From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Pico della Mirandola
Picus Mirandula; De Dignitate Hominis
Picus Mirandula is Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the Renaissance writer whose oration on human dignity Traherne renders and then comments upon.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordPicus Mirandula is Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the Renaissance writer whose oration on human dignity Traherne renders and then comments upon.
- In TraherneThis is an extended encounter rather than a passing learned reference.
- In this editionThe 2026 notes distinguish Traherne’s changes and correct his report of a university delivery: the planned oration was not delivered.
- A place to beginThe introduction to Pico begins the extended rendering of his oration.
Meaning
Picus Mirandula is Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the Renaissance writer whose oration on human dignity Traherne renders and then comments upon. The normalized modern name provides a useful finding aid.
Use in the book
This is an extended encounter rather than a passing learned reference. The account begins with humanity as an object of wonder, then dramatizes the Creator’s provision for a creature without a fixed place or exclusive pattern. Adam receives powers of self-formation, and the seeds cultivated determine the life that develops. Traherne welcomes the imaginative freedom of the language but directs its meaning inward: the changeable form concerns the soul’s disposition, not a bodily metamorphosis. His reading supports the claim that choosing love can transform a person’s mode of being. It also modifies what it receives, particularly in representing humanity as the image of the whole creation.
Places to read
In this edition
The 2026 notes distinguish Traherne’s changes and correct his report of a university delivery: the planned oration was not delivered. That correction belongs to the edition, not Traherne’s testimony.
Source note
Primary text: IV.74–80234567; identification, translation comparison, and historical correction: 2026 edition notes to IV.74–782345.
From the book
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Heinrich Khunrath · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Pico della Mirandola
Pico Mirandulæ Comite
Pico is named as Count of Mirandola in the p. 147 marginal list of witnesses.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordPico is named as Count of Mirandola in the p. 147 marginal list of witnesses.
- In KhunrathThe list supports the adjacent assertion that Azazel, subordinate to avenging IEHOVAH, punishes the contemptuous oath-breaker under an attributed Hebrew doctrine.
- In this editionKeep the count's title in the source-form index.
- A reading distinctionThe demonstrative in “attesting this” attaches the witnesses to a local assertion; it is not a general endorsement of every proposition in the treatise.
Meaning
Pico is named as Count of Mirandola in the p. 147 marginal list of witnesses. The supplied editor identifies him as Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.
Use in the book
The list supports the adjacent assertion that Azazel, subordinate to avenging IEHOVAH, punishes the contemptuous oath-breaker under an attributed Hebrew doctrine. No book, chapter or quotation from Pico is supplied. His name should therefore be used to explain the authority Khunrath claims for this particular point, not to reconstruct an individual doctrine from absent evidence.
The occurrence does not stand beside the main Christological harmony and should not be reassigned there simply because Pico is classified as a Christian-cabalistic writer by the modern apparatus.
Places to read
- 1599 p. 147 · marginPico is the first of four witnesses to the adjacent punitive claim
Translation in this edition
Keep the count's title in the source-form index. The fuller personal identification is editorial information, while the printed witness name and its location are primary.
Source note
The demonstrative in “attesting this” attaches the witnesses to a local assertion; it is not a general endorsement of every proposition in the treatise.