Abstract

This paper analyses the theme of human greatness in Gregory of Nyssa’s In Canticum canticorum and De opificio hominis and its reception in 15th century Italy. While interpreting the phrase of the Song of Songs 1,8: “If you do not know yourself, O beautiful one among women, go forth in the footsteps of the flocks and tend the kids by the flocks’ tents”, Gregory resumes the optimistic anthropological motifs of his earliest and most renowned exegetical treatise, De opificio hominis, completed around 379. Interestingly, more than a thousand years later, this praise of human greatness reappears conspicuously in a number of humanists of the Italian Quattrocento, many of whom had gotten in touch with Nyssen’s Greek manuscripts and their medieval translations. Gregory’s synthesis between rigorous thought and elegance of speech captivates Florentine scholars throughout the century, and this tendency culminates in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and the so-called Platonic Academy.