Oration on the Dignity of Man

Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (24 February 1463 – 17 November 1494) was a renowned Italian Renaissance philosopher despite his early death. At the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy and magic against all comers, for which he wrote the famous Oration on the Dignity of Man, which has been called the "Manifesto of the Renaissance", and a key text of humanistm.

Pico’s Oration attempted to remap the human landscape to center all attention on human capacity and human perspective. The Oration also served as an introduction to Pico's 900 theses, which he believed to provide a complete and sufficient basis for the discovery of all knowledge, and hence a model for mankind's ascent of the chain of being. The “Oration” in part is meant to be a preface to a massive compendium of all the intellectual achievements of humanity, a compendium that was never completed because of Pico’s early (and mysterious) death.