Author: Copenhaver, Brian
Title: The Public Latinity of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Cato, Cicero, and the Mighty Aristotle
Review/Collection: in Hahmann, Andree & Vazquez, Michael, Cicero as Philosopher - New Perspectives on His Philosophy and Its Legacy, De Gruyter, 2025, 412 p.
Place edition: Berlin Boston
Editor: De Gruyter
Year edition: 2025
Pages: 307-329
Keywords: Héritage - Fortuna - Legacy, Philosophie - Filosofia - Philosophy
Description: Among the most widely read and cited products of Renaissance era is Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man. According to Brian Copenhaver (Chapter 14), however, this work and its author’s debts to Cicero are widely misunderstood. Copenhaver demonstrates that Pico’s public Latinity was neither Ciceronian nor humanist, and that Cicero left no discernible mark on two of his published works, the Conclusions and the Apology. Copenhaver’s analysis offers a corrective to commonplace assumptions about Cicero’s importance for the Renaissance humanists, even while he makes a new case for subtler forms of Ciceronian influence on Pico’s public and posthumously published works [Hahmann & Vazquez 2025, 8].
Author initials: Copenhaver 2025
Title: The Public Latinity of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Cato, Cicero, and the Mighty Aristotle
Review/Collection: in Hahmann, Andree & Vazquez, Michael, Cicero as Philosopher - New Perspectives on His Philosophy and Its Legacy, De Gruyter, 2025, 412 p.
Place edition: Berlin Boston
Editor: De Gruyter
Year edition: 2025
Pages: 307-329
Keywords: Héritage - Fortuna - Legacy, Philosophie - Filosofia - Philosophy
Description: Among the most widely read and cited products of Renaissance era is Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man. According to Brian Copenhaver (Chapter 14), however, this work and its author’s debts to Cicero are widely misunderstood. Copenhaver demonstrates that Pico’s public Latinity was neither Ciceronian nor humanist, and that Cicero left no discernible mark on two of his published works, the Conclusions and the Apology. Copenhaver’s analysis offers a corrective to commonplace assumptions about Cicero’s importance for the Renaissance humanists, even while he makes a new case for subtler forms of Ciceronian influence on Pico’s public and posthumously published works [Hahmann & Vazquez 2025, 8].
Author initials: Copenhaver 2025
