The Grammar of Angels - Edward Wilson-Lee

Does there exist a form of speech so powerful as to allow the speaker to control the listener, taking over their thoughts and even their will? Renaissance prodigy and polymath Giovanni Pico della Mirandola – the uncontested marvel of an age of true wonders – believed that there was. The Grammar of Angels tells how Pico dedicated his short, brilliant life to finding a philosophy that would settle the most important questions about human existence. This philosophy would, he believed, provide tools by which man could transcend his mortal limitations and join the ranks of the angels.At the heart of Pico’s ideas were questions that he traced through the breadth and depth of human thought, from the ancient Greeks and Egyptians to the medieval Arabs and Jews. He made use of everything at his disposal from Europe’s broadening horizons and asked primal questions of himself and the world. Why is it that we can be astonished by beauty? That the hairs on the backs of our necks can be made to stand by intoxicating rhythms and harmonies? That we can be provoked to ecstatic experiences by the simple means of an incantation? In 1486, when he was just twenty-three, he declared his intention to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy and magic against all comers and for which he wrote a speech that is often deemed the ‘manifesto of the Renaissance, even though the ideas it introduced were subject to an unprecedented ban by the Church.He died mysteriously aged on
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