WEBVTT - A Philosopher's Death 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:03.400 Hey, this is Danish Wartz. Just a quick note before 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:07.120 we begin a tiny bit of housekeeping. This summer in July, 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:09.800 I am co leading a trip to the south of 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:13.720 France to talk about Julia Child with an amazing program 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:15.960 called common Ground Pilgrimages. 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.160 This is the fourth trip that I'll. 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:20.840 Be leading with them, and I keep begging them to 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:23.680 let me come back because it's just it's amazing. You 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:26.200 spend the better part of a week going on long 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:30.480 walks and talking about writing and literature and big ideas. 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.320 It always makes me miss college and I feel like 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:36.160 as an adult, there are very few opportunities to talk 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:40.159 about ideas and writing and literature in spaces like this, 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:43.120 So the trips are just amazing. This one, like I said, 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.239 we'll be talking about Julia Child and her writing. You 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.520 don't need to read anything before you show up. We'll 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.239 just be you know, assigning certain letters and reading them 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.600 out loud. But if you're interested in signing up, it's 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.880 through common Ground. I'll link to it in the show description. 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:03.000 I'm very, very excited about it. And also I might 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:05.319 have mentioned this once or twice before, but I have 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.280 a new book coming out in May. It's called The 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:11.120 Arcane Arts. I co wrote it with a friend of 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:14.479 mine who's also a brilliant writer, and we used the 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:17.759 pseudonym SD coverly because. 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:18.920 This book is a little sexy. 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:22.280 It's a little different than my other books. It was very, 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:27.440 very fun to write. It's a dark, academic, erotic thriller, romanticy. 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:31.200 If any of those words are exciting to you, absolutely please. 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:32.600 Please pre order the book. 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:35.920 Just to be totally honest, pre orders are kind of 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.399 the most important thing you could do to help an author. 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.000 They tell a publisher that books are even worth just 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.280 putting in bookstores. I'm so excited about this book being 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:47.640 out in the world. I'm so excited for readers, and 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:49.840 so if this is a book that you were interested in, 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:52.680 I would ask you just please pre order it. The 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.920 Arcane Arts. Thank you so much. Let's get into the 0:01:55.960 --> 0:02:02.280 episode Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:04.120 Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:05.960 Listener discretion advised. 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:12.920 On November twenty fourth, fourteen ninety four, the nobility of 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:17.920 Florence gathered for the funeral of Count Giovanni Pico de 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:23.200 la Mirandola, an aristocrat and philosopher. When he was alive, 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:28.720 he was a dazzling figure. Historian Paul Strathorne described him 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:33.680 as a quote peacock at six feet tall, always cloaked 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:38.360 in the trendiest fine wool doublets, with long auburn hair 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.520 down to his shoulders, and Pico had the intellect to 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:47.960 match his looks. He could recite Dante's Divine Comedy backwards 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:52.000 by heart. At the age of twenty, he had already 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:57.239 mastered Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, an Chaldean, and he went 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:02.480 on to write pioneering works a few humanist philosophy. But 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:06.920 in early November, when he was just thirty one years old, 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:11.960 Pico de la Marendola had suddenly fallen ill. He suffered 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:17.600 in bed for two weeks, alternating between lucidity and delirium 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:23.440 as he grew more and more fatigued. Pico's illness raised 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:28.679 red flags across Europe. Even the King of France, Charles 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:33.200 the Seventh, who had diplomatic tensions with many of Pico's allies, 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:38.840 sent over his personal physicians to try and heal the philosopher, 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.680 but by the time the physicians had arrived, it was 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:47.560 too late. Pico was on his deathbed in a placid, 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:49.320 contemplative mood. 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:52.120 Quote, he asked all. 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:56.119 His servants forgiveness if he had ever before that day 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:59.960 offended any of them, Thomas Moore wrote in fifteen o five. 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:04.480 During his life, Pico had indulged in the pleasures of 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:11.040 his aristocratic intellectual upbringing, enjoying life outside of Florence living 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:15.120 with a mistress, but he had always flirted with a 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:21.119 more austere godly path, expressing interest in becoming a Dominican monk. 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:24.839 In his final days, he gave all of his possessions 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:28.120 to the monastery at San Marco, and he pleaded with 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:33.560 his friend, the powerful Dominican friar Hirolamo Savonarola, to accept 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:38.919 him into the order. Savonarola complied, laying out a Dominican 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:44.320 habit over Pico's body before Pico died on November seventeen. 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.240 His austere funeral a week later was in keeping with 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:53.960 his late in life turn to God. Rather than celebrating 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:59.400 his intellect or honoring his aristocratic lineage, Savonarola dwelled on 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:05.359 pico salvation. Savonarola told the audience quote, the soul of 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.760 Pico could not go to heaven at once it was 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.279 subject to a time in the flames of purgatory for 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:16.599 certain sins. Those sins he failed to name, but he 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.280 reassured the audience that Pico had appeared to him in 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:24.600 a dream, saying that he would expiate his sins in purgatory. 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:29.320 Pico was buried in San Marco in his habit, next 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:34.320 to his friend and collaborator, A Hillo Pulitziano, another Italian 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:40.200 classical scholar in Florence, and oddly enough, Pulitziano had died 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:46.200 just a few weeks earlier under similar conditions. Just like Pico, 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:52.120 Pulitziano suffered from a mysterious acute illness that killed him quickly. 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:58.240 Their deaths seemed so abrupt and untimely that some suspected 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:03.360 foul play. After all, Pico and Poliziano had no shortage 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:09.719 of enemies. The ensuing investigation into who killed Pico della Mirandola, 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.400 if he had been killed at all, would last over 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:19.320 five hundred years. I'm Danish forts and this is noble blood. 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.520 When twenty one year old Pico dela Marendola arrived in 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:29.520 the Florentine court in fourteen eighty four, he had no 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.640 idea that he would soon be at the center of 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:38.560 a political crisis. He was already a celebrated intellectual across Europe, 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:43.520 famous for his work connecting Christianity, Judaism, and the ancient 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:48.000 Greek philosophers. One of his mentors brought him back to 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.160 the court of Lorenzo de Medici, the leader of the 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:56.560 Republic of Florence and Medici Bank. While in Florence, Pico 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.800 met Angelo Poliziano, who was the Medici court poet at 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:05.640 the time. Politiciano was dazzled by Pico, but it seems 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:10.560 that everyone in Florence was particularly by Pico's writings on 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:16.280 the Greek philosophers. Lorenzo da Medici, Politziano, and other Florentine 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:20.920 intellectuals had become enamored with the works of Plato. They 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:26.080 were particularly interested in how Plato emphasized virtue, love, and 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:32.000 individual dignity, suggesting that cultivating these qualities in the earthly 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:36.960 world could lead to divine truths. One member of this group, 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:42.240 Marsilio Ficino, coined the term Platonic love, a term Plato 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:48.040 himself never used to describe the ideal bond between specifically 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:54.400 male friends. The Medici intellectuals sharing poetry and talking about 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:59.280 love couldn't have been more different from the dominant intellectual 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:05.080 tradition in schools across Europe at this time, scholastic Aristotelianism, 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:10.000 where scholars spent their days writing rigorous, logical proofs of 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:15.960 Christian theology. While the Florentine set embraced Pico as one 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.800 of their own, they didn't know that he was not 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:24.920 as hostile to scholastic Aristotelianism as he may have seemed. 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.760 In fourteen eighty five, Pico wrote in a letter that 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:33.600 he had come to Florence not as a quote deserter 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:39.040 of academic tradition, but rather quote as a spy. Pico 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:44.040 didn't want to be pinned down to any particular intellectual school. 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.959 Behind the Medichi crowds. Back, Pico met up with an 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:54.960 old acquaintance, Gilimo Savonarola, a Dominican friar who hated the 0:08:55.080 --> 0:09:01.520 Platonic Humanists and the Medici court. Savonarola thought that the humanists' 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:07.920 encouragement of cultivating virtue and philosophical contemplation on an individual 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:12.880 level would turn people away from the Church. Pico was 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.040 not just well versed in the classics, but also had 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:20.240 a deep theological knowledge he was able to pull from 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:26.559 obscure Jewish and Christian texts alike. Savonarola and Pico spent 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:32.480 long hours at the monastery of San Marco quote piously philosophizing. 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:36.560 While these philosophical. 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:41.040 Differences may seem abstract or pedantic, they were slowly becoming 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:46.680 more politically divisive. Savonarola had a cult like following for 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:52.200 his sharp intellect and his commitment to ascetic life. One 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:56.800 monk described that he had spent his nights weeping during 0:09:56.840 --> 0:10:02.080 the night long vigils and hours of f meditation, even 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:05.800 with his eyes swollen from being up all night. He 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:11.200 wrote quote, his teachings raised men's hearts above all human things. 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:17.240 In Savonarola's weekly sermons across Florence, he railed against the 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:23.280 Medici elite, arguing that the Mediici's sponsorship of Platonic philosophy, 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:28.040 of Lavish festivals, and of classical art and poetry was 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:32.559 evidence of the excesses of luxury and pagan moral decay. 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:40.120 This struck a nerve Savonarola made the Neoplatonists seem elitist 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:44.480 and out of touch, since the common people of Florence 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:49.840 couldn't spend all day pursuing their own moral education, of course, not, 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:55.760 They had to work. Worse, economic anxiety simmered underneath the 0:10:55.800 --> 0:11:03.200 Medicheese seeming abundance as taxes rows and wealth inequality intensified. 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:10.240 Savonarola blamed the elite for this economic precarity, suggesting that 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:15.880 God was punishing Florence for their sins and Pico was 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:20.640 only making things harder for Lorenzo da Medici. In early 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:24.680 fourteen eighty six, Pico had an affair with a young 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:29.760 woman named Margarita. The problem was she already had a husband. 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:33.679 When her husband died, her in laws compelled her to 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:38.079 remarry a local tax official who was a distant relative 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:43.480 of Lorenzo da Medici's. In May, Pico and twenty armed 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:49.880 men set out towards Margherita's hometown, Arezzo, forty miles outside 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:53.439 of Florence. They met up with Margarita at the city 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:54.280 gate and. 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:55.240 Rode off together. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:12:00.199 The local authorities chased them down, and a battle ensuite, 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:05.760 killing fifteen men. Pico, his secretary, and Margherita all managed 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:10.040 to escape, but another village detained them and threw them 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:14.480 in prison. Lorenzo de Medici was not happy to have 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:18.600 to bail Pico out of prison, especially since Pico had 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:23.559 humiliated Margherita's fiancee, who was a member after all, of 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:28.240 the Medici family. Lorenzo declared that Margherita had not been 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:32.560 unfaithful and should be returned to her husband, and he 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:36.360 ordered Pico to be released. He blamed the entire thing 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:42.320 on Pico's secretary, but an even bigger scandal was yet 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:47.920 to come. Pico had nearly completed his intellectual opus, nine 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:53.439 hundred theses that he claimed answered every question in philosophy 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:58.920 and theology. He combined ancient Egyptian, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:03.400 sources in in order to create a universal system of beliefs. 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:09.800 Pico even mined alchemy, astrology, and mysticism for metaphysical truths 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:15.360 alongside the traditional teachings of the Bible. He was particularly 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:20.520 interested in the Jewish mysticism of the Kabbalah, writing quote, 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:26.120 no science affords better evidence of Christ's divinity than magic 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:32.200 and Kabbalistic practices. Pico arrived in Rome in November fourteen 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:36.800 eighty six to publish his nine hundred theses and conduct 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:41.439 a public debate, defending his work against any possible argument. 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:46.319 He assumed that his work would be uncontroversial, maintaining that 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.760 everything he had written would be quote approved by the 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:56.040 Catholic Church and her chief Pastor, Innocent the Eighth end quote. 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.440 As it turns out, Pope Innocent the Eighth was not 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:05.000 a fan of Pico's project. He thought that Pico's unquestioning 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:09.360 citations of the Kabbalah, which most Christians at the time 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:14.040 considered heresy, was a direct threat to the Church and 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:18.280 a challenge to his authority. Pope Innocent the Eighth shut 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:23.720 down Pico's proposed public debate and decided that his nine 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:28.760 hundred theses were quote heretical, rash, and likely to give 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:33.240 scandal to the faithful. Pico was determined to defend himself, 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.720 writing an apologia to back up his arguments and dedicating 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:42.720 it to Lorenzo de Medici. But Pico's apologia only made 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.760 things worse. In it, he proposed a reading of the 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:51.600 Bible which suggested that humans had free will to pursue 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:56.200 the lives of their choosing, which stood in direct contrast 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:00.240 to the Church's insistence at the time that God was 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:05.880 the ultimate authority. Pico escaped Rome and fled to France, 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:10.640 and Innocent the Eighth called for his arrest. Authorities in 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:15.880 France detained Pico for heresy and threw him in prison. Worse, 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:21.160 it's unclear whether Pico had asked Lorenzo de Medici's permission 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:25.800 to dedicate his apology to him, and so Lorenzo had 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:29.960 been dragged into the scandal as well, possibly against his will. 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:35.600 An international incident involving the Pope. Lorenzo now had to 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:40.520 choose whether to let his friend Pico suffer the heresy charges, 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:45.880 serious charges, since a common punishment for heretics was to 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:50.040 burn them at the stake, or to save Pico and 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:56.800 put his own reputation at risk. After days of deliberation, 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:02.400 Lorenzo de Medici decided to try and rescue Pico. While 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:07.960 this was diplomatically tricky, his friendship with Pope Innocent and 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:14.120 the French regent slightly improved his chances. Lorenzo requested that 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:17.760 Pico be freed, and both Pope Innocent the Eighth and 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:23.080 the French royalty agreed. Lorenzo brought Pico back to Florence 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:25.960 and set him up at a villa just north of 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:32.040 the city. While innocent didn't prosecute Pico, he wasn't totally 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:37.760 in the clear. The Pope refused to pardon Pico. Lorenzo 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.320 was now worried that the rest of his intellectual squad 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:47.000 of Neoplatonists could be convicted of heresy as well. Lorenzo 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:51.680 realized he could be targeted by the Vatican for his irreverent, 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:57.920 extravagant festivals and what historian Paul Strathen called quote his 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:04.720 lax attitudes towards religion. Lorenzo asked Pico for advice. Pico 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:09.200 suggested that he hire his old friend Savonarola to teach 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:13.040 his son, Giovanni, which would signal to the Church that 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:18.320 he Lorenzo, was taking Catholicism more seriously. In fourteen ninety, 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:23.159 Savonarola agreed to the job, moving from Bologna back to 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:28.280 the monastery in San Marco. After Pico's run in with 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:34.240 the Church, he was quote somewhat beaten, as Savonarola put it. 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:38.880 At the time, Savonarola convinced him to abandon his nine 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:43.920 hundred theses and pursue a more godly life. Pico had 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.959 given away his villa at Mirindola and flirted with joining 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:51.919 in the footsteps of Saint Francis of Assisi, walking barefoot 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:56.520 across Italy. He even considered joining the Dominican Order of 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.000 San Marco. But even as he spent hours our day 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:04.720 arguing with Savonarola about theology, he couldn't quite bring himself 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:11.679 to renounce his intellectual and worldly pleasures. But while Pico 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.719 was still trying to endear himself to both Savonarola and 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:22.960 Lorenzo de Medici, simultaneously their feud had intensified. Lorenzo had 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:28.040 supported a rival of Savonarola's fra Mariano, in giving a 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:35.480 sermon taking Savonarola down. Lorenzo Pulitziano, the poet, Pico, and 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:40.000 the rest of the Medici intellectual scene attended that fateful 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:45.560 sermon as Mariano lambasted Savonarola for being a false prophet 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:49.439 aiming to stir the people of Florence into a rebellion. 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:55.480 But Mariano took things a little too far, mocking Savonarola's accent, 0:18:55.960 --> 0:19:00.040 calling him quote a worm, a snake, a clown. He 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.440 was ignorant of the Bible and an inept priest who 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:06.680 was not even capable of conducting a mass in proper 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:12.240 Latin end quote. Pico, Lorenzo and Politziano and the rest 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:19.000 of the congregation were horrified at the vitriol. Three days later, Pico, Politziano, 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:23.840 Lorenzo de Medici, and the other Florentine congregants reconvened to 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:31.040 hear Savonarola's response. Unlike Mariano, Savonarola was calm and collected. 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:37.640 He complimented Mariano's biblical interpretations and emphasized that they had 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:42.560 been cordial in the past. He alleged that someone intervened 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:47.680 and convinced Mariano to quote change his mind and attack him. 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:53.760 Even though Savonarola kept things vague, everyone knew this culprit 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:58.800 he was alluding to who had changed Mariano's mind and 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:04.000 caused him to att attack Savonarola well Lorenzo de Medici. 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:08.800 Mariano was so devastated by his defeat in the popular 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:13.880 forum that he fled to Rome. Meanwhile, Savonarola had never 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:18.360 been more popular. He was elected prior to the monastery 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:22.480 of San Marco because the Medici family built San Marco 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:26.320 and even referred to it as their monastery. The newly 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:30.520 elected Friar was expected to pay a visit to the 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:36.480 Medici Palazzo, but Savonarola bulked at that request, saying to 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:41.560 his fellow monks, quote, who made me prior God or Lorenzo. 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:47.280 The monks responded God, and Savonarola said, quote, thus it 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.760 is the Lord God who I will think, and he 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:55.720 returned to his cell. Even when citizens and allies like 0:20:55.880 --> 0:21:01.040 Pico warned him about making such a powerful enemy, Savonarola 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:05.040 refused to back down. He said, quote, although I am 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.600 a mere stranger to this city, Lorenzo is the most 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:12.680 powerful man in Florence. It is I who will remain here, 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:16.520 and he who will depart. He will be gone long 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:22.840 before me. The prophecy was well timed. Lorenzo's health had 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:27.600 been failing as he suffered from congenital gout that left 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:33.080 him weak and understandably cranky. It continued to worsen over 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:36.000 the rest of the year, and he retired to a 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:40.800 villa outside of Florence to convalesce. By spring of fourteen 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:45.359 ninety two, it seemed the end was near. On April fifth, 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:50.640 two of Florence's Lions, the city's mascots, had mauled each 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:54.120 other to death in their cave, and later that night, 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:59.040 a lightning bolt struck the Florence Cathedral, causing pieces of 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:03.679 marble to call around the building. These events seemed like 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:09.320 catastrophic omens, and even Lorenzo was not immune from superstition. 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:14.440 When he heard of the cathedral's collapse, he said, it means. 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:16.680 That I shall die. 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:22.840 On his deathbed, Lorenzo de Medici had a surprising visitor, Savonarola. 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:28.359 While it's unclear while Lorenzo had invited his frenemy over 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:33.880 and even less clear why Savonarola accepted it, some historians 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:39.400 suggest that Pico della Mirandola may have leveraged his friendship 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:43.680 with both of them to arrange the meeting. Pico and 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:48.159 his friend, the poet Politziano, were there for this fateful meeting. 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:53.280 Politziano recalled that Savonarola asked him if he had faith 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:56.560 in God and would be willing to renounce his ill 0:22:56.640 --> 0:23:01.000 gotten wealth and live a blameless life. Lorenzo Dope said yes. 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:06.680 According to rumor, Lorenzo told Savonarola that his son Piero 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:11.520 would rule over Florence after his death and begged Savonarola 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:16.480 not to preach against him, Savonarola reluctantly agreed. At the 0:23:16.720 --> 0:23:20.800 end of his visit Wright, as Savonarola turned towards the 0:23:20.840 --> 0:23:25.840 door to leave, Lorenzo asked him to give him his benediction. 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:26.520 And he did. 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:33.200 Shortly thereafter, on April eighth, fourteen ninety two, Lorenzo died. 0:23:34.359 --> 0:23:38.639 Piero took over Florence, and true to his words, Savanarola 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:44.040 did not undermine him in his sermons. But Savanarola considered 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:49.080 capitalizing on the growing political instability for his own aims. 0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:54.679 Florence had fallen into financial chaos late in his life, 0:23:54.760 --> 0:24:00.359 Lorenzo attempted to increase taxes, a hugely unpopular mine move 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:05.040 given the gulf between the Medichi's fabulous wealth and the 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:09.480 wide spread poverty of the rest of the population. At 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:14.359 the time, around thirty percent of the taxable population, which 0:24:14.480 --> 0:24:19.400 was almost ten thousand people, were so impoverished that they 0:24:19.440 --> 0:24:22.840 paid no tax at all, while fifty percent of the 0:24:22.880 --> 0:24:26.600 working population paid little more than a flora in each 0:24:27.240 --> 0:24:32.159 Savanarola bulked at the luxury of the Medichi lifestyle and 0:24:32.320 --> 0:24:37.000 wanted to bring a spirit of austerity to Florence. Pico 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:41.080 was not on the same page. His heresy charges had 0:24:41.160 --> 0:24:44.960 been all but forgotten, so he returned to writing and 0:24:45.320 --> 0:24:49.920 even lived with a mistress, an evident sin. Even though 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:55.680 some sources suggest that Savonarola knew about Pico's sex life, 0:24:56.160 --> 0:25:00.840 contrary to his doctrinaire and hard headed nature, it seems 0:25:00.840 --> 0:25:04.240 that Savonarola just looked the other way when it came 0:25:04.280 --> 0:25:08.640 to his friend. Savonarola wanted to use his brilliant friend 0:25:08.720 --> 0:25:13.960 Pico to spread his theological agenda. He had Pico write 0:25:14.000 --> 0:25:19.480 in anti astrology, screed with a jab that astrologers were 0:25:19.520 --> 0:25:23.680 so inept that they couldn't even predict the weather. Bullied 0:25:23.720 --> 0:25:28.200 by the Church and swayed by Savonarola, Pico had abandoned 0:25:28.320 --> 0:25:34.520 his more forward thinking Renaissance humanism and instead started promoting 0:25:34.840 --> 0:25:41.960 strict obedience to God's authority. Meanwhile, in Milan, a Duke 0:25:42.280 --> 0:25:46.800 Lorenzo Sforza was suffering a power struggle of his own 0:25:47.160 --> 0:25:51.440 as he fought with various aristocrats for control of the region. 0:25:52.119 --> 0:25:56.560 Sforza asked for support from Charles the Eighth, the new 0:25:56.840 --> 0:26:00.200 young king of France and at that time the most 0:26:00.280 --> 0:26:05.359 powerful nation in Europe. In return, Sforza promised to back 0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:09.879 Charles if he chose to take control of Naples. Because 0:26:09.960 --> 0:26:15.080 Charles's grandmother's family had had control over the Napalese territory 0:26:15.200 --> 0:26:19.640 in twelve sixty six, he believed that Naples rightfully belonged 0:26:19.680 --> 0:26:24.359 to him. In fourteen ninety four, the King of Naples died, 0:26:24.840 --> 0:26:30.360 giving Charles the perfect opportunity to invade. With Sforza's backing, 0:26:30.520 --> 0:26:34.040 he led his army into Milan, aiming to take. 0:26:34.000 --> 0:26:35.280 Naples by force. 0:26:36.040 --> 0:26:41.400 Piero de Medici had initially decided to use Florence's resources 0:26:41.800 --> 0:26:48.320 to defend Naples against Charles, but Piero's reputation was beginning 0:26:48.320 --> 0:26:54.680 to fall apart. Piero had become infamous for being hot headed, arrogant, entitled, 0:26:54.800 --> 0:26:58.640 and dumb. Even his own late father had called him 0:26:58.680 --> 0:27:05.240 a fool. Various Florentine officials contrasted Piero with his cousin 0:27:05.800 --> 0:27:11.199 apologies another Lorenzo de Medici, who was more moderate and 0:27:11.480 --> 0:27:16.919 even keeled, deeply embedded in civic institutions and educated in 0:27:17.040 --> 0:27:22.919 humanist philosophy. This cousin, Lorenzo, had been in contact with 0:27:23.000 --> 0:27:27.600 the French army and promised to offer them safe passage. 0:27:27.960 --> 0:27:32.240 Even if Piero refused, and he even agreed to back 0:27:32.520 --> 0:27:37.800 Charles the Eighth's invasion financially, Piero, feeling that he had 0:27:37.840 --> 0:27:42.000 no choice because he was being undermined and possibly usurped 0:27:42.040 --> 0:27:47.040 by his cousin, decided to tacitly allow the invasion. At 0:27:47.040 --> 0:27:50.359 the end of August fourteen ninety four, Charles the Eighth 0:27:50.400 --> 0:27:55.200 and an army of forty thousand marched into Tuscany. By 0:27:55.240 --> 0:27:59.760 September twenty first, the citizens of Florence were terrified about 0:27:59.760 --> 0:28:04.679 the future of their city. Hundreds of people, including Picodela Marendola, 0:28:05.119 --> 0:28:11.280 crowded into the cathedral to hear Savonarola's latest sermon. While 0:28:11.400 --> 0:28:15.840 he never made a direct attack on Piero, Savonarola had 0:28:15.960 --> 0:28:23.040 apocalyptic warnings about Florence's future. He castigated the gamblers, blasphemers, 0:28:23.040 --> 0:28:27.439 and sodomites that would lead to Florence's downfall, saying that 0:28:27.560 --> 0:28:32.640 the quote scourge of God had arrived. Upon hearing those words, 0:28:33.040 --> 0:28:36.679 Pico della Mirandola began to shake as the rest of 0:28:36.720 --> 0:28:41.760 the crowd wept and moaned in hysterics. Just three days 0:28:41.800 --> 0:28:47.320 after that apocalyptic sermon, one of Pico Mirandola's closest friends, 0:28:47.760 --> 0:28:52.760 the poet and Glo Politziano died. He had suffered a 0:28:52.800 --> 0:28:56.440 mysterious illness that took his life in just two weeks. 0:28:57.120 --> 0:29:01.960 Pico had no idea how soon his own death would follow. 0:29:05.480 --> 0:29:10.959 While Poliziano's sudden death would normally have raised suspicions, the 0:29:11.000 --> 0:29:15.120 population of Florence was far too preoccupied with a potential 0:29:15.320 --> 0:29:19.640 French invasion to delve into an investigation. 0:29:19.040 --> 0:29:20.320 About the death of a poet. 0:29:21.280 --> 0:29:25.800 By the end of September fourteen ninety four, Piero felt trapped. 0:29:26.320 --> 0:29:30.800 Charles the Eighth's vast army was moving quickly, with advanced 0:29:30.920 --> 0:29:36.720 artillery that could easily destroy Florence's meager defenses. Moreover, all 0:29:36.760 --> 0:29:40.760 of Florence's allies were aligned with Charles the Eighth, but 0:29:41.080 --> 0:29:45.400 capitulating to the French would humiliate Florence and throw the 0:29:45.400 --> 0:29:49.800 city into an even deeper crisis. The end of October, 0:29:49.840 --> 0:29:54.720 Piero went to Charles's camp in Tuscany to negotiate with him, 0:29:55.240 --> 0:29:59.160 using the same diplomatic tactics that his father had pioneered. 0:30:00.320 --> 0:30:03.520 Figured that he could allow the French army to pass 0:30:03.720 --> 0:30:07.560 through Florence in the short term and regain control over 0:30:07.600 --> 0:30:10.640 the city after the fact. But he arrived at the 0:30:10.680 --> 0:30:14.880 camp realizing he was at a huge disadvantage. He had 0:30:14.920 --> 0:30:18.720 gone alone, with no army or political muscle to back 0:30:18.800 --> 0:30:23.560 him up. Charles had no interest in negotiating with Piero, 0:30:23.600 --> 0:30:27.680 regarding him as a quote nothing. According to a contemporary, 0:30:28.320 --> 0:30:31.600 he told Piero that he needed the immediate surrender of 0:30:31.640 --> 0:30:36.200 the fortresses surrounding Florence for as long as he wanted. Piero, 0:30:36.360 --> 0:30:40.760 in a shock, agreed immediately and even offered the king 0:30:41.080 --> 0:30:45.840 two hundred thousand florins. When the population of Florence heard 0:30:46.000 --> 0:30:50.840 what happened, they were incensed. Piero's conduct at that meeting 0:30:51.000 --> 0:30:55.200 seemed to confirm the worst rumors about him. He acted 0:30:55.400 --> 0:31:02.160 rashly and unilaterally, capitulating to Charles's dedays without consulting any 0:31:02.200 --> 0:31:06.960 of his advisers. Even though Florence was ostensibly a republic, 0:31:07.560 --> 0:31:12.120 Piero was acting more like a dictator. Piero finally returned 0:31:12.160 --> 0:31:17.160 to Florence on November eighth. The city was silent, with 0:31:17.320 --> 0:31:23.520 no celebrations welcoming him home. He approached the Piazza della Signora, 0:31:23.600 --> 0:31:28.200 which housed the Florentine government, but the main door was 0:31:28.320 --> 0:31:32.240 slammed in his face. An official shouted at him that 0:31:32.320 --> 0:31:36.600