Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

UNMASKING THE WORLD: Bruegel's Ethnography

UNMASKING THE WORLD: Bruegel's Ethnography The horse was created to draw and to carry; the ox, to plow; the dog, to guard and to hunt; but man was born to contemplate the world with his gaze. —Cicero, The Republic, printed as an epigraph to Abraham Ortelius’s atlas We have placed you at the center of the world so that, from there, you can more easily observe whatever is in the world. We have made you neither of heaven or earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with freedom of choice and with honor you may fashion yourself in whatever shape you prefer, as though you were the maker and molder of yourself. —Pico della Mirandola, On the Dignity of Man The glorification of “man” that Giovanni Francesco Pico, count of Mirandola, placed in the mouth of God was meant for a university audience. Writing in 1486, Pico modeled his so-called oration On the Dignity of Man after introductory speeches customary at the opening of a school year — but this speech was never delivered.1 Together with many of the ideas it defended, the text fell under 1. Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John Herman Randall, Jr., eds., The Renaissance Philosophy of Man http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Common Knowledge Duke University Press

UNMASKING THE WORLD: Bruegel's Ethnography

Koerner, Joseph Leo
Common Knowledge , Volume 10 (2) – Apr 1, 2004
Download PDF
32 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/duke-university-press/unmasking-the-world-bruegel-s-ethnography-pFZWy9ufuE
Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2004 by Duke University Press
ISSN
0961-754X
eISSN
1538-4578
DOI
10.1215/0961754X-10-2-220
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The horse was created to draw and to carry; the ox, to plow; the dog, to guard and to hunt; but man was born to contemplate the world with his gaze. —Cicero, The Republic, printed as an epigraph to Abraham Ortelius’s atlas We have placed you at the center of the world so that, from there, you can more easily observe whatever is in the world. We have made you neither of heaven or earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with freedom of choice and with honor you may fashion yourself in whatever shape you prefer, as though you were the maker and molder of yourself. —Pico della Mirandola, On the Dignity of Man The glorification of “man” that Giovanni Francesco Pico, count of Mirandola, placed in the mouth of God was meant for a university audience. Writing in 1486, Pico modeled his so-called oration On the Dignity of Man after introductory speeches customary at the opening of a school year — but this speech was never delivered.1 Together with many of the ideas it defended, the text fell under 1. Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John Herman Randall, Jr., eds., The Renaissance Philosophy of Man

Journal

Common Knowledge – Duke University Press

Published: Apr 1, 2004

There are no references for this article.