The Castle of the Pico is a castle in the city center of Mirandola, in the province of Modena, Italy.
Exterior view
The castle of Mirandola (c. 1550)
Walls of Mirandola in 18th century
Ducal Palace of Mirandola, part of Pico castle (beginning of 20th century)
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
Giovanni Pico dei conti della Mirandola e della Concordia, known as Pico della Mirandola, was an Italian Renaissance nobleman and philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when, at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy, and magic against all comers, for which he wrote the Oration on the Dignity of Man, which has been called the "Manifesto of the Renaissance", and a key text of Renaissance humanism and of what has been called the "Hermetic Reformation". He was the founder of the tradition of Christian Kabbalah, a key tenet of early modern Western esotericism. The 900 Theses was the first printed book to be universally banned by the Church. Pico is sometimes seen as a proto-Protestant, because his 900 theses anticipated many Protestant views.
Portrait from the Uffizi Gallery, in Florence
Castle of Mirandola in 1976
The Childhood of Pico della Mirandola by Hippolyte Delaroche, 1842, Musée d'Arts de Nantes
Lorenzo de' Medici by Giorgio Vasari, c. 1533–1534