Debating the Stars in the Italian Renaissance: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

In this episode of New Work in Intellectual History, Dr Ovanes Akopyan uncovers the controversies surrounding Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem, posthumously published in 1496. Ovanes sheds light on the reception of Pico’s works in Renaissance astrology and presents his argument that the Disputationes should be regarded as part of Pico’s own intellectual legacy rather than a later appropriation by Girolamo Savonarola. 

Dr Ovanes Akopyan is a research fellow at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. His research focusses on the Renaissance and early modern Intellectual History, cosmology and history of science. In 2020, he published a book with Brill entitled Debating the Stars in the Italian Renaissance: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem and its Reception.