Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Commento sopra una canzona d'amore: A Reading Proposal

The goal of this paper is to suggest a possible interpretation of Pico's Commento as a philosophically oriented compendium of Platonism. After having outlined the complex circumstances that led to the composition of the work, the survey tries to reach its core. If the surface, or the first level of the text, is the interpretation of the Symposium, often critical towards Ficino, the critics become progressively deeper if one goes further. The aim of Pico is to show how his master and friend, though many times rival, errs in considering the One as superior to being, especially in the wake of Produs. Pico, on the contrary, prepares the chance to achieve the concord with Aristotle, asserting that, even within a platonic framework, One, Being and Thought can coincide. The last aspect which is pointed out is the rhetorical technique which is implied: the anfibologia or the ambiguazione.