First Separate Edition, in Latin. This is Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s most famous work, “Oration on the Dignity of Man,” with two supplementary works by Pico: “Epistola Ioan, Pici ad Ioannem Franciscum nepote epistola, qua eum ad euangelium & regnu dei a malo hoc seculo hortatur,” a letter to his nephew; and “Regulae Ioannis Pici Miradulae, breuiter coplectetes quicquid ad Christianam uitam requiritur,” also known as “Annotationes in Psalmum XV,” his annotations on Psalm XV.

“Oration” was a public discourse composed in 1486 and was first published posthumously by Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola, his nephew, in 1496 in “Commentationes.” This was written to introduce his “900 Conclusions,” at a gathering where he invited scholars to dispute his ideas. The debate, however, was halted by Pope Innocent VIII and Pico was never able to give his oration.

In “Oration,” Pico vindicated the importance of the quest for knowledge through Neoplatonic thought. Known as the “Manifesto of the Renaissance,” “Oration” was Pico’s effort to remap the landscape of human thought and center it on human capacity and perspective.