Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), Italian philosopher. Pico was born at mirandola, near Modena, into an aristocratic family. He was a precocious child and was tutored in Latin and Greek. In 1477 he went to Bolgna to study canon law, but on the death of his mother moved instead to Ferrara to study philosophy. He is best known for his 900 Theses, published in the Oration on the Dignity of Man, which he challenged anyone to debate with him in public. This was treated as heresy by Pope Inocent VIII who forebade the debate and Pico was forced to flee to France. He was arrested there in 1488 and imprisoned, although he was released a year later. Toward the end of his life he renounced humanism, although it is rumoured this led to him being poisoned by his secretary. This woodcut comes from Giovio's Elogia vivorum litris illustrium, published at Basel in 1577.