Girolamo Savonarola

• 1. A Doctor's Abandoned Path

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  Girolamo Savonarola was born on the 21st of September 1452 in Ferrara to Niccolò di Michele and Elena. His grandfather, Michele Savonarola, was a noted physician who amassed great wealth from his medical practice. Young Girolamo followed this family tradition by earning an arts degree at the University of Ferrara and preparing to enter medical school. He studied Augustine and Thomas Aquinas while memorizing parts of scripture during his early education. In 1472 he wrote poetry titled On the Ruin of the World that expressed his preoccupation with the state of the Church. A sermon delivered by a preacher in Faenza later persuaded him to abandon his career intentions entirely. He left home to join the Dominican Order after writing a letter to his father describing a cruel fight between sensuality and reason. The friar took the vow of obedience proper to his order and was ordained to the priesthood after one year of study.

• 2. The Strident Voice Of San Marco

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  Savonarola arrived in Florence in May or June of 1490 when humanist philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola persuaded Lorenzo the Magnificent to bring him back. Florentines were initially put off by his foreign-sounding Ferrarese speech and strident voice. An eyewitness named fra Placido Cinozzi recalled that fewer than twenty-five people attended his final Lenten services. His gestures and manner of speaking satisfied almost no one according to that same observer. Despite these early struggles, his confidence grew as his reputation widened across north Italy. He preached on the First Epistle of John and the Book of Revelation drawing such large crowds that he eventually moved to the cathedral. Scoffers dismissed him as an over-excited zealot while his growing band of followers adopted the epithet Piagnoni meaning Weepers or Wailers. In 1492 Savonarola warned of the Sword of the Lord over the earth coming quickly and soon.

• 3. The Republic And The Vanities

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  King Charles VIII of France crossed the Alps with a formidable army in September 1494 throwing Italy into political chaos. Savonarola led a delegation to the French king's camp in mid-November 1494 pressing Charles to spare Florence. After a short occupation the French resumed their journey southward on the 28th of November 1494 following another intervention by the friar. A new constitution enfranchised the artisan class and granted every citizen in good standing the right to vote in the Consiglio Maggiore. The Frateschi government passed a Law of Appeal to limit the practice of using exile and capital punishment as factional weapons. At repeated insistence new laws were passed against sodomy adultery and public drunkenness. Fra Silvestro Maruffi organized boys and young men to patrol the streets to curb immodest dress and behavior. Bonfires of the vanities became a central feature of this moral campaign alongside processions and religious theatre in San Marco.

• 4. The Pope's Excommunication

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  Pope Alexander VI threatened to place Florence under an interdict if they persisted in harboring Savonarola after he refused to appear before him in Rome. On the 12th of May 1497 Borgia Pope Alexander VI excommunicated Savonarola for heresy and sedition. The pope described contemporary Church leadership as a pockmarked whore sitting on Solomon's throne. When Savonarola defied the ban from further preaching his sermons became more violent in tone. He attacked secret enemies at home whom he rightly suspected of being in league with the papal Curia. He condemned conventional or tepid Christians who were slow to respond to his calls. A trial by fire proposed by a rival Franciscan preacher in April 1498 turned into a fiasco when sudden rain drenched the spectators. Government officials cancelled the proceedings and the crowd disbanded angrily blaming Savonarola for the failure.

• 5. The Scaffold And The Arno

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  On the morning of the 23rd of May 1498 three friars were led out into the main square where they were condemned as heretics and schismatics. Stripped of their Dominican garments in ritual degradation they mounted the scaffold in thin white shirts. Each man stood on separate gallows while fires were ignited below them to consume their bodies. To prevent devotees from searching for relics their ashes were carted away and scattered in the Arno River. An eyewitness account by the Piagnone Luca Landucci recorded these events in a Florentine Diary spanning 1460 to 1516. Under torture Savonarola confessed to having invented his prophecies and visions then recanted before confessing again. In his prison cell within the tower of the government palace he composed meditations on Psalms 51 and 31 during his final days.

• 6. Martyrs And Reformers

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  Resisting censorship and exile the friars of San Marco fostered a cult of the three martyrs and venerated Savonarola as a saint. Early Protestant reformers including Martin Luther himself read some of the friar's writings and praised him as a martyr. A statue of Girolamo Savonarola was erected in Wittenberg the hometown of Martin Luther to honor him. Carafa Pope Paul IV declared that Savonarola was not a heretic in 1558 despite earlier condemnations. The return of the Medici in 1512 ended the Savonarola-inspired republic but both movements were briefly revived in 1527 when the Medici were once again forced out. In Germany Catholic theologian Joseph Schnitzer edited contemporary sources which illuminated Savonarola's career in a comprehensive study published in 1924. Today most of Savonarola's treatises and sermons are available in critical editions with ongoing translation projects continuing into the present day.