Pensiero e natura in Giovanni Pico e Leon Battista Alberti

In Oratio de hominis dignitate, Commento sopra una canzone de amore and De ente et uno, Giovanni Pico’s focus is directed – with different intentions and perspectives – on the relation between the order of cosmo and human freedom. As Eugenio Garin wrote, long be- fore Giovanni Pico’s celebrated “oratio” on human dignity, Leon Bat- tista Alberti prepared its parody. It is from the comparison between the positions of two of the greatest thinkers of the 15th c. that the orig- inality of the Renaissance reflection on the relation between ethics and cosmology can be better understood in its historical context and in the context of the problems that will marks the development of modern thought.