Mirandola witch trials
The Mirandola witch trials took place in Mirandola in the Duchy of Mirandola between 1522 and 1525. It resulted in the death of ten people (seven men and three women), who were burned alive at the stake for witchcraft on the square. The witch trial attracted a lot of attention in contemporary Italy, and were the subject of Libro detto strega o delle illusioni del demonio (1523) by Gianfrancesco Pico, which are referred to as the first book about witchcraft and demonology in vulgar Latin. Background The Mirandola witch hunt was part of a historical period dominated by a relentless series of clashes and wars over the domination of the fortress-city of Mirandola, claimed by the antagonistic branches of the Pico family represented by Giovanni Francesco II Pico della Mirandola against his sister-in-law Francesca Trivulzio, wife of Ludovico I Pico della Mirandola and stepmother-regent of Galeotto II Pico della Mirandola. Already immediately after the siege of Mirandola in 1502, which had led to the exile of Gianfrancesco II Pico, on the orders of the new Lord Ludovico I Pico della Mirandola the Florentine friar Pietro Bernardino (or Bernardo), accused of heresy and sodomy, for being a follower of Girolamo Savonarola