Savonarola

Savonarola, GIROLAMO, was born at Ferrara in 1452, and in 1474 entered a Dominican monastery at Bologna, where his fervent zeal won him profound respect. In 1482 he was sent to Florence, then under the brilliant but licentious sway of Lorenzo the Magnificent. His preaching at first attracted little notice, but at Brescia in 1486 his eloquent denunciations of prevailing vice and threats of wrath to come struck terror into his hearers. In 1490 he returned to Florence, and his first terrible sermon in St. Mark's gave him such a hold over the population that Lorenzo began to feel uneasy. Savonarola rejected his overtures with scorn, predicting his speedy death and also that of the Pope and the King of Naples. As regards the first two his prophecies were fulfi11ed next year, and in 1494 Charles VIII. of France entered Florence, and swept away the Medicean dynasty. For three years the Dominican prior was virtually dictator, and a strange puritanic reaction came over the city of pleasure; but Alexander Borgia, the new Pope, combined with the Franciscans and the Arrabbiati and Medicean parties to overthrow the reformer, and the Piagnoni faction, which supported Savonarola, lost their supremacy. After endless intrigues Savonarola was ejected from his church, imprisoned with two of his faithful companions, Fra Domenico and Fra Silvestro, and finally executed in 1498. He left many writings, but The Triumph of the Cross is the only work of high importance.