Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Opera. Bologna, Benedictus Hectoris, 1496 [and] Apologia conclusionum suorum. [Naples, Francesco del Tuppo, 1487]

Pico (1463-1494) was the first humanist to present the Kabbalah to his Christian contemporaries – the very word was until then unknown. That Pico was the first to have introduced the Kabbalah into Christian culture, is explicitly mentioned in the first book of Reuchlin's De arte cabalistica:

In our days the Latins, under the guidance of Count Pico della Mirandola, before whom the word was unknown in Latin, call them Cabbalists or Cabbalici. Then Marrano asks: 'Do you know, most learned Simon, that man who was the first to make known to the Latins the word Cabbala?' Simon responds: 'Yes, I knew him, as I believe, when a few years ago he lived exiled amongst the French and the Savoyards. He was expelled from his country and forced to flee because of the odious persecution inflicted on him by those, who were envious of his excellent philosophical studies and his noble mind'.

Pico studied Hebrew under Elie del Medigo and Flavius Mithridates. He wrote DCCCC Conclusiones (1486) which were subsequently suppressed by the Pope because of their controversial nature. Pico wrote two series of Conclusiones cabalisticae: the first, 'secundum secretam doctrinam sapientum Hebraeorum Cabalistarum quorum memoria sit semper in bonum' (according to the secret teachings of the wise Hebrew Kabbalists, blessed be their memory) and a second 'secundum opinionem propriam ex ipsis Hebraeorum sapientum fundamentis Christianam religionem maxime confirmantes' (according to his own opinion from the basic principles of the Hebrew sages themselves, which best confirm the Christian religion). Pico claimed that magic and Kabbalah were the two instruments best fitted to prove the divinity of Christ: 'Nulla est scientia, quae nos magis certificet de divinitate Christi, quam magia et cabala'. Pico also used or mentioned Kabbalistic doctrines in other of his works, notably the Oratione de Dignitate Hominis and the Heptaplus (his exposition of the first lines of Genesis).