Abstract

In his De studio divinae et humanae philosophiae, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola advocates a model of Christian apologetics inspired by Girolamo Savonarola’s predication. Concerned about the reduction of the Christian beliefs to aniles fabellae, Gianfrancesco shows that the divina philosophia, consisting of the study and the meditation of the Holy Scripture, can assure a knowledge higher than the one achieved by the pagan philosophers. Unlike his uncle Giovanni Pico, who in the Oratio de hominis dignitate emphasized the role of philosophy in man’s ascent to God, he claims the little importance of the human studies for the Christian life and religion. Humana philosophia – he contends – is just like a ladder: it is useful to reach the religious truths, but it is totally useless once such truths have been grasped by revelation. Therefore, in the De Studio, one may appreciate a first answer to the problems and the issues which led the author, twenty-four years after this work, to the anti-philosophical skepticism of the Examen Vanitatis