PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA
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a noble stock,[3] his father hight Giovanni Francesco, a lord of great honour and
authority.
OF THE WONDER THAT APPEARED BEFORE HIS BIRTH.
A marvellous sight was there seen before his birth: there appeared a fiery
garland standing over the chamber of his mother while she travailed & suddenly
vanished away: which appearance was peradventure a token that he which should that
hour in the company of mortal men be born in the perfection of understanding should
be like the perfect figure of that round circle or garland: and that his excellent name
should round about the circle of this whole world be magnified, whose mind should
alway as the fire aspire upward to heavenly things, and whose fiery eloquence should
with an ardent heart in time to come worship and praise almighty God with all his
strength: and as that flame suddenly vanished so should this fire soon from the eyes of
mortal people be hid. We have oftentimes read that such unknown and strange tokens
hath gone before or followeth the nativities of excellent wise and virtuous men,
departing (as it were) and by God's commandment severing the cradles of such special
children from the company of other of the common sort: and showing that they be
born to the achieving of some great thing. But to pass over other. The great Saint
Ambrose: a swarm of bees flew about his mouth in his cradle, & some entered into his
mouth, and after that issuing out again and flying up on high, hiding themselves
among the clouds, escaped both the sight of his father and of all them that were
present: which prognostication one Paulinus[4] making much of, expounded it to
signify to us the sweet honeycombs of his pleasant writing: which should show out
the celestial gifts of God & should lift up the mind of men from earth into heaven.
OF HIS PERSON.
He was of feature and shape seemly and beauteous, of stature goodly and high,
of flesh tender and soft: his visage lovely and fair, his colour white intermingled with
comely ruddies, his eyes grey and quick of look, his teeth white and even, his hair
yellow and not to piked.[5]
OF HIS SETTING FORTH TO SCHOOL AND STUDY IN HUMANITY.
Under the rule and governance of his mother he was set to masters & to
learning: where with so ardent mind he laboured the studies of humanity: that within
short while he was (and not without a cause) accounted among the chief Orators and
Poets of that time: in learning marvellously swift and of so ready a wit, that the verses
which he heard once read he would again both forward and backward to the great
wonder of the hearers rehearse, and over that would hold it in sure remembrance:
which in other folks wont commonly to happen contrary. For they that are swift in
taking be oftentimes slow in remembering, and they that with more labour &
difficulty receive it more fast & surely hold it.
OF HIS STUDY IN CANON.
THOMAS MORE et al.
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OF HIS STUDY IN PHILOSOPHY & DIVINITY.
After this as a desirous ensearcher of the secrets of nature he left these
common trodden paths and gave himself whole to speculation & philosophy as well
human as divine. For the purchasing whereof (after the manner of Plato and
Appollonius)[6] he scrupulously sought out all the famous doctors of his time, visiting
studiously all the universities and schools not only through Italy but also through
France. And so indefatigable labour gave he to those studies: that yet a child and
beardless he was both reputed and was in deed both a perfect philosopher and a
perfect divine.
OF HIS MIND AND VAINGLORIOUS DISPICIONS OF ROME.
Now had he been vii. year conversant in these studies when full of pride &
desirous of glory and man's praise (for yet was he not kindled in the love of God) he
went to Rome, and there (coveting to make a show of his cunning: & little considering
how great envy he should raise against himself) ix. C. questions he proposed, of
divers & sundry matters: as well in logic and philosophy as divinity with great study
picked and sought out as well of the Latin authors as the Greeks: and partly set out of
the secret mysteries of the Hebrews, Chaldees, & Arabies: and many things drawn out
of the old obscure philosophy of Pythagoras, Trimegistus, and Orpheus,[7] & many
other things strange: and to all folk (except right few special excellent men) before
that day: not unknown only: but also unheard of. All which questions in open places
(that they might be to all people the better known) he fastened and set up, offering
also himself to bear the costs of all such as would come hither out of far countries to
dispute, but through the envy of his malicious enemies (which envy like the fire ever
draweth to the highest) he could never bring about to have a day to his dispicions
appointed. For this cause he tarried at Rome an whole year, in all which time his
enviers never durst openly with open dispicions attempt him, but rather with craft and
sleight and as it were with privy trenches enforced to undermine him, for none other
cause but for malice and for they were (as many men thought) corrupt with a pestilent
envy.
This envy as men deemed was specially raised against him for this cause that
where there were many which had many years: some for glory: some for covetise:
given themselves to learning: they thought that it should haply deface their fame &
minish th'opinion of their cunning if so young a man plenteous of substance & great
doctrine durst in the chief city of the world make a proof of his wit and his learning:
as well in things natural as in divinity & in many such things as men many years
never attained to. Now when they perceived that they could not against his cunning
any thing openly prevail, they brought forth the serpentines of false crime, and cried
out that there were xiij. of his ix. C. questions suspect of heresy. Then joined they to
them some good simple folk that should of zeal to the faith and pretence of religion
impugn those questions as new things & with which their ears had not be in ure. In
which impugnation though some of them haply lacked not good mind: yet lacked they
erudition and learning: which questions notwithstanding before that not a few famous
doctors of divinity had approved as good and clean, and subscribed their names under
them. But he not bearing the loss of his fame made a defence for those xiij. questions:
a work of great erudition and elegant and stuffed with the cognition of many things
worthy to be learned. Which work he compiled in xx nights. In which it evidently
appeareth: not only that those conclusions were good and standing with the faith: but