PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA
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In the year of our redemption, M.CCCC.XCIIII. when he had fulfilled the
xxxii. year of his age & abode at Florence, he was suddenly taken with a fervent
access[22] which so farforth crept into the interior parts of his body, that it despised
all medicines & overcame all remedy, and compelled him within three days to satisfy
nature and repay her the life which he received of her.
OF HIS BEHAVIOUR IN THE EXTREMES OF HIS LIFE.
After that he had received the holy body of our Saviour when they offered
unto him the crucifix (that in the image of Christ's ineffable passion suffered for our
sake he might ere he gave up the ghost receive his full draught of love and
compassion in the beholding of that pitiful figure as a strong defence against all
adversity and a sure portcullis against wicked spirits) the priest demanded him
whether he firmly believed that crucifix to be the Image of him that was very God &
very man: which in his Godhead was before all time begotten of his father: to whom
he is also equal in all thing: and which of the Holy Ghost God also: of him & of the
Father coeternally going forth (which .iij. persons be one God) was in the chaste
womb of our lady a perpetual virgin conceived in time: which suffered hunger, thirst,
heat, cold, labour, travail, & watch and which at the last for washing of our spotty sin
contracted and drawn unto us in the sin of Adam, for the sovereign love that he had to
mankind, in the altar of the cross willingly & gladly shed out his most precious blood.
When the priest enquired of him these things & such other as they be wont to enquire
of folk in such case, Pico answered him that he not only believed it but also certainly
knew it. When it one Alberto [23] his sister's son: a young man both of wit, cunning,
& conditions excellent: began to comfort him against death: & by natural reason to
show him why it was not to be feared but strongly to be taken: as that only thing
which maketh an end of all the labour, pain, trouble, & sorrow of this short miserable
deadly life: he answered that this was not the chief thing it should make him content
to die: because that death determineth the manifold incommodities and painful
wretchedness of this life: but rather this cause should make him not content only but
also glad to die: for that death maketh an end of sin: in as much as he trusted the
shortness of his life should leave him no space to sin and offend. He asked also all his
servants' forgiveness, if he had ever before that day offended any of them. For whom
he had provided by his testament viij. years before, for some of them meat and drink,
for some money, each of them after their deserving. He showed also to the above
named Alberto & many other credible persons that the queen of heaven came to him
that night with a marvellous fragrant odour refreshing all his members that were
bruised & frushed [24] with that fever, & promised him that he should not utterly die.
He lay always with a pleasant and a merry countenance, and in the very twitches and
pangs of death he spake as though he beheld the heavens open. And all that came to
him & saluted him offering their service with very loving words he received, thanked,
& kissed. The executor of his moveable goods he made one Antonio his brother.[25]
The heir of his lands he made the poor people of the hospital of Florence. And in this
wise into the hands of our Saviour he gave up his spirit.
HOW HIS DEATH WAS TAKEN.
What sorrow and heaviness his departing out of this world was: both to rich
and poor, high & low: well testifieth the princes of Italy, well witnesseth the cities &
THOMAS MORE et al.
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people, well recordeth the great benignity and singular courtesy of Charles king of
France,[26] which as he came to Florence, intending from thence to Rome and so
forth in his voyage against the Realm of Naples, hearing of the sickness of Pico, in all
convenient haste he sent him two of his own physicians as ambassadors both to visit
him and to do him all the help they might: and over that sent unto him letters
subscribed with his own hand full of such humanity and courteous offers as the
benevolent mind of such a noble prince and the worthy virtues of Pico required.
OF THE STATE OF HIS SOUL.
After his death (and not long after) Hieronimus [27] a friar preacher of
Ferrara, a man as well in cunning as holiness of living most famous, in a sermon
which he rehearsed in the chief church of all Florence said unto the people in this
wise. O thou City of Florence I have a secret thing to show thee which is as true as the
gospel of Saint John. I would have kept it secret but I am compelled to show it. For he
that hath authority to command me, hath bid me publish it. I suppose verily that there
be none of you but ye knew Giovanni Pico Earl of Mirandola, a man in whom God
had heaped many great gifts and singular graces, the church had of him an inestimable
loss, for I suppose if he might have had the space of his life prolonged: he should have
excelled (by such works as he should have left behind him) all them that died this
.viii.C. year before him. He was wont to be conversant with me and to break to me the
secrets of his heart: in which I perceived that he was by privy inspiration called of
God unto religion. Wherefore he purposed oftentimes to obey this inspiration and
follow his calling. Howbeit not being kind enough for so great benefices of God: or
called back by the tenderness of his flesh (as he was a man of delicate complexion) he
shrank from the labour, or thinking haply that the religion had no need of him
deferred it for a time, howbeit this I speak only by conjecture.[28] But for this delay I
threatened him two year together: that he would be punished if he forslothed that
purpose which our Lord had put in his mind, & certainly I prayed to God myself (I
will not lie therefore) that he might be somewhat beaten: to compel him to take that
way which God had from above showed him. But I desired not this scourge upon him
that he was beaten with: I looked not for that: but our Lord had so decreed that he
should forsake this present life and leave a part of that noble crown that he should
have had in heaven. Notwithstanding the most benign judge hath dealt mercifully with
him: and for his plenteous alms given out with a free and liberal hand unto poor
people & for the devout prayers which he most instantly offered unto God this favour
he hath: though his soul be not yet in the bosom of our Lord in the heavenly joy: yet is
it not on that other side deputed unto perpetual pain, but he is adjudged for a while to
the fire of purgatory, there to suffer pain for a season, which I am the gladder to show
you in this behalf: to the intent it they which knew him: such especially as for his
manifold benefices are singularly beholden unto him: should now with their prayers,
alms, & other suffrages help him. These things this holy man Hierom, this servant of
God openly asserted, and also said that he knew well if he lied in that place: he were
worthy eternal damnation. And over that he said that he had known all those things
within a certain time, but the words which Pico had said in his sickness of the
appearing of our Lady caused him to doubt & to fear lest Pico had been deceived by
some illusion of the devil: in as much as the promise of our Lady seemed to have been
frustrate by his death: but afterward he understood that Pico was deceived in the
equivocation of the word while she spake of the second death & everlasting & he
understood her of the first death & temporal. And after this the same Hierom showed