Pico della Mirandola, Gianfrancesco

Abstract

Gianfrancesco II Pico della Mirandola, Duke of Mirandola and Count of Concordia, is a sixteenth-century philosopher, theologian, poet, and political figure, attributable to the Savonarolan movement of the Piagnoni. He is often referred to as one of the first Renaissance intellectuals to rediscover Sextus Empiricus and employ Pyrrhonian skepticism in their philosophical treatises. He is also known as the official biographer of friar Girolamo Savonarola, and as the biographer/editor of his uncle, Giovanni II Pico della Mirandola. His philosophical and religious views, in continuous dialogue between humanist curiosity and Savonarolan devotion, characterize him as a fierce antagonist of the numerous attempts at finding concord between ancient and early modern forms of knowledge and belief pursued at the time.