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della Mirandola (PEE-koh DELL-uh mee-RAN-doh-lah) (1463–1494). Pico produced one of the most famous pieces of writing of the Renaissance, the Oration on the Dignity of Man. Pico combed diligently through the works of many philosophers of different backgrounds for the common “nuggets of universal truth” that he believed were all part of God’s revelation to humanity. In the Oration , Pico offered a ringing statement of unlimited human potential: “To him it is granted to have whatever he chooses, to be whatever he wills.”15 Like Ficino, Pico took an avid interest in Hermetic philosophy, accepting it as the “science of the Divine,” which “embraces the deepest contemplation of the most secret things, and at last the knowledge of all nature.”16

Education in the Renaissance

The humanist movement had a profound effect on education. Renaissance humanists believed that human beings could be dramatically changed by education. They wrote books on education and developed secondary schools based on their ideas. Most famous was the school founded in 1423 by Vittorino da Feltre at Mantua, where the ruler of that small Italian state, Gian Francesco I Gonzaga, wished to provide a humanist education for his children. Vittorino based much of his educational system on the ideas of Classical authors, particularly Cicero and Quintilian.

At the core of the academic training Vittorino offered were the “liberal studies.” The Renaissance view of the value of the liberal arts was most strongly influenced by a treatise on education called Concerning Character by Pietro Paolo Vergerio (PYAY-troh POW-loh vur-JEER-eeoh) (1370–1444). This work stressed the importance of liberal studies as the key to true freedom, enabling individuals to reach their full potential. According to Vergerio, “We call those studies liberal which are worthy of a freeman; those studies by which we attain and practice virtue and wisdom; that education which calls forth, trains, and develops those highest gifts of body and mind which ennoble men.”17 The liberal studies included history, moral philosophy, eloquence (rhetoric), letters (grammar and logic), poetry, mathematics, astronomy, and music. The purpose of a liberal education was thus to produce individuals who followed a path of virtue and wisdom and possessed the rhetorical skills with which to persuade others to do the same. Following the Greek precept of a sound mind in a sound body, Vittorino’s school at Mantua also stressed physical education. Pupils were taught the skills of javelin throwing, archery, and dancing and encouraged to run, wrestle, hunt, and swim.

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Pico della Mirandola and the Dignity of Man

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was one of the foremost intellects of the Italian Renaissance. Pico boasted that he had studied all schools of philosophy, which he tried to demonstrate by drawing up nine hundred theses for public disputation at the age of twenty-four. As a preface to his theses, he wrote his famous Oration on the Dignity of Man, in which he proclaimed the unlimited potentiality of human beings.

Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man

At last the best of artisans [God] ordained that that creature to whom He had been able to give nothing proper to himself should have joint possession of whatever had been peculiar to each of the different kinds of being. He therefore took man as a creature of indeterminate nature, and assigning him a place in the middle of the world, addressed him thus: “Neither a fixed abode nor a form that is yours alone nor any function peculiar to yourself have we given you, Adam, to the end that according to your longing and according to your judgment you may have and possess what abode, what form, and what functions you yourself desire. The nature of all other beings is limited and constrained within the bounds of laws prescribed by Us. You, constrained by no limits, in accordance with your own free will, in whose hand We have placed you, shall ordain for yourself the limits of your nature. We have set you at the world’s center that you may