Everything about Girolamo Savonarola totally explained
Girolamo Savonarola (
September 21,
1452 –
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. He was known for religious reform, anti-
Renaissance preaching,
book burning, and destruction of what he considered immoral art. He vehemently preached against what he saw as the moral corruption of the clergy, and his main opponent was
Pope Alexander VI. He is sometimes seen as a precursor of
Martin Luther and the
Protestant Reformation, though he remained a devout and pious
Roman Catholic during his whole life.
His religious actions have been compared to those of the later
Jansenists, although many theological differences exist.
Biography
Early years
Savonarola was born in
Ferrara, the capital of an
independent Duchy. According to another source, he was born at Occhiobello, 7 km from Ferrara.
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 moral voice, and in 1475 his poem
De Ruina Ecclesiae (
On the Downfall of the Church) displayed his contempt of the
Roman Curia by terming it 'a false, proud whore'.
Florence
Savonarola became a
Dominican friar in 1475, during the
Italian Renaissance, and entered the convent of San Domenico in
Bologna. He immersed himself in theological study, and in 1479 transferred to the convent 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 visions and prophetic announcements of direct communications with
God and the
saints. Such fiery preachings were 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’s family weakening grip on power due 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”), possibly brought back by sailors from the
New World, which was a running
epidemic and as deadly as
the plague. Finally, the year 1500 was approaching, which brought about a mood of
millennialism. In minds of many, the Last Days were impending and Savonarola was the prophet of the day.
His Church of St. Mark was always crowded to excess during his celebration of
Mass and his
sermons. Savonarola wasn't an academic
theologian. He didn't proclaim
theological theories or difficult teachings. Instead, he preached that Christian life involved being good, practicing the
virtues, rather than carrying out displays of excessive pomp and ceremonies. He didn't seek to make war on the
Church of Rome. Rather, he wanted to correct the transgressions of worldly popes and secularized members of the
Papal 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.
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 secular leader and priest. He set up a rather modern
democratic 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 was previously tolerated in the city, and many homosexuals from the elite left Florence. His chief enemies were the
Duke of Milan and
Pope Alexander VI, who issued numerous restraints against him, all of which were 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 transformed into 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 and
Michelangelo Buonarroti, which are said to have been thrown on the pyres by the artists themselves, though there are some who question this claim.
Florence soon became tired of Savonarola because of the city’s continual political and economic miseries, where God didn't seem to intervene to come to the city's aid, and the
Last Days didn't seem to come about despite the city government's insistence that the
Apocalypse was near to fulfillment.
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
On
May 13,
1497, the rigorous Father 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; a bloody struggle ensued, during which several of Savonarola’s guards and religious supporters were killed: he surrendered along with Fra Domenico da Pescia and Fra Silvestro, his two closest associates. Savonarola was faced with charges such as
heresy, uttering
prophecies,
sedition, and even other crimes, called religious errors by the
Borgia pope.
During the next few weeks all three were
tortured on the
rack. All three signed
confessions; 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 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 didn't 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; 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 he'd 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 didn't want Savonarola’s followers to have any relics for a future veneration of the rigorist preacher they considered a Saint. The ashes of the three were afterwards thrown in the
Arno beside the
Ponte Vecchio.
Niccolò Machiavelli, author of
The Prince, also witnessed and wrote about the execution. The Medici subsequently regained control of Florence.
Character and influence
His religious actions have been compared to those of the later 17th and 18th century
Jansenists, although theologically many differences exist. Savonarola didn't 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 of the German Nation 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, who refused to become a
Protestant is said to have remained Catholic due to the lecture of Savonarola.
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.
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