Girolamo Savonarola - Biography, Further reading, Fictionalizations

Religious and political reformer, born in Ferrara, NE Italy. He became a Dominican at Bologna in 1474, and after an initial failure, came to be recognized as an inspiring preacher. He was vicar-general of the Dominicans in Tuscany (1493), and his preaching began to point towards a political revolution as the means of restoring religion and morality. When a republic was established in Florence (1494), he was its guiding spirit, fostering a Christian commonwealth, with stringent laws governing the repression of vice and frivolity. His denunciations of the abuses of Church and government leaders made him many enemies, including Pope Alexander VI, who summoned him to Rome (1495) to answer a charge of heresy. He disregarded the order, was excommunicated in 1497, and burned in Florence.

Portions of the summary below have been contributed by Wikipedia.

Girolamo Savonarola (Ferrara, then Duchy of Ferrara, September 21, 1452 – Florence, May 23, 1498), also translated as Jerome Savonarola or Hieronymus Savonarola, was an Italian Dominican priest and leader of Florence from 1494 until his execution in 1498.

Biography

Early years

In his youth he was preoccupied with religion, studying both the Bible and Aristotle. Savonarola initially studied at the University of Ferrara, where he appears to have taken an advanced Arts degree.

Florence

Savonarola became a Dominican friar in 1475, and entered the convent of San Domenico in Bologna. Savonarola was lambasted for being ungainly, weak and a poor orator.

At this time the Roman Catholic Church's clergy was increasingly corrupting morality and leading a corrupt life themselves. Savonarola's grief over these sins caused him to withdraw more from his secular studies. Savonarola was not a theologian.

Oddly, Lorenzo de Medici, the previous ruler of Florence and patron of many Renaissance artists, was also a former patron of Savonarola. It has been said Lorenzo called for Savonarola on his death bed in 1492, and the Friar did attend. Eventually, Lorenzo and his son Piero de Medici became the target of Savonarola's preaching.

After Charles VIII of France had invaded Florence in 1494, the ruling Medici were overthrown and Savonarola emerged as the leader of the city.

It is said that Savonarola predicted several key events such as the invasion of Italy by a foreign king, the death of Lorenzo de Medici and of Pope Innocent VIII.

In 1497 he and his followers carried out the Bonfire of the Vanities. They sent boys from door to door collecting items associated with moral laxity: mirrors, cosmetics, lewd pictures, pagan books, sculptures, gaming tables, chess pieces, lutes and other musical instruments, fine dresses, women's hats, and the works of immoral poets, and burnt them all in a large pile in the Piazza della Signoria of Florence. Fine Florentine Renaissance artwork was lost in Savonarola's notorious bonfires, including paintings by Sandro Botticelli thrown on the pyres by the artist himself.

Florence soon became tired of Savonarola's hectoring.

Excommunication and execution

On May 13, 1497 he was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI, and in 1498, Alexander demanded his arrest and execution. a bloody struggle ensued, during which several of Savonarola's supporters were killed: he surrendered along with Fra Domenico da Pescia and Fra Silvestro, his two closest associates. Savonarola was charged with heresy, uttering prophecies, sedition, and religious error.

During the next several weeks all three were tortured on the rack. the torturers spared only Savonarola's right arm, in order that he might be able to sign his confession, which he did sometime prior to May 8. On the day of his execution, May 23, 1498, he was still working on another meditation, this one on Psalm 31, entitled Tristitia obsedit me.

On the day of his execution he was taken out to the Piazza della Signoria along with Fra Silvestro and Fra Domenico da Pescia. Luca Landucci, who was present, wrote in his diary that the burning took several hours, and that the remains were several times broken apart and mixed with brushwood so that not the slightest piece could be later recovered, as the ecclesiastical authorities did not want Savonarola's followers to have any relics.

Niccolò Machiavelli, author of The Prince, also witnessed and wrote about the execution.

Character and influence

Savonarola was supposedly intense, fervent, and electrical in personal appearance. However, Savonarola was convinced of the truth of Catholic doctrine, and unlike Luther, concentrated on purging the Church from immorality, not from supposedly unsound doctrine.

In the twentieth century, a movement for the canonization of Savonarola began to develop within the Roman Catholic Church, particularly among Dominicans, with many judging his excommunication and execution to have been unjust.

Fictionalizations

The novel Romola by George Eliot features Savonarola as a central character. The novel The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason makes extensive references to Savonarola. The novel The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant makes extensive references to Savonarola. The Burning of Girolamo Savonarola a film by Nathan Coombs 2006 Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's The Palace, a novel of the Comte st. Germain, features Savonarola and his Bonfire of the Vanities The novel Painting Mona Lisa by Jeanne Kalogridis also features Savonarola as a central character.