Girolamo Savonarola 1452-1498 Italian Dominican Monk

As a youth, Savonarola learned latin, art, and music from his grandfather, a famous renaissance physician. He began the study of medicine but his interest changed to theology. He became a Dominican monk in 1475 and was assigned to lecture in the convent of San Marco in Florence.

Savonarola became a very popular preacher, atracting large crouds by calling for reform in the church and in Italian politics. Even as a youth, he had been offended that the Catholic church often failed to practice its teachings about social welfare and to enforce priestly vows. As a monk, he was angered by corruption in the higher clergy and even in the papacy. For example, Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) took mistresses, advanced his own family to prominent church positions, and squandered money on clothes and horses.

In his sermons, Savonarola urged the church to provide jobs for the lower classes and to melt down its goals and silver ornaments to buy food for the poor. He also urged citizens to dress modestly and to abandon excess. In 1497 he organized a "bonfire of the vanities" in which citizens of Florence burned the trappings of wealth in a fire of repentance.

The church was not favorably impressed with Savonarola's message. In 1498, Pope Alexander accused Savonarola of herecy and had him arrested, tortured, convicted, and hung.