Learned Credulity in Gianfrancesco Pico's Strix
In 1522-23, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola was involved in trials that executed ten accused witches. Soon after the trials, he published Strix, sive de ludificatione daemonum, a meticulous defence of witch-hunting. A humanistic dialogue as heavily dependent on classical literature and philosophy...
| Published in: | Renaissance and reformation |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Iter Press
[2019]
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| In: |
Renaissance and reformation
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| IxTheo Classification: | AZ New religious movements KAG Church history 1500-1648; Reformation; humanism; Renaissance KBJ Italy KDB Roman Catholic Church NBH Angelology; demonology |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | In 1522-23, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola was involved in trials that executed ten accused witches. Soon after the trials, he published Strix, sive de ludificatione daemonum, a meticulous defence of witch-hunting. A humanistic dialogue as heavily dependent on classical literature and philosophy as on Scholastic demonology, Strix is unusually candid about the logic of witch-hunting. A convicted witch among its four interlocutors makes Strix unique among witch-hunting defenses. Moreover, it devotes less attention to maleficia or magical harm than to seemingly peripheral questions about sacraments and the corporeality of demons. It attempts to demonstrate that witches' interactions with demons happen in reality, not in their imagination, thereby vindicating the truth of Christian demonology and explaining the current surfeit of evils. Strix explicitly reverses Gianfrancesco's earlier stance on witchcraft in De imaginatione (1501) and supplements the defence of biblical truth he undertook in Examen vanitatis doctrinae gentium (1520). |
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| ISSN: | 2293-7374 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Renaissance and reformation
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