Girolamo Savonarola

Girolamo Savonarola

Girolamo Savonarola by Fra Bartolomeo, c. 1498.
Full name	Girolamo Savonarola
Born	21 September 1452(1452-09-21) Ferrara
Died	23 May 1498(1498-05-23) (aged 45) Florence
Era	Renaissance philosophy
Region	Western Philosophers
Main interests	Renaissance Politics and Religion
Signature

Girolamo Savonarola (21 September 1452 – 23 May 1498) was an Italian Dominican friar, a 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 what he thought the Renaissance—which began in his Florence—ought to become. He preached vehemently against the moral corruption of much of the clergy at the time. His main opponent was Rodrigo Borgia, who was Pope Alexander VI from 1492, through 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 km from Ferrara. He was born into a respected and affluent family that had originally resided in Padua and had spent most of his time in his hometown.

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

Statue of Savonarola at his birthplace of Ferrara, 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.

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.^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]}

On September 8, 1495, Alexander VI wrote a letter to the Brothers of the Franciscan convent of Santa Croce (Florence) expressing his sorrow at Savonarola’s behavior:

To be sure, we have heard that a certain Girolamo Savonarola from Ferrara, of the Order of Preachers, is delighted with the novelty of a perverse dogma and in this same insanity of mind is misled by the shift in affairs in Italy, so that without any canonical authority he attests among the people that he has been sent by God and speaks with God, against the canonical decrees. (It does not suffice for anyone barely to assert so much, that he himself has been sent by God, since any heretic can assert this, but he must add to that invisible commission by the working of a miracle, or by special testimony of Scripture.) Moreover, [he asserts] that Christ Jesus crucified and God lie if he lies (indeed, a horrifying and execrable kind of abjuration), that anyone not believing his vain assertions puts himself outside the state of salvation; finally, he does says and writes other things no less improper, which, if they are passed over unpunished, there is nothing that the boldness of false religious will not dare, and in the body of the Church, which ought to be reverenced, vices would enter under the guise of virtues.
We have thought by long delay and our long-suffering patience to bring it about that he might recognize that his own prophetic claim is foolish, turn aside to the way of solid truth, and deliberately and faithfully renounce his rashly and injuriously published words, which had been the cause of perturbation in the Church. We used to believe, some time ago, that the day had already come when we would have to think better of this person, and that the sorrow, which up to then we had suffered patiently from his unbridled arrogance and scandalous separation from his own fathers of Lombardy - which has been brought about, as we learned afterward, by the subtle cunning of certain perverse friars - we might, from his humble adherence, in the future change into joy. But, as we sorrowfully repeat, we have been deceived in our hope. For although through our letters we have admonished him by virtue of holy obedience to come to us so that we might understand the truth from him and from his own mouth, nevertheless, he has not only refused to come and to obey us, but even, on a day of great sorrow, furnished cause even more bitter to us, impudently putting forth things to be read by the eyes of the faithful, which he had previously spouted rashly to be imbibed in a single hearing.

This same letter continues with Alexander's intention to quell Savonarola's incipient rebellion by reunifying San Marco with the Lombard Congregation.

Painting of Savonarola's execution in the Piazza della Signoria.

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. 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.

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

A plaque commemorates the site of Savonarola’s execution in the Piazza della Signoria, 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.

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 "heretics and schismatics", 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 Bonfire of the Vanities had been lit, and in the same manner that Savonarola had condemned other criminals 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.

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 partly because of the influence of 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.

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 epic poem Savonarola by Nikolaus Lenau features Savonarola as the main character.
• The play Fiorenza by Thomas Mann takes as its plot the power struggle between Savonarola and Lorenzo de' Medici.
• 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 ("suffering and the stone"), 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 "precocious Savonarola".
• 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.
• The young adult novel "The Smile" by Donna Jo Napoli shows Savonarola as he was observed by a young Mona Lisa.
• In the 1976 film Network, the network programming executive played by Faye Dunaway refers to crusading reporter Howard Beale as a "a magnificent messianic figure, inveighing against the hypocrisies of our times, a strip Savonarola, Monday through Friday."
• 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 "vision" of the French army marching on Florence. Savonarola is portrayed by Steven Berkoff.
• The manga-anime series Gunslinger Girl features an episode where two of the protagonists, Jean and Ricco visit Florence. There Savonarola is mentioned among other famous people who lived in the city, while he shares his surname with one of the series antagonists.

In music

• Charles Villiers Stanford wrote an opera titled Savonarola, which had its premiere in Hamburg on 18 April 1884.
• 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.
• William Byrd used the text of Savonarola's Infelix ego in his work by the same name as part of the Cantiones Sacrae 1591 xxiv-xvi.

Works

• The Triumph of the Cross (Florence, 1497), translated by Fr. John Procter, S.T.L., Sands & Co., London, M.H. Gill & Son, Dublin, 1901.

• Il "Trionfo della Croce" di Fra Girolamo Savonarola; ed. per la prima volta nei due testi originali latino e volgare (The "Triumph of the Cross" 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. 2 ff. [4]

References

• Deeper Experiences of Famous Christians, James Lawson, Warner Press, 1911, pp. 73–84.
• Bonfire Songs: Savonarola's Musical Legacy Patrick Macey, 1988, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
• New York Times, Savonarola, Second Lecture of the Course by Dr. Lord at Association Hall, January 10, 1871, pp. 2–3.
• The Story of Christianity, vol. 1, Justo L. Gonzalez, 1984, Harper & Row, San Francisco, pp. 353–56.

Further reading

• Life and Times of Girolamo Savonarola in IV volumes (1888) by Pasquale Villari
• Fire in the City: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Renaissance Florence (2006) by Lauro Martines, ISBN 0224072528
• Girolamo Savonarola: il frate che sconvolse Firenze (1988) by T.S. Cienti
• Savonarola and Florence (1970) by Donald Weinstein
• The Life of Girolamo Savonarola (1959) by Roberto Ridolfi
• The Meddlesome Friar (1957) by Michael de la Bedoyere
• Savonarola (1930) by Piero Misciattelli (trans. by M. Peters-Roberts)
• Savonarola: A Biography in Dramatic Episodes (1927) by William Van Wyck. (A play.)
• The Renaissance (1953) by Will Durant
• The Florentine Monk (1869) by Charles Spurgeon
• The history of the popes, from the close of the Middle Ages : drawn from the secret archives of the Vatican and other original sources, 40 vols. (1891) by Ludwig von Pastor. See vol. V, 171ff., Corruption of the Italian Clergy of all Ranks, and 181ff., Fra Girolama Savonarola.
• Unità e pluralità nella tradizione europea della filosofia pratica di Aristotele. Girolamo Savonarola, Pietro Pomponazzi e Filippo Melantone (2005) by Elisa Cuttini
• Savonarola: his Contest with Paganism (1851) by Orestes Brownson
• The Truth of our Faith Made Manifest in the Triumph of the Cross.
• Ida Giovanna Rao, Paolo Viti, Raffaella Zaccaria, I processi di Girolamo Savonarola (1498) (Firenze, Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2002).
• Joachim Weinhardt, Savonarola als Apologet. Der Versuch einer empirischen Begründung des christlichen Glaubens in der Zeit der Renaissance (Berlin–New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2003) (Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte, 83.)
• Amos Edelheit, Ficino, Pico and Savonarola: The Evolution of Humanist Theology 1461/2-1498 (Leiden, Brill, 2008) (The Medieval Mediterranean, 78).
• Tamar Herzig, Savonarola's Women: Visions and Reform in Renaissance Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2008).
• The History of Scepticism from Savanarola to Bayle by Richard Popkin. Third, enlarged, edition, (2003). ISBN 0-19-510768-3.
• Stefano Dall'Aglio, Savonarola and Savonarolism (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. 2010).
• Donald Weinstein, Savonarola. The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet (New Haven: Yale University Press. 2011).

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Girolamo Savonarola
• NNDB entry on Girolamo Savonarola