“I once read that Abdala the Muslim, when asked what was most worthy of awe and wonder in this theater of the world, answered, ‘There is nothing to see more wonderful than man’; Hermes Trismegistus concurs with this opinion: ‘A great miracle, Asclepius, is man!’ . . . After thinking a long time, I have figured out why man is the most fortunate of all creatures and as a result worthy of the highest admiration and earning his rank on the chain of being, a rank to be envied not merely by the beasts but by the stars themselves and by the spiritual natures [angels] beyond and above this world. . . .”
Cite evidence in this passage that shows how Pico della Mirandola synthesizes medieval and Renaissance worldviews.