Lorenzo, Ercole d’Este, and Pico’s relatives, took an active interest in his troubles. All through 1487, while the accused was abroad, the affair dragged on without result. The chief hope was in Lorenzo, whose influence with the Pope was known to be great and increasing, and it was not his fault that matters did not get on. He did not wait for the entreaties of Pico’s brother Antonio, who came to Florence in February 1488 to beg for his interposition at Rome. He had already, on January 19, written to the ambassador Lanfredini, giving a warning against extreme steps, since excommunication or the like against a man so young and so learned might drive the most moderate beyond all patience. The solution he suggested was that Pico should be allowed to go free to Rome and justify himself to the Pope in person. The envoy did not quite agree with Lorenzo’s view, being of opinion that the count would do better to leave theology alone; nevertheless he bestirred himself zealously on his behalf. ‘To my great satisfaction and joy,’ writes Lorenzo to him on March 22, 1488,[80] ‘I have been informed of the agreement made by you with the Holy Father concerning the count. In pursuance of your intimation, I shall invite the count here. I feel assured he will conduct himself so that his Holiness shall be satisfied with him, for which object no efforts shall be wanting on my part.’ So Giovanni Pico returned to Florence and Lorenzo continued his intercession. But there were still grave difficulties in the way of an adjustment, and the accused was very shy of appearing at Rome. He lived sometimes in Florence, sometimes at the neighbouring villa of Querceto and the abbey of Fiesole, where he pursued Hebrew and Chaldee studies with great ardour, and worked out a commentary on Genesis. In June 1489, Florence conferred the freedom of the city on her illustrious guest, and gave him the right of acquiring property to the value of 6,000 gold florins. It is evident that Lorenzo was anxious to bind him more and more closely to himself and his home. ‘The Count of Mirandola,’ he wrote on June 19 to Lanfredini,[81] ‘is staying permanently with us, and lives as retired as a monk, continually working at theology, and commenting on the Psalms, &c. He reads the service as is usual for priests, strictly observes the fasts, and has the most simple household that necessity permits. He appears to me a pattern for others. But he desires to be cleared before the Holy Father from the charges brought against him, and to receive a brief by which he shall be re-admitted as a true son and a good Christian. I have this much at heart too, for there are few men dearer to me or that I esteem more highly. To my mind he is a true Christian, for he conducts himself so that the whole city would be ready to stand surety for him. Endeavour to obtain this brief in due form, that his conscience may be set at rest. This will stand in the first rank among the many pleasures you have procured me.’
The affair, however, made no progress. The intention at Rome seemed to be to commission the Bishop of Vaison to receive the explanations of Pico, who declared himself ready to submit simply and entirely to the papal decision. About this time the publication of his commentary on Genesis gave fresh scandal. A feeling hostile to him seemed to be gaining ground. On August 17, Lanfredini wrote that Lorenzo had better advise the count simply to beg for absolution and perform the needful penance. On October 6 he declared that it was only out of consideration for Lorenzo that the Pope was so lenient to the culprit; to satisfy Lorenzo by giving the cardinalate to his son was quite another thing—so his Holiness had said—from lending an ear to his intercessions in a case where the faith was at stake. Finally Lorenzo lost patience when he found that the Pope was in the hands of his friend’s opponents. ‘I am greatly displeased,’ he wrote in October 1489, ‘at hearing of the censures on Mirandola’s work. If I were not convinced that this persecution arises from envy and malice, I would not speak of it. Various learned and God-fearing theologians here have read the book, and all approve it as excellent and Christian. I myself am not such a bad Christian that I would keep silence and accept the book if I thought otherwise. If he only said the Credo, these malicious spirits would smell heresy in it. If the pressure of business did but permit his Holiness to take personal cognizance of the matter and discover the truth, I am certain the whole thing would fall to pieces and the truth would come to light. But the Pope has to depend on others, and this poor man cannot defend himself. If he gives his reasons, he is said to be speaking against the Holy Father! If he had only to deal with his enemies unprotected by the papal authority he would soon put them to silence. His misfortune is that he has to deal with malicious ignorant foes who shield themselves behind the head of the Church. I have already hinted to you my suspicion that they are trying to drive him to despair, and thereby to some rash step which might really be directed against his Holiness. For believe me, Giovanni, this man has it in his power to work both good and evil. His life and conduct prove the first; if he is forced to turn another way, I personally shall lose little thereby, for whatever direction he may take, he will be attached to me as I to him. I have never succeeded in quite making you understand this. Without going into particulars now, I will merely observe that an attempt has been made to persuade him into a step which might have given great offence; but I have always prevented it, so that he is come here, where he is leading a virtuous life and is in peace. These devils tempt him with their persecutions, and they are only too readily believed.’
This letter shows how deeply the writer was moved. His earnest remonstrances succeeded at least so far that Pico, who, like Galileo afterwards, had been relegated to a villa in the neighbourhood of Florence, was left unmolested in the city. At this time occurred the visit of Reuchlin, who came to Italy for the second time in 1490 in the suite of a son of Duke Eberhard, and now became personally acquainted with the man who had given the most decisive impulse to his studies, which, like the Italian’s, aimed at harmonising the results of Jewish and Greek wisdom with Christian faith and knowledge. These studies entered in Germany upon a new sphere of influence stretching far beyond the scope of Pico, but not more free from danger, and involving the German in conflicts similar to those of the Italian. Pico’s Roman troubles were augmented by others. The dispute between his brothers Galeotto and Antonio put him into pecuniary straits, and obliged him to seek the aid of the Duke of Ferrara.[82] Obstructions at Rome were endless. Neither Lorenzo de’ Medici nor Innocent VIII. lived to see the conclusion, which was brought about at last by a brief of Alexander VI., June 18, 1493, in which Giovanni Pico was fully acquitted. The trouble and anxiety caused by this affair made the deepest impression on his mind. His nephew and biographer relates that he heard from his own mouth how great a change it produced in his mind and life.[83] Excepting a visit to Ferrara, where at the duke’s desire he was present at a chapter of the Dominican order, he quitted Florence no more. We have seen him in the country, in frequent intercourse with Ficino and Poliziano. He lived entirely for science; and the wealth which enabled him to collect a treasury of books was also freely bestowed on the needy; in these good works he was assisted by his attached friend Benivieni. He burned his Latin poems, which he had collected in five books and given to Poliziano for correction. The latter had altered a few things, as he said, after the example of him who found fault with the sandals of the goddess of beauty because he could find none with herself; and because a few verses seemed to him to be only of the rank of a knight, while the rest were patrician and senatorial. Poliziano lamented his friend’s resolve in a letter accompanied by a Greek epigram. He could not remember, he said, ever to have read anything more charming, elegant and polished. ‘Ye silly gods of love,’ thus ends the epigram, ‘why did ye fly to Pico, who is the leader of the Muses?’ Poliziano approved of his friend’s poetical attempts, and admired his commentary on Benivieni’s canzone on Platonic love, which the school of Florentine literature reckons among its most important works, more than his deeper studies, when in the rustic solitude of Querceto he wrote an extensive treatise against astrology, destined to form part of a great polemical work on sects hostile to Christianity.[84] Poliziano thought it was lost time:
‘Pico, what hast thou to do with this? Thou’rt wasting thy powers:
Truly thy style is too good for this generation of jugglers.’
Savonarola, on the contrary, who was a friend of the author in his later years, and read the unfinished work, expressed mingled pleasure and regret over it; pleasure in the stand made by the work against widespread errors, regret at the premature death of the gifted author. We must not judge Pico della Mirandola by what he has left behind. He paid a heavier tribute to the weaknesses of the time than many others who were not equal to him in intellectual capacity. His whole personality must be considered; it is a typical one. This scion of a princely house, who quitted the world at two-and-thirty, who had measured the heights and depths of the learning of his time, who, with all his abstruse scholarship, preserved a simplicity and amiability of character that drew all hearts to him, is by far the most brilliant figure in that brilliant circle. After four centuries Pico della Mirandola remains the highest representative of early maturity of intellect. But he is something more; in conjunction with the man whose friendship was so warmly expressed, he did more than any other to give a value and importance to a period which, with all its defects, was beneficent and noble.
The sad fate of two other members of the Florentine literary circle who were not Tuscans, as well as the circumstance that both filled public offices in Florence, justifies us in mentioning them together, though several decades separated them. They are Stefano Porcaro and Pandolfo Collenuccio. The former, a Roman knight, was the friend and correspondent of Poggio, Filelfo, Ciriaco, and Traversari, holding a position of influence at home and abroad.[85] He was led into the fatal conspiracy of 1453 against Nicolas V. rather by memories of antiquity and of Cola Rienzi than by his Florentine connections. In the Podestà’s palace may be seen, in what was formerly the chapel, a picture of the Madonna painted on the wall, presented, in 1490, by Pandolfo Collenuccio of Pesaro, then judge of the supreme court. Ficino, Pico, Poliziano, admired the intellectual gifts and varied talents of this learned man. It was wonderful, wrote the latter, what he was capable of; he managed the affairs of princes with great sagacity, was surpassed by none in the elegance of his prose and verse, and decided intricate suits with a rare knowledge of law. He commanded the most varied knowledge with such mastery that he made further discoveries when others fancied they had found out everything. This sound judge of classical literature was also a student of natural history, and one of the first to apply the science of history to the vulgar tongue. He made use of his connection with Germany, where he had been as envoy from Duke Ercole d’Este to King Maximilian, to make large acquisitions for the Florentine libraries. His execution in 1504, by command of Giovanni Sforza of Pesaro, on pretext of high treason in the Borgia disturbances, was one of those tragedies of which there was never any lack in the petty courts of Italy.[86]
CHAPTER XI.
THE UNIVERSITY OF PISA. MANUSCRIPTS AND CRITICISM. PRINTING. PLATONIC SYMPOSIA.