Why "De Hominis Dignitate"?

You will ask yourselves why the title of a Masonic review is that of the most important work by Pico della Mirandola.

The Address by Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) about man's dignity is considered the "Renaissance Manifesto" and giving the same title to our Review is an auspice so that a new "Rebirth" of the modern man, after a long period of crisis of values, can occur towards a new morality and a new ethical conception of existence.

The Address, written in 1486, contains in fact the exaltation of the human being as a creature free and able to recognize and dominate the whole reality. But more than this, the Address talks about the duty of the human being who, devoid of predetermined image, must pursue his own completeness by a route that begins from moral self-discipline, goes through the plurality of images and knowledge and aims at the highest goal, that cannot be represented. Pico della Mirandola believes that this paradigm of existence development is universal, because it can be found in every tradition.

The present interest for the Address is exactly in its statement that human nature, indefinite and weak, finds fulfilment and identifies through the numerous reality of human cultures: each culture constitutes a different way, yet identical in its essence, function and structure. From this, also the possibility of harmony and the basis for peace.

Issue 6    

Published June 2005

Transactions of Quatuor Coronati
Research Lodge #112
for the Years 2003-04 included

190 pages

4.6MB
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