Skepticism, Empiricism, and Proof in Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s Strix

Abstract

Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s dialogue “Strix, sive de ludificatione daemonum” was published in 1523 at Bologna, to defend a witch-hunt that claimed ten victims on the author’s territory. For Gianfrancesco, the question of witches’ flight was tightly bound to the accusation that witches copulated with demons, based on Scholastic ideas of demons’ corporeality. Influenced by the value placed on witches’ “expert testimony” about human/demon interaction in Malleus maleficarum, Gianfrancesco’s dialogue dramatized the interrogation of a convicted witch by two humanists--a skeptic and a defender of witchcraft reality--under the supervision of the witch’s inquisitor. The witch herself provides crucial evidence to convince the skeptic that witches fly, copulate with demons, and commit other crimes in reality, not in dreams or hallucinations. Two decades earlier, Gianfrancesco had held the opposite conviction, stating in his “De imaginatione” that demons “ran riot” in witches’ corrupted imagination. This article traces the evolution of proofs given by the title character of Strix.