Among the academicians who frequented Lorenzo's palace at Florence there appeared, in 1484, a young man of princely birth and fascinating beauty. 'Nature,' wrote Poliziano, 'seemed to have showered on this man, or hero, all her gifts. He was tall and finely moulded; from his face a something of divinity shone forth. Acute, and gifted with prodigious memory, in his studies he was indefatigable, in his style perspicuous and eloquent. You could not say whether his talents or his moral qualities conferred on him the greater lustre. Familiar with all branches of philosophy, and the master of many languages, he stood on high above the reach of praise.' This was Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, whose portrait in the Uffizzi Gallery, with its long brown hair and penetrating grey eyes, compels attention even from those who know not whom it is supposed to figure. He was little more than twenty when he came to Florence. His personal attractions, noble manners, splendid style of life, and varied accomplishments made him the idol of Florentine society; and for a time he gave himself, in part at least, to love and the amusements of his age.[315] But Pico was not born for pleasure. By no man was the sublime ideal of humanity, superior to physical enjoyments and dignified by intellectual energy, that triumph of the thought of the Renaissance, more completely realised.[316] There is even reason to regret that, together with the follies of youth, he put aside the collection of his Latin poems, which Poliziano praised, and took no pains to preserve those Italian verses, the loss whereof we deplore no less than that of Lionardo's. While Pico continued to live as became a Count of Mirandola, he personally inclined each year to graver and more abstruse studies and to greater austerity, until at last the prince was merged in the philosopher, the man of letters in the mystic. [Footnote 315: See Von Reumont, vol. ii. p. 108.] [Footnote 316: Fine expression was given to this conception of life by Aldus in the dedication to Alberto Pio of vols. ii., iii., iv. of Aristotle:--'Es nam tu mihi optimus testis an potiores Herculis ærumnas credam, sævosque labores, et Venere, et coenis et plumis Sardanapali. Natus nam homo est ad laborem et ad agendum semper aliquid viro dignum, non ad voluptatem quæ belluarum est et pecudum.' The last sentence is a translation of Ulysses' speech in the _Inferno_-- 'Considerate la vostra semenza, Fatti non foste a viver come bruti, Ma per seguir virtude e conoscenza.' Cf. Aldus's preface to Lascaris' Grammar; Renouard, vol. i. p. 7; and again _Alde Manuce_, p. 143, for similar passages.]