Historical story

Pico della Mirandola died of arsenic poisoning

Portrait of Pico della Mirandola

Pico della Mirandola, great humanist and philosopher of the 1400s, was poisoned with arsenic.

It took five centuries to solve the case, but the scientific analyzes leave no doubts.

The biological and chemical-physical tests carried out on the mummified body of the distinguished Italian intellectual in fact, definitively clarify the causes of a death, which occurred in 1494, which immediately appeared mysterious.

Pico was only 32 years old at the time and it was assumed that he had surrendered to syphilis, but now the vision of the nail with the scanning electron microscope, clarifies the cold case once and for all:the presence of an evident whitish trace demonstrates contact with a massive dose of arsenic.

Buried in the Convent of San Marco in Florence , the remains of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, this is his full name, are well preserved and complete with every part.

The man rests near the remains of Agnolo Poliziano and Girolamo Benivieni.

Learn more click here:https://www.repubblica.it/scienze/2018/11/16/news/pico_della_mirandola_fu_avvelenato_con_l_arsenico-211825102/.