Miraculum Mundi
(See Glauber.) Mirendola, Giacomo Picus da: Italian Astrologer and Kabalist (1463-1494). This astrologer's family played a prominent part in a number of the civil wars which convulsed mediæval Italy, while they owned extensive lands in the neighbourhood of Modena, the most valuable of their possessions being a castle bearing their own name of Mirandola; and it was here, in the year 1463, that Giacomo was born. He appears to have been something of an Admirable Crichton, never showing any fondness for playing children's games, but devoting himself to study from the very outset; and, according to tradition, before he was out of his teens he had mastered jurisprudence and mathematics, he had waded far into the seas of philosophy and theology, and had even dabbled in those occult sciences wherewith his name was destined to be associated afterwards. A boy of this kind naturally felt small inclination to remain at home, and so it is not surprising to find that Giacomo soon left his brothers to look after the family estates, and proceeded to various universities in Italy and France. While in the latter country his interest in astrology and the like deepened apace, thanks partly to his making a close study of the works of Raymond Lully; and in 1486 Giacomo went to Rome, where he delivered a series of lectures on various branches of science. While thus engaged his erudition won high praise from some of his hearers, but certain members of the clergy suspected him of heresy, reported his doings to the Inquisition, and even sought to have him excommunicated. The pope, however was of course rather averse to quarrelling with a member of so powerful a family as the Mirandolas, and accordingly he waived violent measures, instead appointing a body of Churchmen to argue with the scientist. A lengthy altercation ensued, and throughout it the jury displayed the most consummate ignorance, it being recorded, indeeds that some of them imagined that "Kabal" was a man, who had written against Christianity, and that the Kabalists were the disciples of this hypothetic person. Giacomo must have been deeply chagrined by this stupidity on the part of his opponents, he must have felt that to argue with such people was utterly vain; yet he published a defence of the ideas and theories promulgated in his lectures, and in 1493 the pope, Alexander VI., brought the affair to a con- 1495 clusion by granting the offender absolution. Thereupon Mirandole went to live at Florence, and here he stayed until his demise in 1494, occasionally essaying alchemy, but chiefly busy with further kabalistic studies.
Apart from the Apologia Pici Mirandoli cited above, Giacomo was author of several books of a theological nature, the most important of these being his Conclusiones Philosophica, cabalisticæ et theologica, published in 1486, and his Disputationes adversus Astrologiam Divinaticum, issued in 1495. His works appear to have been keenly admired by such of his contemporaries as were not averse to speculative thought, and it is interesting to find that a collected edition of his writings was printed at Boulogne in 1496, and another at Venice two years later.
Mishna, The: A compilation of Hebrew oral traditions, written about the end of the second century by a certain Rabbi of Galilee. Its doctrines are said by the Jews to be of great antiquity and they believe it to be the oral law delivered by God to Moses, at the same time as he received the written law. It forms the framework of the Talmud. (See Kabala.) Misraim, Rite of: (See Cagliostro.)