On the Dignity of Man
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
On the Dignity of Man
| Full title | Oration on the Dignity of Man |
|---|---|
| Author | Giovanni Pico della Mirandola |
| Published | 1496 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Pico della Mirandola’s short 1486 oration arguing that human beings were given no fixed place in the chain of being — unlike angels above and animals below, they can shape themselves downward into brutes or upward toward the divine. That freedom to self-fashion is what Pico means by dignity, and the speech has been read ever since as the manifesto of Renaissance humanism. |
On the Dignity of Man
Where I heard about it
- University of Austin — assigned in Renaissance and Reformation on its Fall 2025 reading list (November 2025), paired with Bacon’s New Atlantis and Great Instauration: Pico supplies the new account of what a human being is, Bacon the account of what that human being should do with nature. Full curriculum: UATX Fall Reading List.
About this edition
Written as the opening speech for a public disputation of 900 theses Pico intended to defend in Rome — a disputation the papacy suppressed before it could be held. It was first printed posthumously in 1496.
Connections
- UATX Fall Reading List — the curriculum this is assigned in.
- Renaissance — the period this oration is usually taken to define.
- Humanism — the movement it is read as the manifesto of.
- The New Atlantis — assigned beside it in the same UATX course.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.