Girolamo Savonarola

Born in Ferrara, Girolamo Savonarola (b. 1452–d. 1498) entered the Dominican order in Bologna in 1475. After spells in Florence, San Gimignano, and Brescia, he returned to Florence under Medicean patronage in 1490 and was elected prior of the convent of San Marco the following year. From 1493 he became a thorn in the side of Pope Alexander VI by separating San Marco from the Lombard Congregation of the Dominican order. In 1494 Savonarola used his Lenten sermons to predict the descent of the French into Italy, and his Advent sermons to inspire constitutional reforms to fill the political vacuum created by the expulsion of the Medici. Thereafter his preaching instigated social and spiritual reform in Florence and created a party of ardent followers, the Piagnoni (literally “Wailers”), though the famous “bonfires of vanities,” into which citizens moved by the Savonarolan call to repent threw worldly treasures such as cosmetics and playing cards, did not take place until 1497 and 1498. His criticisms of the pope led to his excommunication in May 1497, and a hemorrhaging of support among Florentines resulted in his arrest, imprisonment, admission of heresy under torture, and, finally, to his execution in the Piazza della Signoria on 23 May 1498. His followers preserved his reputation as an ecclesiastical reformer throughout the sixteenth century. The relevant bibliography is extensive, meaning that the works cited represent a fraction of the whole, to which numerous additions are made each year. Reference Works are followed by Primary Sources, of which there are so many as to require division into Works by Savonarola, his Imprisonment and Execution, and the Early Lives that formed an important part of his posthumous cult. Following the examples of those early vite, the friar’s life easily lends itself to the biographical format, but authors have sought to give it various twists by means of the contexts in which they choose to set it. Consequently, a Lives and Times section seems a reasonable alternative to simple “biographies.” More specific categories and more specialized studies can be found under Prophecy, Florentine Politics and Society, 1494–1498, Savonarolans and Anti-Savonarolans after 1498, Art, and Music. Given that essays on any of those themes can appear in Collections of Papers, that category is left to the end.