Radicals among Us: Girolamo Savonarola

These days, it seems easy to throw around the word 'radical', accusing just about anyone of being radical in some way or another.

Of course, being radical means being annoying to some group of people, challenging to another and inspirational to still others. But no matter what it is, being radical can also bring more attention than one might hope.

Of the many radical characters in history, one is particularly fascinating. Not, perhaps, so much for his message but how powerful he was with his message.

In the days of Lorenzo de' Medici (the Magnificent), Michelangelo and Botticelli, there came a 'voice' of sorts 'out of the wilderness' (of sorts).

Girolamo Savonarola joined the Dominican order at Bologna. Sometime around 1490 Lorenzo himself insisted that Girolamo come to Florence. This may have been the beginning of the end.

Savonarola was fiery. He insisted on the strictest of cleanliness and purity. He preached against abuses in the church, gaining excommunication under Pope Alexander VI. And he preached against the vanities seemingly bred in this world of hypocrisy, domination and greed.

Perhaps the most disastrous moment from our historical hindsight was not that Savonarola was ultimately burned at the stake but that he called for the burning of works of art, books and whatever else might turn the faithful away from a pure and holy life. Sandro Botticelli, whose wonderful "Portrait of a Lady", "La Primavera", "Birth of Venus" and other works survive, succumbed to Savonarola's passionate preaching.

During Carnevale 1497, Savonarola's disgust at all those things that, for him, proclaimed vanity--masks, gowns, gluttonous consumption, art that portrayed nudity--were brought to a conflagration so great that it took up a large part of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. There, even Botticelli threw what might have been some of his greatest works onto the "Bonfire of the Vanities". Michelangelo, though seemingly an interested follower did not succumb to this purging extravagance.

Ultimately, Savonarola accused, belittle, condemned and berated too many people and the wrong ones. While evidence of heresy was lacking in Savonarola's preaching and prophecies, nevertheless he and two fellow monks met there own bonfire in the same square on May 23, 1498. Perhaps this was his own "Bonfire of Vanity"--for presuming that he might change the world.

Tom
Sign up for my newsletter