“His saints, that are in the land of Him”: Pico and More’s conceptions of the Afterlife

Freed from “the storms of this world”, Giovanni Pico’s soul was deemed to be spending some time “in the dark fire of purgatory,” before its final place of abode “in the country of heaven,” with its “blessed citizens.” According to Savonarola, Pico had avoided hell, “that other side deputed unto perpetual pain.” This paper examines Thomas More and Giovanni Pico’s conceptions of afterlife through the imaginary representations of the three eschatological places: heaven, hell and purgatory, and concludes on an evolution of the conception of heaven, from the Italian’s more medieval representation and the English author’s more modern conception.