A Philosopher's Death

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola was a brilliant and precocious philosopher, who caused a stir in Italy with his writings before he was even 25. But Pico would have many powerful enemies and rivals, and his suspicious death would remain a mystery for centuries. Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/noblebloodtales — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250840578/anatomyalovestory and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story' https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250861016/immortalityalovestory See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• 0:00Dana Schwartz?

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• 1:35Dana Schwartz?

  Hey, this is Dana Schwartz. Just a quick note before we begin, a tiny bit of housekeeping. This summer in July, I am co-leading a trip to the south of France to talk about Julia Child with an amazing program called Common Ground Pilgrimages. This is the fourth trip that I'll be leading with them, and I keep begging them to let me come back because it's just, it's amazing. You spend the better part of a week going on long walks and talking about writing and literature and, and big ideas. It always makes me miss college. And I feel like as an adult, there are very few opportunities to talk about ideas and writing and literature in, in spaces like this. So the trips are

• 2:16Dana Schwartz?

  just amazing. This one, like I said, we'll be talking about Julia Child and her writing. You don't need to read anything before you show up. We'll just be, you know, assigning certain letters and reading them out loud. But if you're interested in signing up, it's through Common Ground. I'll link to it in the show description. I'm very, very excited about it. And also, I might have mentioned this once or twice before, but I have a new book coming out in May. It's called The Arcane Arts. I co-wrote it with a friend of mine who's also a brilliant writer, and we used the pseudonym S.D. Coverly because this book is a little sexy. It's a little different than my other books. It was very, very fun

• 2:57Dana Schwartz?

  to write. It's a dark, academic, erotic thriller, romanticy. If any of those words are exciting to you, absolutely, please, please preorder the book. Just to be totally honest, preorders are kind of the most important thing you could do to help an author. They tell a publisher that books are even worth just putting in bookstores. I'm so excited about this book being out in the world. I'm so excited for readers. And so if this is a book that you are interested in, I would ask you just please preorder it, The Arcane Arts. Thank you so much. Let's get into the episode.

• 3:33Speaker 04

  Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Listener discretion advised.

• 3:43Dana Schwartz?

  On November 24th, 1494, the nobility of Florence gathered for the funeral of Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, an aristocrat and philosopher. When he was alive, he was a dazzling figure. Historian Paul Strathern described him as a “peacock at six feet tall, always cloaked in the trendiest fine wool doublets, with long auburn hair down to his shoulders.” And Pico had the intellect to match his looks. He could recite Dante’s Divine Comedy backwards by heart.

• 4:24Dana Schwartz?

  At the age of 20, he had already mastered Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, and Chaldean, and he went on to write pioneering works of humanist philosophy. But in early November, when he was just 31 years old, Pico della Mirandola had suddenly fallen ill. He suffered in bed for two weeks, alternating between lucidity and delirium. As he grew more and more fatigued, Pico’s illness raised red flags across Europe. Even the king of France, Charles VII, who had diplomatic tensions with many of Pico’s

• 5:07Dana Schwartz?

  allies, sent over his personal physicians to try and heal the philosopher. But by the time the physicians had arrived, it was too late. Pico was on his deathbed, in a placid, contemplative mood. “He asked all his servants forgiveness, if he had ever before that day offended any of them,” Thomas More wrote in 1504. During his life, Pico had indulged in the pleasures of his aristocratic, intellectual upbringing, enjoying life outside of Florence, living with a mistress.

• 5:47Dana Schwartz?

  But he had always flirted with a more austere, godly path, expressing interest in becoming a Dominican monk. In his final days, he gave all of his possessions to the monastery at San Marco, and he pleaded with his friend, the powerful Dominican friar, Hierolomo Savonarola, to accept him into the Order. Savonarola complied, laying out a Dominican habit over Pico’s body before Pico died on November 17. His austere funeral a week later was in keeping with his “late-in-life turn to God.”

• 6:27Dana Schwartz?

  Rather than celebrating his intellect or honoring his aristocratic lineage, Savonarola dwelled on Pico’s salvation. Savonarola told the audience, “The soul of Pico could not go to heaven at once. It was subject to a time in the flames of purgatory for certain sins, those sins he failed to name.” But he reassured the audience that Pico had appeared to him in a dream, saying that he would expiate his sins in purgatory. Pico was buried in San Marco in his habit, next to his friend and collaborator, Angelo Poliziano, another Italian classical scholar in Florence.

• 7:12Dana Schwartz?

  And oddly enough, Poliziano had died just a few weeks earlier, under similar conditions. Just like Pico, Poliziano suffered from a mysterious acute illness that killed him quickly. Their deaths seemed so abrupt and untimely, that some suspected foul play. After all, Pico and Poliziano had no shortage of enemies. The ensuing investigation into “who killed Pico della Mirandola,” if he had been killed at all, would last over 500 years. I’m Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood.

• 7:57Dana Schwartz?

  Quando il picco della Mirandola di 21 anni arrivò nella tribunale Florentina nel 1484, non aveva idea che sarebbe presto al centro di una crisi politica. Era già un intellettuale riconosciuto in tutta Europa, famoso per il suo lavoro di connessione tra cristianesimo, giudizio e i filosofi greci antichi. Uno dei suoi mentori lo portò di nuovo alla tribunale di Lorenzo de Medici, il leader della Repubblica di Florence e del Medici Bank. Dopo in Florence, Pico incontrò Angelo Poliziano, che era il poeta della tribunale Medici all'epoca.

• 8:37Dana Schwartz?

  Poliziano era innamorato da Pico, ma sembra che tutti in Florence lo fossero, soprattutto per le scritture di Pico sui filosofi greci. Lorenzo de Medici, Poliziano e altri intellettuali Florentini erano innamorati delle lavori di Platone. Erano particolarmente interessati a come Platone enfatizzasse la virtù, l'amore e la dignità individuale, suggerendo che coltivare queste qualità nel mondo terrestre potesse portare alle verità divine. Un membro di questo gruppo, Marsilio Ficino, coinvolgeva il termine “amore platonic”,

• 9:16Dana Schwartz?

  un termine che Platone stesso non usò, per descrivere l'ideale legame tra, specificamente, amici maschi. I medici che condivise la poesia e parlava dell'amore non potrebbero essere più diversi dalla tradizione intellettuale dominante in scuole di tutta Europa all'epoca, l'aristotelianismo scolastico, dove i scolari passavano i giorni a scrivere prove logiche rigorose della teologia cristiana.

• 9:47Dana Schwartz?

  While the Florentine set embraced Pico as one of their own, they didn't know that he was not as hostile to scholastic Aristotelianism as he may have seemed. In 1485, Pico wrote in a letter that he had come to Florence not as a "deserter of academic tradition," but rather "as a spy." Pico didn't want to be pinned down to any particular intellectual school. Behind the Medici crowd's back, Pico met up with an old acquaintance, Geralimo Savonarola,

• 10:27Dana Schwartz?

  a Dominican friar who hated the Platonic humanists and the Medici court. Savonarola thought that the humanists' encouragement of "cultivating virtue and philosophical contemplation on an individual level" would turn people away from the Church. Pico was not just well-versed in the classics, but also had a deep theological knowledge. He was able to pull from obscure Jewish and Christian texts alike. Savonarola and Pico spent long hours at the monastery of San Marco "piously philosophizing."

• 11:09Dana Schwartz?

  While these philosophical differences may seem abstract or pedantic, they were slowly becoming more politically divisive. Savonarola had a cult-like following for his sharp intellect and his commitment to ascetic life. One monk described that he had spent his nights weeping during the night-long vigils and hours of fervent meditation, even with his eyes swollen from being up all night. He wrote, "His teachings raised men's hearts above all human things." In Savonarola's weekly sermons across Florence, he railed against the Medici elite, arguing

• 11:54Dana Schwartz?

  that the Medici's sponsorship of Platonic philosophy, of lavish festivals, and of classical art and poetry was evidence of the excesses of luxury and pagan moral decay. This struck a nerve. Savonarola made the Neoplatonists seem elitist and out of touch, since the common people of Florence couldn't spend all day pursuing their own moral education. Of course not, they had to work. Worse economic anxiety simmered underneath the Medici's seeming abundance, as taxes rose and wealth inequality intensified.

• 12:38Dana Schwartz?

  Savonarola blamed the elite for this economic precarity, suggesting that God was punishing Florence for their sins. And Pico was only making things harder for Lorenzo de Medici. In early 1486, Pico had an affair with a young woman named Margherita. The problem was, she already had a husband. When her husband died, her in-laws compelled her to remarry a local tax official who was a distant relative of Lorenzo de Medici's. In May, Pico and 20 armed men

• 13:19Dana Schwartz?

  set out towards Margherita's hometown, Arezzo, 40 miles outside of Florence. They met up with Margherita at the city gate and rode off together. The local authorities chased them down, and a battle ensued, killing 15 men. Pico, his secretary, and Margherita all managed to escape, but another village detained them and threw them in prison. Lorenzo de Medici was not happy to have to bail Pico out of prison, especially since Pico had "humiliated" Margherita's fiancé, who was a member, after all, of the Medici family. Lorenzo declared that Margherita had not been unfaithful

• 14:04Dana Schwartz?

  and should be returned to her husband, and he ordered Pico to be released. He blamed the entire thing on Pico's secretary.

• 14:14Dana Schwartz?

  But an even bigger scandal was yet to come. Pico had nearly completed his intellectual opus, 900 theses, that he claimed answered every question in philosophy and theology. He combined ancient Egyptian, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew sources in order to create a universal system of beliefs. Pico even mined alchemy, astrology, and mysticism for metaphysical truths alongside the traditional teachings of the Bible. He was particularly interested in the Jewish mysticism of the Kabbalah, writing, “No

• 14:56Dana Schwartz?

  science affords better evidence of Christ’s divinity than magic and Kabbalistic practices.” Pico arrived in Rome in November 1486 to publish his 900 theses and conduct a public debate, defending his work against any possible argument. He assumed that his work would be uncontroversial, maintaining that everything he had written would be “approved by the Catholic Church and her chief pastor, Innocent VIII.” As it turns out, Pope Innocent VIII was not a fan of Pico’s project.

• 15:37Dana Schwartz?

  He thought that Pico’s unquestioning citations of the Kabbalah, which most Christians at the time considered heresy, was a direct threat to the Church and a challenge to his authority. Pope Innocent VIII shut down Pico’s proposed public debate and decided that his 900 theses were “heretical rash and likely to give scandal to the faithful.” Pico was determined to defend himself, writing an apologia to back up his arguments and dedicating it to Lorenzo de Mendiichi. But Pico’s apologia only made things worse.

• 16:19Dana Schwartz?

  In it, he proposed a reading of the Bible, which suggested that humans had free will to pursue the lives of their choosing, which stood in direct contrast to the Church’s insistence at the time that God was the ultimate authority.

• 16:37Dana Schwartz?

  Pico escaped Rome and fled to France, and Innocent VIII called for his arrest. Authorities in France detained Pico for heresy and threw him in prison. Worse, it's unclear whether Pico had asked Lorenzo de Medici's permission to dedicate his apologia to him, and so Lorenzo had been dragged into the scandal as well, possibly against his will, an international incident involving the Pope. Lorenzo now had to choose whether to let his friend Pico suffer the heresy charges, serious charges since a common punishment for heretics was to burn them at the stake,

• 17:22Dana Schwartz?

  or to save Pico and put his own reputation at risk. After days of deliberation, Lorenzo de Medici decided to try and rescue Pico. While this was diplomatically tricky, his friendship with Pope Innocent and the French regent slightly improved his chances. Lorenzo requested that Pico be freed, and both Pope Innocent VIII and the French royalty agreed. Lorenzo brought Pico back to Florence and set him up at a villa just north of the city.

• 18:02Dana Schwartz?

  While Innocent didn't prosecute Pico, he wasn't totally in the clear. The Pope refused to pardon Pico. Lorenzo was now worried that the rest of his intellectual squad of Neoplatonists could be convicted of heresy as well. Lorenzo realized he could be targeted by the Vatican for his "irreverent extravagant festivals" and what historian Paul Strathen called "his lax attitudes toward religion." Lorenzo asked Pico for advice. Pico suggested that he hire his old friend Savonarola to teach his son Giovanni, which

• 18:46Dana Schwartz?

  would signal to the Church that he, Lorenzo, was taking Catholicism more seriously. In 1490, Savonarola agreed to the job, moving from Bologna back to the monastery in San Marco.

• 19:01Dana Schwartz?

  After Pico's run-in with the church, he was “somewhat beaten,” as Savonarola put it at the time. Savonarola convinced him to abandon his 900 theses and pursue a more godly life. Pico had given away his villa at Mirandola and flirted with joining in the footsteps of Saint Francis of Assisi, walking barefoot across Italy. He even considered joining the Dominican Order of San Marco. But even as he spent hours arguing with Savonarola about theology, he couldn’t quite bring himself to renounce his intellectual and worldly pleasures.

• 19:45Dana Schwartz?

  But while Pico was still trying to endear himself to both Savonarola and Lorenzo de Medici simultaneously, their feud had intensified. Lorenzo had supported a rival of Savonarola’s, Fra Mariano, in giving a sermon taking Savonarola down. Lorenzo, Poliziano, the poet, Pico, and the rest of the Medici intellectual scene attended that fateful sermon as Mariano lambasted Savonarola for being a false prophet aiming to stir the people of Florence into a rebellion. But Mariano took things a little too far, mocking Savonarola’s accent,

• 20:31Dana Schwartz?

  calling him “a worm, a snake, a clown who is ignorant of the Bible, and an inept priest who is not even capable of conducting a mass in proper Latin.” Pico, Lorenzo, and Poliziano, and the rest of the congregation were horrified at the vitriol. Three days later, Pico, Poliziano, Lorenzo de Medici, and the other Florentine congregants reconvened to hear Savonarola's response. Unlike Mariano, Savonarola was calm and collected. He complimented Mariano's biblical interpretations and emphasized that they had been cordial in the past.

• 21:14Dana Schwartz?

  He alleged that someone intervened and convinced Mariano to "change his mind and attack him." Even though Savonarola kept things vague, everyone knew this culprit he was alluding to. Who had changed Mariano's mind and caused him to attack Savonarola? Well, Lorenzo de Medici. Mariano was so devastated by his defeat in the popular forum that he fled to Rome. Meanwhile, Savonarola had never been more popular. He was elected prior to the monastery of San Marco.

• 21:54Dana Schwartz?

  Because the Medici family built San Marco and even referred to it as "their monastery", the newly-elected friar was expected to pay a visit to the Medici Palazzo. But Savonarola balked at that request, saying to his fellow monks, "Who made me prior? God or Lorenzo?" The monks responded, "God." And Savonarola said, "Thus it is the Lord God who I will thank." And he returned to his cell. Even when citizens and allies like Pico warned him about making such a powerful enemy, Savonarola refused to back down.

• 22:38Dana Schwartz?

  He said, "Although I am a mere stranger to this city, Lorenzo is the most powerful man in Florence. It is I who will remain here and he who will depart. He will be gone long before me." The prophecy was well timed.

• 22:56Dana Schwartz?

  Lorenzo's health had been failing as he suffered from congenital gout that left him weak and understandably cranky. It continued to worsen over the rest of the year, and he retired to a villa outside of Florence to convalesce. By spring of 1492, it seemed the end was near. On April 5th, two of Florence's lions, the city's mascots, had mauled each other to death in their cave. And later that night, a lightning bolt struck the Florence Cathedral, causing pieces of marble to collapse around the building.

• 23:37Dana Schwartz?

  These events seemed like catastrophic omens, and even Lorenzo was not immune from superstition. When he heard of the cathedral's collapse, he said, "It means that I shall die." On his deathbed, Lorenzo de Medici had a surprising visitor, Savonarola. While it's unclear why Lorenzo had invited his frenemy over, and even less clear why Savonarola accepted it, some historians suggest that Pico della Mirandola may have leveraged his friendship with both of them to arrange the meeting.

• 24:18Dana Schwartz?

  Pico and his friend, the poet Poliziano, were there for this fateful meeting. Poliziano recalled that Savonarola asked him if he had faith in God and would be willing to renounce his ill-gotten wealth and live a blameless life. Lorenzo said, "Yes." According to rumor, Lorenzo told Savonarola that his son, Piero, would rule over Florence after his death, and begged Savonarola not to preach against him. Savonarola reluctantly agreed. At the end of his visit, right as Savonarola turned towards the door to leave, Lorenzo asked him to give him his benediction, and he did.

• 25:02Dana Schwartz?

  Shortly thereafter, on April 8, 1492, Lorenzo died. Piero took over Florence, and, true to his words, Savonarola did not undermine him in his sermons. But Savonarola considered capitalizing on the growing political instability for his own aims. Florence had fallen into financial chaos. Late in his life, Lorenzo attempted to increase taxes, a hugely unpopular move, given the gulf between the Medici’s fabulous wealth and the widespread poverty of the rest of the population.

• 25:44Dana Schwartz?

  At the time, around 30% of the taxable population, which was almost 10,000 people, were so impoverished that they paid no tax at all, while 50% of the working population paid little more than a florin each. Savonarola balked at the luxury of the Medici lifestyle and wanted to bring a spirit of austerity to Florence. Pico was not on the same page. His heresy charges had been all but forgotten, so he returned to writing and even lived with a mistress, an evident sin.

• 26:24Dana Schwartz?

  Even though some sources suggest that Savonarola knew about Pico’s sex life, contrary to his doctrinaire and hard-headed nature, it seems that Savonarola just looked the other way when it came to his friend. Savonarola wanted to use his brilliant friend, Pico, to spread his theological agenda. He had Pico write an anti-astrology screed with a jab that astrologers were so inept that they couldn’t even predict the weather. Bulled by the Church and swayed by Savonarola, Pico had abandoned his more forward-thinking Renaissance humanism and instead started promoting strict obedience to God’s authority.

• 27:14Dana Schwartz?

  Meanwhile, in Milan, a duke, Lorenzo Sforza, was suffering a power struggle of his own, as he fought with various aristocrats for control of the region. Sforza asked for support from Charles VIII, the new young king of France, and at that time, the most powerful nation in Europe. In return, Sforza promised to back Charles if he chose to take control of Naples. Because Charles's grandmother's family had had control over the Napoli's territory in 1266, he believed that Naples rightfully belonged to him. In 1494, the king of Naples died,

• 27:59Dana Schwartz?

  giving Charles the perfect opportunity to invade. With Sforza's backing, he led his army into Milan, aiming to take Naples by force. Piero de Medici had initially decided to use Florence's resources to defend Naples against Charles. But Piero's reputation was beginning to fall apart. Piero had become infamous for being hot-headed, arrogant, entitled, and dumb. Even his own late father had called him a fool. Various Florentine officials contrasted Piero with his cousin, apologies another Lorenzo de Medici,

• 28:44Dana Schwartz?

  who was more moderate and even keeled, deeply embedded in civic institutions and educated in humanist philosophy. This cousin Lorenzo had been in contact with the French army and promised to offer them safe passage, even if Piero refused. And he even agreed to back Charles VIII's invasion financially.

• 29:10Dana Schwartz?

  Piero, feeling that he had no choice because he was being undermined and possibly usurped by his cousin, decided to tacitly allow the invasion. At the end of August 1494, Charles VIII and an army of 40,000 marched into Tuscany. By September 21st, the citizens of Florence were terrified about the future of their city. Hundreds of people, including Pico della Mirandola, crowded into the cathedral to hear Savonarola’s latest sermon. While he never made a direct attack on Piero, Savonarola had apocalyptic warnings about Florence’s future.

• 29:55Dana Schwartz?

  He castigated the gamblers, blasphemers, and sodomites that would lead to Florence’s downfall, saying that the “scourge of God” had arrived. Upon hearing those words, Pico della Mirandola began to shake, as the rest of the crowd wept and moaned in hysterics. Just three days after that apocalyptic sermon, one of Pico Mirandola’s closest friends, the poet, Angelo Poliziano, died. He had suffered a mysterious illness that took his life in just two weeks. Pico had no idea how soon his own death would follow.

• 30:37Dana Schwartz?

  While Poliziano’s sudden death would normally have raised suspicions, the population of Florence was far too preoccupied with a potential French invasion to delve into an investigation about the death of a poet. By the end of September 1494, Piero felt trapped. Charles VIII’s vast army was moving quickly with advanced artillery that could easily destroy Florence’s meager defenses. Moreover, all of Florence’s allies were aligned with Charles VIII. But capitulating to the French would humiliate Florence and throw the city into an even deeper crisis.

• 31:22Dana Schwartz?

  At the end of October, Piero went to Charles's camp in Tuscany to negotiate with him, using the same diplomatic tactics that his father had pioneered. Piero figured that he could allow the French army to pass through Florence in the short term and regain control over the city after the fact. But he arrived at the camp realizing he was at a huge disadvantage. He had gone alone, with no army or political muscle to back him up. Charles had no interest in negotiating with Piero, regarding him as a "nothing," according to a contemporary.

• 32:03Dana Schwartz?

  He told Piero that he needed the immediate surrender of the fortresses surrounding Florence for as long as he wanted. Piero, in shock, agreed immediately and even offered the king 200,000 florins. When the population of Florence heard what happened, they were incensed. Piero's conduct at that meeting seemed to confirm the worst rumors about him. He acted rashly and unilaterally, capitulating to Charles's demands without consulting any of his advisers. Even though Florence was ostensibly a republic, Piero was acting more like a dictator.

• 32:45Dana Schwartz?

  Piero finally returned to Florence on November 8th. The city was silent, with no celebrations welcoming him home. He approached the Piazza della Signora, which housed the Florentine government, but the main door was slammed in his face. An official shouted him that he could only enter by way of the sportello, the tiny side-gate intended for servants and delivery boys.

• 33:17Dana Schwartz?

  As Piero contemplated what to do, the city's bell rang out, the traditional call alerting citizens to an emergency. A crowd gathered in the piazza, at first heckling Piero and pelting him with trash and stones. The mob chased him and his men, threw the city back to the Palazzo Medici. The next day, Piero fled the city. Over the next week, the city was in chaos. Anticipating the French army's invasion, mobs broke into the palazzo and burned down registry files to clear their debts. A real Fight Club move. Meanwhile, Pico de la Mirandola had fallen suddenly ill,

• 34:02Dana Schwartz?

  just like his late friend, Poliziano. While he continued to attend his friend Savonarola's increasingly grim and over-the-top sermons, Pico had been feverish and weak. Finally, on November 17th, he died, at age 31. The French marched into Florence that very day, occupying the city without a fight. The army sacked Florence and left the city in ruins as it continued on to Naples.

• 34:37Dana Schwartz?

  Pico and Poliziano's deaths seemed to signal the end of the Medici era and the Renaissance humanism that had flourished. Though Savonarola buried the two men together in San Marco, he treated their deaths slightly differently. In his sermons, he portrayed Pico de la Mirandola as a devout Christian and a symbol of the power of repentance. He emphasized that at the end of his life, Pico had renounced his philosophical heresies and joined the Dominican Order. While this was technically true, Pico's religious commitments were a bit of wishful thinking on Savonarola's part.

• 35:22Dana Schwartz?

  Most historians interpret this late-in-life conversion as a last-minute attempt to get into heaven, and probably wouldn't have occurred if Pico wasn't on his deathbed. In contrast, Savonarola said nothing about Poliziano. Savonarola considered Poliziano a friend and had been deeply affected by his death, but the poet was a more controversial figure than Pico was. Unlike the distant and reclusive Pico, Poliziano was known to the public as a teacher and was more closely associated with Piero de Medici, since he remained on the Medici payroll

• 36:03Dana Schwartz?

  long after Lorenzo, the first original Lorenzo’s, death. Moreover, Pico’s work was dense and difficult to access, given that his 900 theses were banned by the church, while Poliziano’s poetry, praising the beauty of young boys in the classical style, was accessible and widely available to the public. His poetry and his role as a teacher to the elite sparked rumors that he was sleeping with his male students. He was even arrested on charges of sodomy before he died, but he didn’t end up being charged. One contemporary said that Poliziano was,

• 36:44Dana Schwartz?

  “The object of as much infamy and public vituperation as it is possible for a man to attract.” Their different reputations meant that even though Pico and Poliziano were friends who died under almost exactly the same circumstances within weeks of each other, historians viewed their deaths as unrelated. In the late 15th century, pro-Savonarola writers interpreted Pico’s death as an untimely tragedy, while leaving out Poliziano entirely, just as Savonarola had. They interpreted these deaths as divine judgments,

• 37:26Dana Schwartz?

  God’s punishment for Florence’s sins. And after Savonarola’s death in 1498, writers who were against him took almost the opposite perspective, reclaiming Pico as a humanist, rather than a converted Christian. Rather than a divine punishment, his death was a tragic symbol of Florence’s forward-looking intellectual culture during the Medici era that was being destroyed by the political forces of the era. It wasn't until the 1580s that more scandalous rumors about Poliziano's death emerged.

• 38:07Dana Schwartz?

  Early 16th-century clerical writers linked Poliziano's death with the rumors about his homosexuality, suggesting that his life of sin and excess led to his demise. As syphilis spread throughout Europe, clerical historians in the 1580s interpreted this implication literally, suggesting that maybe Poliziano had died of syphilis. While some poisoning speculations floated around in the years after Pico's death, it wasn't until the mid-16th century that historians made an explicit allegation that Pico was murdered.

• 38:50Dana Schwartz?

  These writers tended to be anti-Savonarola and accused Savonarola's most extreme followers of assassinating Pico. The claim was that these religious fanatics, unlike Savonarola himself, saw Pico as a dangerous heretic who could undermine Savonarola's religious authority. On the other hand, if Pico happened to die, it would confirm Savonarola's apocalyptic premonitions, shoring up his control over the city. Speculation swirled about both Pico and Poliziano's deaths

• 39:30Dana Schwartz?

  until 2008, when scientists exhumed both of their bodies to study the remains. They found high levels of arsenic, mercury, and lead in their bones, suggesting that they may have been poisoned. That said, Pico had higher levels of arsenic in his system than Poliziano did, and arsenic was also used as a medical treatment, leaving it unclear whether they had been poisoned or whether they were trying to treat an already-existing illness. Still, this new evidence, emerging over 500 years after they had died,

• 40:13Dana Schwartz?

  linking Pico and Poliziano's death for the first time, might have confirmed a potential conspiracy.

• 40:22Dana Schwartz?

  Thinking had changed from the 16th century, so modern historians set aside their suspicions that Savonarola influenced religious fanatics had poisoned Pico. They figured that those older historians had blamed the religious devotees out of their own biases and contempt for the preacher, rather than based in any actual evidence. Moreover, Savonarola’s followers had a deep respect for Pico and tended to go after their enemies publicly, making a secret poisoning unlikely. Instead, some historians turned their blame to Piero de Medici.

• 41:03Dana Schwartz?

  The head of the Italian National Cultural Committee that commissioned the exhumation said, “Combining the results of our analysis with historical documents, which have recently come to light, it seems Piero was the most likely culprit for the assassination order.” The committee had added, “It was probably Pico’s secretary who administered the poison. In fact, the secretary admitted later that he had given Pico medicine because he was sick.” The head of the committee argued that Piero had paid off the secretary to kill Pico because

• 41:46Dana Schwartz?

  Pico had chosen to plead the cause of his nemesis Savonarola. It’s not clear that this allegation has a ton of evidence behind it. That new historical document that they mentioned was the diary of a Venetian historian from 1496, a few years after Pico’s death. By then, Savonarola had taken control over Florence while the Medici’s were in exile. Still, Savonarola worried that the Medici’s would oust him, and so he arrested and executed nobles whom he suspected were still aligned with the Medici’s.

• 42:27Dana Schwartz?

  One of the men he interrogated was Pico’s secretary. The secretary, Cristoforo, confessed that he had “hastened the death of his master by poisoning,” but this Venetian diarist was not a witness to the confession, so this was just a secondhand rumor.

• 42:49Dana Schwartz?

  Moreover, one would think that such a scandalous admission would have made quite the splash in Florence at the time, but no other contemporary sources mention it. This story obviously would have only helped Savonarola's case. He could have used it to convince the public that the Medici's were conspiring against him. They had paid his friend's secretary to murder him. Furthermore, it seems that this newly discovered historical document was not so new after all. The Venetian diary had been in print for centuries, and the theory that Piero de

• 43:28Dana Schwartz?

  Medici had hired Cristoforo to kill Pico had been circulating in the historical record since at least 1898. In any case, as one Italian historian, Giolo Busi, put it, "Pico's death is destined to remain shrouded in mystery." That's all for the story of Pico della Mirandola, but stick around to hear a bit about the rumored love affair between Pico, Lorenzo de Medici, and Poliziano.

• 44:09Speaker 05

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• 44:37Dana Schwartz?

  Cleopatra was one of the most famous rulers in history, and somehow, her tomb has never been found. Not the tomb, not the body. If you love the strange and unsolved moments from history, you need to meet Dr. Harini Bhatt. She's a clinical pharmacist turned history detective. And on her podcast, Hidden History, she treats the world's greatest mysteries like open case files. Not myths, not superstition, just incomplete explanations waiting for a closer look. Every episode, she reopens the cases history never closed.

• 45:19Dana Schwartz?

  The Mary Celeste, a ship found sailing the Atlantic with no one aboard. The Voynich Manuscript, a book no one on Earth has been able to read. The Loch Ness Monster, the science, the hoax, and why the legend won't die. She digs into the evidence and tells you what she thinks really happened. Listen to Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhatt every Monday. Follow on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss an episode. That's Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhatt.

• 45:57Dana Schwartz?

  We mentioned earlier in this episode that Poliziano had been rumored to have gay affairs with his students. But it wasn't just Poliziano. Rumors of bisexuality followed Lorenzo de Medici and Pico de la Mirandola as well. Some even think that Pico and Poliziano were a couple. Poliziano wrote Pico a poem that said Pico was, quote, "a hero on whom nature had lavished all the endowments, both of body and mind." Historian Paul Strathern wrote that Pico and Lorenzo were certainly bisexual, suggesting that this group of Neoplatonist intellectuals

• 46:41Dana Schwartz?

  may have been more than, ahem, Platonic friends.

• 46:46Dana Schwartz?

  There was certainly a widespread culture of male homosexuality in Florence. According to the historian Michael Rock, in Florence, every year during the last four decades of the 15th century, an average of some 400 people were implicated and 55 to 60 condemned for sodomy. It's worth pointing out that accusations of sodomy were effective political tools that someone could use to ruin an enemy's reputation. All of that said, there isn't a lot of evidence to suggest that Pico, Lorenzo, or Poliziano were involved with each other.

• 47:29Dana Schwartz?

  Pico, Lorenzo, and Poliziano saw open expressions of love and admiration as a classical tradition and a natural extension of their Platonic ideals. But that argument didn't really land with the Church. Many of Pico's contemporaries were suspicious of close affectionate relationships between male friends. Unlike Poliziano, rumors about Lorenzo and Pico's sexuality didn't emerge until the 20th century. Frustrated with the decadence of the Medici era, many early Catholic historians suggested

• 48:10Dana Schwartz?

  that the vibe of the Medici court was too erotically permissive. Strathern's assertion that Pico and Lorenzo were "certainly bisexual" is an outlier, as few other historians have speculated about their sexuality outside of the general cultural context. But you never know.

• 48:44Dana Schwartz?

  Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Julia Milani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Reema Ilkayali, and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 49:25Speaker 06

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• 50:07Speaker 04

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• 50:41Dana Schwartz?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.