Apocalyptic priest Girolamo Savonarola executed by the Church May 23, 1498
Dominican reformer and apocalyptic priest Girolamo Savonarola was hanged and burned as a heretic in Florence on May 23, 1498.
He was a reformer, a voice of the new, a revolutionary even; yet the source of his ideas was archaic. In living out perhaps the last medieval life in Renaissance Italy, in resisting the alienation of personal life from the eternal that marked the beginning of the modern, he opened the door to attacks on the centralized authority of te Church. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/girolamo-savonarola
Born to an aristocratic merchant family, he originally studied to become a doctor, but shifted to theology and entered the Dominican Order in Bologna. Once there, church leaders enrolled him in religious studies at Ferrara, hoping he would become a priest. He would become one, but go on to be a major pain for his bosses and the political elite.
500th Anniversary of the Birth of Girolamo Savonarola
Issued by Trieste, Zone A, Italy in 1952
Designer: Edmondo Pizzi
After Savonarola completed his studies, he was sent to Florence, a city ruled by Lorenzo de’ Medici, who’s humanist views quickly clashed with Savonarola’s rigid outlook on life. His initial time as priest was met with a lukewarm reception until he began including thundering apocalyptic visions during services.
It was not until he began preaching sermons based on his apocalyptic revelations, at the Church of San Gimignano during Lent of 1485 and 1486, that he began to wield influence as a preacher. Perhaps the reason for his success then was that the theme of his sermons the need for church reform, his prophecy that the Church would be scourged and renewed struck an urgent chord after the election of the pope with the ironical name of Innocent VIII . On August 12, 1484, Sixtus IV had died. He had not been a virtuous pope, but his successor was far worse. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/girolamo-savonarola
Girolamo Savonarola appealed primarily to the “pious, the poor, and the malcontents” which sent shock waves through the ruling classes. His ire was directed towards “the confiscatory taxes and corruption of the Medicis, and their looting of the dowry foundations (the monte del doti) set up for the marriages of poor girls”. In the eyes of the elite, he was a danger to public order. To the poor and discriminated against, he was a flash point of for their anger.
As time passed, and his “prophecies” seemed to be coming true, and people began to flock to hear his fire and brimstone sermons.
Soon he was swept up into the middle of warring political factions, and an increasingly corrupt Papacy who wished he would just go away. The Pope tried to bribe Savonarola with the promise of a bishop’s hat, threatened him with excommunication and finally forbade him to preach.
Like all radical movements, Giralamo Savonarola’s fiery ministry was threatened by it’s own fervour. The final straw came with the Lent excesses carried out by his supporters.
Just before Lent in 1497, during carnival season, Savonarola’s authority and popularity reached a kind of peak with “the burning of the vanities,” when bonfires were made of those possessions deemed sinful by the new regime. Bands of children went about the city encouraging the destruction of these “vain things.” [ibid]
His Lent sermons were fated to be his last. Savonarola was put on trial for heresy and condemned to be hanged and then burnt on May 23,1498.
I skipped over much of Girolamo Savonarola’s life out of necessity. I recommend Girolamo Savonarola – Italian church reformer by Ann Klefstad to fill in the gaps. It’s a riveting look into Savonarola’s life and death. I read a number of articles about Savonarola, but this was the best for delivering an intelligent and balanced look at his life and yet remaining accessible for anyone not steeped in Medieval history.
The previous SODS included a little architecture and a bit of defenestration: