Page:Studies in the history of the renaissance (IA studiesinhistor01pategoog).djvu/50

28 paradoxes drawn from the most opposite sources, against all comers. But the Pontifical Court was led to suspect the orthodoxy of some of these propositions, and even the reading of the book which contained them was forbidden by the Pope. It was not till 1493 that Pico was finally absolved by a brief of Alexander the Sixth. Ten years before that date he had arrived at Florence; an early instance of those who, after following the vain hope of an impossible reconciliation from system to system, have at last fallen back unsatisfied on the simplicities of their childhood's belief

The oration which Pico composed for the opening of this philosophical tournament still remains; its subject is the dignity of human nature, the greatness of man. In common with nearly all mediæval speculation, much of Pico's writing has this for its drift; and in common also with it, Pico's theory of that dignity is founded on a misconception of the place in nature both of the earth and of man. For Pico the earth is the centre of the universe; and around it, as a fixed and motionless point, the sun and moon and stars revolve like diligent servants or ministers. And in the midst of all is placed man, nodus et vinculum mundi, the bond or copula of the world, and the 'interpreter of nature': that famous expression of Bacon's really belongs to Pico. 'Tritum est in