This article considers the place of Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s ideas within the astrological debates that arose in Renaissance Italy after the publication of the Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Gianfrancesco Pico’s famous uncle. Published posthumously in 1496, the Disputationes incited a rigorous discussion of the status of astrology in various intellectual circles in Renaissance Italy. Gianfrancesco Pico was the editor of his uncle Giovanni Pico’s Opera, and the younger Pico was also known as one of Girolamo Savonarola’s most ardent followers. This article will focus on Gianfrancesco’s two main anti-astrological treatises, the De rerum praenotione and the Quaestio de falsitate astrologiae. Gianfrancesco’s writings reveal his own elaborate ideological agenda and the ways in which he used, in a controversial manner, both his uncle’s and Savonarola’s arguments in consequent philosophical and astrological discussions.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Akopyan, O., (2025), "Praenotio, Prisca Haeresis, and Astrology: Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola between Savonarola and Giovanni Pico", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: Akopyan, Ovanes. "Praenotio, Prisca Haeresis, and Astrology: Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola between Savonarola and Giovanni Pico." Renaissance and Reformation 42 (4): 2020. 135-158. DOI: 10.7202/1068578ar. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.