Girolamo Savonarola. Renaissance period.

 

Girolamo Savonarola.

 

Savonarola statue in his hometown (Ferrara-Italy)

 

Savonarola´s cell in San Marco Monastery. Florence.

 

Execution. Piazza della Signoria.

Savonarola´s execution spot. Piazza della Signoria. Florence. 

Italian reformer who was born in Ferrara on Sept. 21, 1452, the son of Niccolò Savonarola and of Elena Bonaccorsi. He was educated by his paternal grandfather,  a celebrated doctor and a man of rigid moral and religious principles.

At an early date, as he wrote in a letter to his father, he “could not suffer the blind wickedness of the peoples of Italy.” He found unbearable the humanistic paganism which corrupted manners, art, poetry and religion itself. He saw this as the cause of this spreading corruption  even in the highest levels of the church hierarchy.

On April 24, 1475, he left his father's house and his medical studies, which he had embarked on after taking a degree in the liberal arts, to enter the Dominican order at Bologna.

Thomas Aquinas´ work had always been his great passion. In 1482 Savonarola was sent to Florence to take up the post of lecturer in the convent of San Marco, where he gained a great reputation for his learning and asceticism.

Savonarola sermonized before huge crowds with fiery passion and quickly earned enormous influence over not only the common peasant but artists, writers and the ruling elites. He truly believed that God had given him this mission.

He thundered against the vanity of the humanists and the viciousness of the clergy. Lorenzo de' Medici, the ruler of Florence, urged him to bridle his tongue. He would not yield, and in April 1492 Savonarola refused to grant Lorenzo Medicci absolution.

Lorenzo's son and successor, Piero, was weak, and the 2-year period of his rule witnessed Savonarola's rise to the most powerful authority in the city. 

Savonarola foretold a terrible fate about to descend upon Italy as punishment for the sins of its tyrants and priests. Early in 1494 he told his congregation that Charles VIII, King of France, would invade Italy and that this would be divine retribution. In September the prophecy was fulfilled.

When Charles arrived in Florentine territory, Piero surrendered to the invader. When the Florentine Signory heard of this, they angrily deposed Piero and revived the republic. A delegation including Savonarola met Charles at Pisa and attempted to persuade him to moderate his demands. The King showed that he was not so disposed. After he entered Florence on Nov. 17, 1494, Charles insisted on exorbitant indemnities, yielding only to the eloquence of Savonarola, who persuaded him to reduce his demands and leave the city. Upon Charles's departure Florence's grateful citizens placed themselves in the hands of the monk.

He also instituted a regime of austerity that seemed out of place in the Florence of the High Renaissance. Hymns supplanted profane songs, art objects and luxuries were cast aside or burned, and somber unadorned clothing was worn by all.

The Arrabiati, or Medicean adherents in Florence, and Pope Alexander VI were eager to rid Florence of the troublesome monk.

On March 17, 1498, the Signory ordered Savonarola to stop preaching, and he obeyed.By this time the Florentines had grown weary of puritanic life. Maddened by disappointment when an ordeal by fire to which Savonarola had been challenged did not take place because of rain, they joined the Arrabiati.  

the Florentines demanded Savonarola's arrest. A mob attacked the monastery of S. Marco, and peace was restored only when Savonarola himself begged all men to lay down their arms. Savonarola was tortured until he confessed many crimes, and on May 23, 1498, convicted falsely of heresy, he was burned at the stake in the Piazza della Signoria.