  | birth_place     = Ferrara | death_date      =  | death_place     = Florence, Italy  | school_tradition =  | main_interests   = Renaissance Politics and Religion | signature        = Girolamo Savonarola Signature.svg | influences       =  | influenced       = | June 7 , 1678}}  '''Girolamo Savonarola''' (Ferrara, 21 September 1452 – 23 May 1498, Florence) was an Italian Dominican friar, Scholastic, and an influential contributor to the politics of Florence from 1494 until his execution in 1498. He was known for his book burning, destruction of what he considered immoral art, and his perception of what he thought the Renaissance—which began in his Florence and was at its beginning—ought to become. He vehemently preached against the moral corruption of much of the clergy at the time, and his main opponent was Rodrigo Borgia, who was Pope Alexander VI from 1492, through to Savonarola's death, in 1498.  == Biography == ===Early years===  Savonarola was born in Ferrara, the capital of an independent Duchy in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy. According to another source, he was born at Occhiobello, 7&amp;nbsp;km from Ferrara. He was born into a respected and affluent family that had originally resided in Padua.  In his youth he studied the Bible, St. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle. Savonarola initially studied at the University of Ferrara, where he appears to have taken an advanced Arts degree. His stance against morally corrupt clergy was initially manifested in his poem on the destruction of the world entitled ''De Ruina Mundi'' (''On the Downfall of the World''), written at the age of 20. It was at this stage that he also began to develop his expression of moral conscience, and in 1475 his poem ''De Ruina Ecclesiae'' (''On the Downfall of the Church'') displayed his contempt for the Roman Curia by terming it 'a false, proud archaic wench'.'''  ===Friar=== , Italy.]] Savonarola's Cell in San Marco, Florence, Italy  Savonarola became a Dominican friar in 1475 and entered the monastery of San Domenico in Bologna. He immersed himself in theological study, and in 1479 transferred to the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli. Finally in 1482 the Order dispatched him to Florence, the ‘city of his destiny’. Savonarola was lambasted for being ungainly, as well as being a poor orator. He made no impression on Florence in the 1480s, and his departure in 1487 went unnoticed. He returned to Bologna where he became 'master of studies’.  Savonarola returned to Florence in 1490 at the behest of Count Pico della Mirandola. There he began to preach passionately about the Last Days, accompanied by testimony about his visions and prophetic announcements of direct communications with God and the saints. Such fiery preaching was not uncommon at the time, but a series of circumstances quickly brought Savonarola great success. The first disaster to give credibility to Savonarola’s apocalyptic message was the Medici family's weakening grip on power owing to the French-Italian wars. The flowering of expensive Renaissance art and culture paid for by wealthy Italian families now seemed to mock the growing misery in Italy, creating a backlash of resentment among the people. The second disaster was the appearance of syphilis (or the “French pox”). Finally, the year 1500 was approaching, which may have brought about a mood of millennialism. In minds of many, the Last Days were impending and Savonarola was the prophet of the day.See Gonzalez, p. 354.  His parish church in San Marco was crowded to overflowing during his celebration of Mass and at his sermons. Savonarola was a preacher, not a theologian. He preached that Christian life involved being good and practicing the virtues. He did not seek to create a religious group separate from the Catholic Church. Rather, he wanted to correct the transgressions of worldly popes and secularized members of the Church's wayward Curia.  Lorenzo de Medici, the previous ruler of Florence and patron of many Renaissance artists, was also a former patron of Savonarola. Eventually, Lorenzo and his son Piero de Medici became targets of Savonarola’s preaching.  ===Leader of Florence=== After Charles VIII of France invaded Florence in 1494, the ruling Medici were overthrown and Savonarola emerged as the new leader of the city, combining in himself the role of leader and priest. He set up a republic in Florence. Characterizing it as a “Christian and religious Republic,” one of its first acts was to make sodomy, previously punishable by fine, into a capital offence. Homosexuality had previously been tolerated in the city, and many homosexuals from the elite now chose to leave Florence. His chief enemies were the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, and Pope Alexander VI, who issued numerous restraints against him, all of which were subsequently ignored.  .]]  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, immoral sculptures (which he wanted to be replaced by statues of the saints and modest depictions of biblical scenes), gaming tables, chess pieces, lutes and other musical instruments, fine dresses, women’s hats, and the works of immoral and ancient poets, and burnt them all in a large pile in the Piazza della Signoria of Florence.Macey, p. 75. Many fine Florentine Renaissance artworks were lost in Savonarola’s notorious bonfires — including paintings by Sandro Botticelli, which he is alleged to have thrown into the fires himself.[ PBS article on Botticelli]  Florence soon became tired of Savonarola because of the city’s continual political and economic miseries partially derived from Savonarola's opposition to trading and making money. When a Franciscan preacher challenged him to a trial by fire in the city centre and he declined, his following began to dissipate.  During his Ascension Day sermon on May 4, 1497, bands of youths rioted, and the riot became a revolt: dancing and singing taverns reopened, and men again dared to gamble publicly.  ===Excommunication and execution=== , Florence.]]  On May 13, 1497, Savonarola was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI, and in 1498, Alexander demanded his arrest and execution. On April 8, a crowd attacked the Convent of San Marco. In the ensuing struggle, several of Savonarola’s guards and religious supporters were killed. Savonarola surrendered along with Fra Domenico da Pescia and Fra Silvestro, his two closest associates. Savonarola was charged with heresy, uttering prophecies, sedition, and other crimes, called religious errors by the Borgia pope.  During the next few weeks all three were tortured on the rack, the torturers sparing only Savonarola’s right arm in order that he might be able to sign his confession. All three signed confessions, Savonarola doing so sometime before May 8. On that day he completed a written meditation on the ''Miserere mei'', Psalm 50, entitled ''Infelix ego'', in which he pleaded with God for mercy for his physical weakness in confessing to crimes he believed he did not commit. 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.''Macey, p. 28.  On the day of his execution he was taken out to the Piazza della Signoria along with Fra Silvestro and Fra Domenico da Pescia. The three were ritually stripped of their clerical vestments, degraded as &quot;heretics and schismatics&quot;, and given over to the secular authorities to be burned. The three were hanged in chains from a single cross and an enormous fire was lit beneath them. They were thereby executed in the same place where the &quot;Bonfire of the Vanities&quot; had been lit, and in the same manner that Savonarola had condemned other criminals himself during his own reign in Florence. Jacopo Nardi, who recorded the incident in his ''Istorie della città di Firenze'', wrote that his executioner lit the flame exclaiming, “The one who wanted to burn me is now himself put to the flames.” 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 for a future generation of the rigorist preacher they considered a saint. The ashes of the three were afterwards thrown in the Arno beside the Ponte Vecchio.Macey, pp. 30–1.  Nevertheless, the ''Frateschi'' party and her ''governo popolare'' revived until July 1499, when the French occupation of Milan began to favour it again. It was not until 1512 that the Medici returned with Spanish help, following the latest decline of the French.  ===Character and influence=== Savonarola's religious actions have been compared to those of the later 17th and 18th century Jansenists, although theologically many differences exist. Savonarola did not produce a theological doctrine on salvation, and faithfully adhered to even minor theological definitions of the papal Magisterium. However, Savonarola's call to simplicity in church interior and his rigorous moral stances have been compared to those of Jansenists. Also the insistence on the immediate danger of Hell and the fewness of the elect can be considered to be a similarity.  After Savonarola's death, a secret Catholic group known as the  Piagnoni sprang up in Florence to preserve his memory, organized into a sort of Catholic guild. Franciscan friars were prominent among the Piagnoni, and they briefly re-appeared in 1527 when they once again overthrew the Medici, but through intervention of the Holy Roman Empire it was brought to an end in 1530 at the Battle of Gavinana and the Medici were restored to power.  Savonarola left many admirers throughout Europe, in particular among religiously pious humanists who valued his deep spiritual convictions. Erasmus is said to have refused to become a Protestant due in part to the influence of having read Savonarola. At the same time, he is considered by Protestants to be a forerunner of the Reformation because of his criticisms of the papacy.  Savonarola was said to be an inspiration to Michelangelo and Martin Luther.  In the twentieth century, a movement for the canonization of Frà Savonarola began to develop within the Roman Catholic Church, particularly among Dominicans, with many judging his excommunication and execution to have been unjust. His potential beatification and canonization is opposed by many Jesuits, who consider Savonarola's (secular) conflict with the papacy to have been an intolerable crime.[ NCR Online].  == In fiction == * The video game ''Assassin's Creed II'' features Savonarola briefly in the ''Battle of Forli'' and as the main antagonist in the ''Bonfire of the Vanities''. * The novel ''Romola'' by George Eliot features Savonarola as a central character. * The novel ''The Palace'' by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro features Savonarola as the main antagonist of the vampire Saint Germain. * 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 Agony and the Ecstasy'', Irving Stone's novelization of Michelangelo's life, depicts the events in Florence from the Medici's point of view. * The novel ''Kámen a bolest'' (&quot;suffering and the stone&quot;), Karel Schulz's historical novel about the life of Michelangelo features Savonarola as an important character. * The novel ''Sabbath's Theater'' by Philip Roth makes reference to Savonarola. * The novel ''The Enchantress of Florence'' by Salman Rushdie * The portmanteau film ''Immoral Tales'' by Walerian Borowczyk features Savonarola in its fourth and final episode. * In her novel ''The Passion of New Eve'', Angela Carter describes the preaching leader of an army of god-fearing child soldiers as a &quot;precocious Savonarola&quot;. * In novel, ''The Poet Prince'', Kathleen McGowan has made him as one of the enemies of Tuscan people in their pursuit of artistic fame during his reign. * In the 1976 film Network, the network programming executive played by Faye Dunaway refers to crusading reporter Howard Beale as a &quot;a magnificent messianic figure, inveighing against the hypocrisies of our times, a strip Savonarola, Monday through Friday.&quot; * In the Showtime original series, ''The Borgias'', Savonarola can be seen preaching to a Florentine crowd. Cardinal Della Rovere (who will become Pope Julius II) visits the friar to inquire about his &quot;vision&quot; of the French army marching on Florence.  ==In music== * Charles Villiers Stanford wrote an opera titled ''Savonarola'', which had its premiere in Hamburg on 18 April 1884.Grove's Dictionary, 5th ed. * Luigi Dallapiccola used text from Savonarola's Meditation on the Psalm ''My hope is in Thee, O Lord'' in his 1938 choral work ''Canti di prigionia''.  ==Works== *[ ''The Triumph of the Cross''] (Florence, 1497), translated by Fr. John Procter, S.T.L., Sands &amp; Co., London, M.H. Gill &amp; Son, Dublin, 1901.  *''Il &quot;Trionfo della Croce&quot; di Fra Girolamo Savonarola; ed. per la prima volta nei due testi originali latino e volgare (The &quot;Triumph of the Cross&quot; by Fra Girolamo Savonarola, ed. for the First Time in two Original texts of Latin and Vernacular)'', Fr. Lodovico Ferretti  O.P., Siena, Biblioteca del clero 1899. Reprinted 2010, ISBN 1148960805 ISBN 9781148960807. Alternating Latin and Italian text, p.&amp;nbsp;2 ff. [  ==Notes==   