By Elissa B.G. Mullins
Open a vellum binding, blind-stamped and splayed with age, to discover a rare edition of Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola’s Hymni heroici tres, printed in Leipzig in 1514 by Melchior Lotter (who, three years later, printed the first edition of Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses). The library’s copy (Call Number: Q. 875.1 P58h1514) is inundated with manuscript notes in a contemporary cursive hand, including a sketch of the celestial spheres. It appears that readers and bookworms alike have found nourishment in its pages, which have been enthusiastically nibbled.
On the title page, below a vignette of Christ, is the Latin equivalent of a modern book-jacket blurb: “Lottheriana manus renitentibus adfuit hymnis in quibus ipse Deus virgoq[ue] mater inest. Optima materia est, sunt optima carmina lector non est quod dubites de bonitate libri”—which roughly translates to: “The Lottherian hand abounds in unyielding hymns in which God himself and the virgin mother are present. This is the best material, these are the best poems, reader, you cannot doubt the goodness of this book.”
The purpose of Pico’s Hymns, according to Marco Piana’s “Fallax antiquitas: Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s critique of antiquity,” “is that of countering the growing tradition of paganizing
poetry which, with the excuse of drawing inspiration from the ancient hymns, had been orbiting dangerously toward syncretic and filo-pagan ideas” (146). Yet, in his very attempt to depict the pagan deities as demons, “Pico’s attraction to an age of gods… is painfully manifest in every verse of his hymns… It is a struggle of a man who desperately wants to believe in the Christian God in spite of his profound fascination for ancient paganism” (207).
Even if you have no patience for Latin and little interest in the intellectual context of early sixteenth century Italy, you cannot deny the beauty of this book-as-object. Come and admire the elegant (and scarcely legible) marginal notes, the clean-gnawed holes left by hungry insects, the printed letters still bold after 510 years.
Piana, Marco. “Fallax Antiquitas: Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s Critique of Antiquity.” EScholarship@McGill (w66346122), 2017. https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/w66346122