Girolamo Savonarola, (born Sept. 21, 1452, Ferrara, Duchy of Ferrara—died May 23, 1498, Florence), Italian Christian preacher, reformer, and martyr, renowned for his clash with tyrannical rulers and a corrupt clergy. After the overthrow of the Medici in 1494, Savonarola was the sole leader of Florence, setting up a democratic republic. His chief enemies were the Duke of Milan and Pope Alexander VI, who issued numerous restraints against him, all of which were ignored.
Early years.
Girolamo Savonarola was born at Ferrara, the son of Niccolò Savonarola and of Elena Bonaccorsi. He was educated by his paternal grandfather, Michele, a celebrated doctor and a man of rigid moral and religious principles. From this elderly scholar, whose own education was of the 14th century, Savonarola may have received certain medieval influences. In his early poetry and other adolescent writings the main characteristics of the future reformer are seen. Even at that 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 that corrupted manners, art, poetry, and religion itself. He saw as the cause of this spreading corruption a clergy vicious even in the highest levels of the church hierarchy.
On April 24, 1475, he left his father’s house and his medical studies, on which he had embarked after taking a degree in the liberal arts, to enter the Dominican order at Bologna. Returning to Ferrara four years later, he taught Scripture in the Convento degli Angeli. The study of Scripture, together with the works of Thomas Aquinas, had always been his great passion.
Career in Florence.
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. As a preacher he was unsuccessful until a sudden revelation inspired him to begin his prophetic sermons. At San Gimignano in Lent 1485 and 1486, he put forward his famous propositions: the church needed reforming; it would be scourged and then renewed.
The following year (1487) he left Florence to become master of studies in the school of general studies at Bologna. After the year of his appointment was over, he was sent to preach in various cities until Lorenzo de’ Medici used his influence to have Savonarola sent back to Florence, thus opening the doors there to the bitterest enemy of Medici rule. Having returned to the city of his destiny (1490), Savonarola preached boldly against the tyrannical abuses of the government. Too late Lorenzo tried to dam the dangerous eloquence with threats and flattery, but his own life was drawing to a close, while popular enthusiasm for Savonarola’s preaching constantly increased. Soon afterward Savonarola gave his blessing to the dying Lorenzo. The legend that he refused Lorenzo absolution is disproved by documentary evidence.
Medici rule did not long survive Lorenzo and was overthrown by the invasion of Charles VIII (1494). Two years before, Savonarola had predicted his coming and his easy victory. These authenticated prophecies and the part he had played in negotiations with the King and in moderating the hatred of the factions after the change of government enormously increased his authority. Once the Medici had been driven out, Florence had no other master than Savonarola’s terrible voice. He introduced a democratic government, the best the city ever had. He has been accused, but unjustly, of interfering in politics. He was not ambitious or an intriguer. He wanted to found his city of God in Florence, the heart of Italy, as a well-organized Christian republic that might initiate the reform of Italy and of the church. This was the object of all his actions. The results he obtained were amazing: the splendid but corrupt Renaissance capital, thus miraculously transformed, seemed to a contemporary to be a foretaste of paradise.