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Biography

Born in 1469, son of Galeotto I Pico (1442–1499) and Bianca Maria d’Este (1440–1506), Gianfrancesco, future lord of Concordia, was just six-years younger than his uncle Giovanni Pico (1463–1494), from whom he managed to buy the hereditary title to the lands of Mirandola. The deep relationship between the two Picos, uncle and nephew, is manifest not only in Giovanni’s will, dated 1491, but also in the letters the two men exchanged during Giovanni’s last years (Schmitt 1967). We find further proof of this close friendship in the fact that Giovanni himself tasked his nephew to continue his unfinished philosophical debate, after De ente et uno. Gianfrancesco’s contribution to Giovanni’s philosophical querelle with Antonio Cittadini da Faenza can be found in the various editions of his own works (Pico della Mirandola 1972). In fact, the bond of affection and esteem between the two men remained unchanged until the abrupt and unfortunate death of Giovanni in 1494. After Giovanni’s passing, Gianfrancesco became his official biographer and editor, inheriting de facto a wide network of friends and contacts in the courts of Florence and Ferrara. Among these contacts, it is important to stress the presence of Marsilio Ficino, who wrote a letter of condolences to Gianfrancesco after the death of Giovanni Pico (Pico della Mirandola 1972), Girolamo Benivieni, who dedicated an edition of his works to Gianfrancesco, Aldo Manuzio, Matteo Bosso, Pietro Crinito, Domenico Grimani, Filippo Beroardo the Elder, Battista Guarino, and Ercole Strozzi (Schmitt 1967).

During his early life and after the death of his uncle, Gianfrancesco followed the guidance of a new teacher, one of the most important figures of early modern philosophy and a man who has profoundly marked the development of the Italian Renaissance: Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498). From early adulthood, in fact, Gianfrancesco had shown the signs of a deep religious faith, an attitude that was further developed under the strong influence of both his humanist mentors, his uncle Giovanni Pico and the friar Savonarola. Notwithstanding the strength of the ties that bound uncle and nephew, nothing proved as significant as the teachings of Girolamo Savonarola for the development of Gianfrancesco’s philosophical outlook. Despite the Dominican friar’s fate – he was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI (1431–1503) and then executed as a heretic in 1498 – Pico’s affection for him and his ideas remained unchanged throughout the years. For example, during the period when this religious reformer was under attack, Pico wrote three apologetic defenses in his honor. The first, Invectiva in prophetiam fratris Hieronymi Savonarolae, was published in Milan in 1497 and reprinted in 1498 as Defensio Hieronymi Savonarolae adversus Samuelem Cassinensem. Another defense, named Opusculum de sententia excommunicationis iniusta pro Hieronymi Savonarolae prophetae innocentia, was written right after the friar’s excommunication in May 1497, and was dedicated to Ercole d’Este. In 1498, however, when Savonarola’s situation further deteriorated, Pico felt obliged to write a third and last defense of Savonarola, this time in Italian: the Epistola del conte Zoanfrancesco da la Mirandula in favore de fra Hieronymo da Ferrara dappoi la sua captura (Schmitt 1967). Furthermore, after the preacher’s conviction and death in 1498, Gianfrancesco wrote his biography, a piece of writing that circulated in manuscript form from the beginning of the sixteenth century until its publication in 1674. Even after the death of the Dominican friar, Pico never stopped helping the Savonarolan cause. In 1501, Gianfrancesco drew up a defense of Pietro Bernardino (1475–1502), a controversial follower of Savonarola who had found refuge in Mirandola. Pico, moreover, offered ample support to the Savonarolan “living saint” Caterina Mattei da Racconigi (1486–1547), although the questionable conduct of the religious woman had already led to an interrogation by the court bishop of Turin in 1512.

When it comes to Pico’s political life as the lord of Mirandola, extant documents give evidence of a ruler marked by complexity and controversy. About a year after the death of Savonarola in 1498, Pico’s own father died, leaving Gianfrancesco in a difficult position. In the years of his father Galeotto I’s dominion, there had been several family disagreements over the rights of inheritance of the Duchy of Mirandola and the County of Concordia. In order to avoid future issues in matters of succession, in 1491 Gianfrancesco’s younger brothers, Lodovico (1472–1509) and Federico, forfeited their right of succession. In the same year, Galeotto had been able to obtain the investiture of Emperor Maximilian I (1459–1519) to the domain of Mirandola and the surrounding areas together with the right of succession for his eldest son, Gianfrancesco. Following this new acquisition, Antonmaria, Galeotto’s brother, tried in vain to gain the support of the Emperor, who rejected his request and confirmed Galeotto as lord of Mirandola. After his father died in 1499, therefore, Gianfrancesco inherited the coveted title. For precaution’s sake, the young lord requested – and obtained – a new investiture by Maximilian I. Despite the Emperor’s support, however, Gianfrancesco then faced the insurrection of his two younger brothers, who formed a coalition in order to take Mirandola forcefully. After several unsuccessful attempts, Lodovico and Francesco finally managed to conquer the region in 1502 with the help of their ally Gian Giacomo Trivulzio (1441–1518), forcing Gianfrancesco to exile.

Gianfrancesco’s long period of banishment had a major impact on his life and marked his philosophical development in a profound way. During his eight years of exile, Pico managed to visit some of the most important courts of his time, especially the Imperial and Papal courts, allowing him to establish new, strong bonds with the intellectual milieus orbiting around these two cultural epicenters. Gianfrancesco visited the Emperor twice, in 1502 and in 1505. He did so mostly to gain support for his claim over the lands he had lost to his brothers. During his short stays, Gianfrancesco had the opportunity to get acquainted with some of the most important German philosophical and theological figures of the time, notably Johann Reuchlin (1455–1522), Conrad Celtes (1459–1508), Beatus Renanus (1485–1547), Willibald Pirckheimer (1470–1530), Jacob Wimpfeling (1450–1528), and Thomas Wolf (Schmitt 1967). Wolf was also instrumental in the printing, distribution, and overall success of Pico’s writings in Germany. The Emperor’s seat in Germany was not the only pilgrimage site that Gianfrancesco visited several times. Indeed, another court had been very decisive in his quest for political support: that of Pope Julius II.

Despite the obvious differences of opinion that divided the two men in matters regarding faith and dogma – on that point, Pico notably accused the pontiff after his death – Gianfrancesco found in Julius II a solid political ally when his army allowed him to enter Mirandola once again in 1511, although only for a short period (Cao 2004). His first official visit to the Pope took place between 1508 and 1509. The reason for such a visit was simple: convincing the Pope to free Mirandola with his army lodged in Bologna. Although this visit did not have any immediate consequence, it nevertheless allowed Pico to start building a relationship with Julius II and his entourage. It is unclear if the second visit to the papal court between 1511 and 1512 had a major impact on Gianfrancesco’s political troubles. However, his longer stay in Rome allowed him to give a precious testimony to some of Julius II’s greatest architectural and propagandistic works. Moreover, while stationed at the papal court, Gianfrancesco wrote one of his most influential works, the collection of epistulae between him and the Cardinal Pietro Bembo (1470–1547), eventually known as the De imitatione (Pico della Mirandola et al. 1954). With the death of Julius II in 1513 and the beginning of Leo X’s (1475–1521) pontificate, Gianfrancesco thought he had found a better interlocutor, not only for his political claims but also, and more importantly, for his exhortations towards a moral reformation of the Church. For this very reason, Pico, once again in control of Mirandola thanks to the help of the imperial vicar bishop Matthew Lang of Wellemburg (1469–1540), strived to gain the new Pope’s trust and support. Gianfrancesco’s works De amore divino (1516) and De reformandis moribus (probably written between 1513 and 1515, but printed only in 1520), two pieces of deep theological and moral value, were both dedicated to Leo X. The same can be said of the treatise De veris calamitatum causis nostrorum temporum, published after Leo X’s permission to establish a printing press in Mirandola (Norton, 1958).

Between 1514 and 1533, Pico’s main political controversies seemed resolved. Thanks to a diplomatic agreement with his family overseen by Bishop Matthew Lang, the duke of Mirandola finally ruled over part of his lands. After the long-awaited opportunity to rule, Pico quickly showed his religious and political inclination to the world. As a ruler, in fact, Gianfrancesco made continuous efforts to protect Savonarola’s sympathizers, a clear sign of his unbroken devotion and dedication to the Savonarolan ideal. While he was helping alleged Savonarolan heretics, lamenting the unjust execution of friar Girolamo, and even interceding in support of a controversial holy woman, Caterina da Racconigi, Pico showed no remorse when it came to justifying his harsh treatment of heretics and vehemently denouncing Luther as “the worst heresiarch in history.” He also enthusiastically supported the campaign against witchcraft initiated in Mirandola in 1522 by Girolamo Armellini (1470–1550), the filo-Savonarolan inquisitor of Reggio and Parma. In April of 1523, friar Luca Bettini, one of the Savonarolan radicals protected by Pico, was appointed vicar of Armellini. Finally united by their intent to eradicate sorcery and heresy, the inquisitor and the vicar tried more than 60 suspects and, with full support from Gianfrancesco Pico, they ordered the execution of seven women found guilty of witchcraft in 1522 and 1523. Gianfrancesco, who had expressed concerns about magic and witchcraft in some of his early works, was closely involved in the prosecution and, with the help of Armellini and Bettini, even interrogated some of the accused himself. His personal involvement in the different trials was clearly political, since some of the suspects lived in the domain of Francesca Trivulzio (1475–1560) and his patron, the Marquis of Mantua, tried in vain to prevent the prosecutions against them. In response to the growing criticism following witch trials in Mirandola, Pico wrote the best-known book on witchcraft of the Italian Renaissance: Strix, sive de ludificatione daemonum (Bologna, Hieronymus de Benedictis, 1523). Promptly translated by friar Leandro Alberti (1479–1552) in 1524, the book became the first treatise on witchcraft published in the vernacular in Italy. Pico, among others, argued that witches were part of a heretical sect and praised the inquisitors who strove to exterminate them, while immortalizing Armellini as the figure of the judge in this dialogue. As examples of this book’s tangible influence throughout the century, inquisitors such as Bartolomeo Spina (1474–1546 ca.) and important demonologists such as Jean Bodin (1530–1596), later referred to the Strix as a fundamental work on demonology and witchcraft.

After a life of political struggles, Gianfrancesco’s dominion over Mirandola found a brutal end on 16 October 1533, the day his nephew, Galeotto II Pico (1508–1550), entered the castle of Mirandola, murdered Gianfrancesco and his son Alberto (1519–1533), and imprisoned his wife and the other family members. From the writings produced in the last years of his life, little remains but a meager collection of letters, mostly due to the dispersion of Gianfrancesco’s library after Galeotto’s siege and sack of the castle. This period was, however, far from uneventful. Indeed, Pico died a few years after the sack of Rome (1527) and the capitulation of the Republic of Florence (1530). It was the end of the age of strife that marked the beginning of the sixteenth century, an age that found one of its most iconic personalities in Gianfrancesco Pico.

Innovative and Original Aspects

One of the most innovative aspects of Gianfrancesco Pico’s work can be found in his own unique narrative of Christian and pagan antiquity. Whereas many other Renaissance humanists, following in the footsteps of early apologists such as Justin Martyr and Eusebius of Caesarea, welcomed the rediscovery of ancient philosophical knowledge and tried to incorporate such knowledge into inclusivist philosophical/theological grand narratives indicated as Prisca theologia, Pia Philosophia, and Philosophia perennis, Pico used his humanist education to provide philosophical proof that – regardless of its apparent beauty and complexity – pagan knowledge was fallacious, deceptive, and demonic in nature.

Following the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and other Church Fathers, Pico adhered to the idea that Christianity was de facto the most ancient and perfect religion, and that Jesus Christ was sent to restore the ancient creed after it had been abandoned due to the influence of demonic entities, which the pagans worshiped as their gods. Unlike other representatives of Christian irenicism such as Justin Martyr, however, Pico never accepted the fact that the ancient religion could survive in the words of certain pagan philosophers, inspired by the eternal Logos. Pagan antiquity, for Gianfrancesco Pico, was a long period of silence between God and most of humanity. Thus, he dedicated a great part of his life to show his contemporaries that Christianity could not be reconciled with pre-Christian antiquity. This line of thought, which is presented most clearly in his Examen vanitatis doctrinae gentium (1523), shines through the entirety of Gianfrancesco Pico’s work. Treatises like Strix, sive de ludificatione daemonum and poems like the Hymni heroici tres, Staurostichon, and De Venere et Cupidine expellendis, moreover, allow the reader to gaze into Pico’s personal vision of pagan antiquity as a dystopian world where mortal vanity and madness enslaved humanity to Satan’s will. Often inspired by apocalyptic anxieties and millenarist ideas, moreover, Pico’s writings present this world as on the verge of returning, due to the resurgence of the same knowledge that condemned humanity in the days of old. This fervent critique on past and present “paganisms” is driven by the author’s personal crusade of converting the intellectual elites of his time to a Savonarolan form of pietas, devoid of any pagan influence. Unlike Savonarola, Pico had little interest in guiding the common people towards his master’s faith. With the loss of Florence and Savonarola’s gruesome death, Pico saw in the clergy, the nobility, and the humanists the only classes worthy of converting. Just like father Zanobi Acciaiuoli, another influential follower of Savonarola, Gianfrancesco Pico decided to fight his religious battle inside the courts rather than in the city squares.

The most groundbreaking tool used by Pico in his personal attack on ancient philosophy is certainly that of Pyrrhonian skepticism. Binding the skeptical arguments of Sextus Empiricus to Savonarola’s critical view of natural knowledge, Gianfrancesco Pico was the first modern author since antiquity to utilize a Pyrrhonic approach in his theses (Popkin 2003). As Charles Schmitt asserted, the young lord of Mirandola must have read Sextus in a Greek manuscript, long before his work was published in Greek or Latin (Schmitt 1967). His use of ancient skepticism, however, is extremely peculiar, as it is employed to undermine confidence in human understanding and celebrate divine inspiration as the only true form of knowledge. In Pico’s view, in fact, since humanity is unable to comprehend anything by rational means, the only source of knowledge must be divine revelation received through the sacred art of prophecy. This radical form of fideism is to say the least revolutionary since – as noted by Popkin – it posits prophets as the only arbiters of truth, thus rejecting the claims of the Church as the sole true interpreter of God’s revelation through the Sacred Scriptures (Popkin 2003).

Impact and Legacy

The importance of Gianfrancesco Pico as a humanist and political figure was manifest in the eyes of his contemporaries – as his extensive correspondence suggests – and his success as a writer continued until the beginning of the eighteenth century. During the last century, however, Pico’s work has mostly been discussed by historians of philosophy interested in Renaissance skepticism and its developments. Charles Schmitt successfully traces Pico’s philosophical influence in the works of Mario Nizolio, Giulio Castellani, the translator of Sextus Empiricus Gentian Hervet, Giovanni Battista Bernardi, Paolo Beni, the authors of the Coimbra Commentaries, Filippo Fabri, Mersenne, Pierre Gassendi, Campanella, and Leibniz (Schmitt 1967).

Pico’s importance as a biographer and apologist, however, must not be underestimated. Pico’s Life of Savonarola (1496) has been long revered by the secret sympathizers of the Dominican priest’s cause (Pico della Mirandola and Schisto 1999) and freely circulated in Protestant territories and communities. His Life of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1496), moreover, received immediate attention and praise, up to the point of being edited and translated in 1510 by Thomas More. Gianfrancesco Pico’s influence and agency as the editor of his uncle Giovanni Pico’s works continues to be an important and controversial matter today. Giovanni Pico’s Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem, published posthumously by Gianfrancesco, has lately been accused of being utterly modified by the latter to fit a more Savonarolan form of pietas (Garfagnini and Pico della Mirandola 2004).

During his turbulent life, Gianfrancesco Pico managed to write extensively about a great number of matters that characterized the high culture of his time. Following in his uncle’s footsteps, the young Pico was extremely active in the Renaissance diatribe on astrology. On this subject, he wrote two treatises – De rerum praenotione (1507) and the short Quaestio de falsitate astrologiae (1505–1514) – and a poem dedicated to Emperor Maximilian I known as Staurostichon (1505–1507). During the second decade of the sixteenth century, Pico developed an articulated critique on the concept of Platonic love, resulting in the publication of the treatise De amore divino (1516) – dedicated to Pope Leo X – and the poem De Venere et Cupidine expellendis (1513). He also wrote several theological works in defense of Savonarolan piety, such as De morte Christi et propria cogitanda (1496), Theoremata numero XXV de fide (1506–1507) – dedicated to Pope Julius II – and the famous De reformandis moribus oratio (1514 – published in 1520), a short oration addressed to Pope Leo X and the assembled Lateran Council, that would circulate widely, particularly in Germany, as propaganda for the cause of the Reformation (Schmitt 1967; Cao 2004). Although the attribution of Pico’s late work on alchemy – De Auro (published posthumously in 1586) – has been considered uncertain for a long period; later scholarship has brought new contextual proof of its possible authenticity (Secret 1976). If so, Pico’s work must be acknowledged as a unique text among the vast production of alchemical treatises of the sixteenth century.

Cross-References