whereof very honour followeth (as a shadow followeth a body)
that he was to all them that aspire to honour a very spectacle, in whose conditions as
in a clear polished mirror they might behold in what points very honour standeth:
whose marvellous cunning & excellent virtue though my rude learning be far unable
sufficiently to express: yet forasmuch as if no man should do it but he it might
sufficiently do it, no man should do it: & better it were to be unsufficiently done than
utterly undone: I shall therefore as I can briefly rehearse you his whole life: at the
least wise to give some other man here after (that can do it better) occasion to take it
in hand when it shall haply grieve him to see the life of such an excellent cunning man
so far uncunningly written.
OF HIS PARENTS AND TIME OF HIS BIRTH.
In the year of our Lord God M.CCCC.lxiii Pius the second being then the
general vicar of Christ in his church: and Frederick the third of the name ruling the
empire: this noble man was borne the last child of his mother Julia, a woman come of