AUTHOR - SAMANTHA MORRIS
PUBLISHED BY - PEN & SWORD
A lively and intelligent young man who was hungry for knowledge, Girolamo Savonarola’s unrequited love for the “girl next door” led him to depression and a hatred of corruption in the Church and the profligate ways of the rich. Resolving to take Holy Orders after hearing a friar delivering a passionate sermon, he set out on the path which would eventually lead him into conflict with Italy’s most powerful rulers and a brutal public execution, the grisly details of which we are not spared in these pages.
“The Pope’s Greatest Adversary - Girolamo Savonarola” by Samantha Morris is aptly titled. A powerful orator who over-reached himself, he caught the public imagination at an incendiary and God-fearing time in history, and was said to preach with a “voice of thunder” as he predicted cataclysmic events, one of which ostensibly came true and only added to his power. One could argue that Savonarola was a kind of Renaissance Rasputin, who also had a swift rise to influence and power, had both powerful friends and enemies and met a brutal end. Was Savonarola a positive force for change or simply a clever demagogue? The speed and simplicity with which he was able to oust the ruling Medici family and effectively rule Florence seems incredible to our modern eyes, but these were very different times.
And what are we to make of the “Bonfire of the Vanities” - public burnings in which thousands of works of art and literature were destroyed for being ungodly in the eyes of Savonarola and his cronies. A complicated and imperfect man, then, but an important one; certainly he was considered dangerous enough for Pope Alexander VI to attempt to silence and then excommunicate him. By the time of his downfall, Savonarola had obviously begun to believe he was untouchable.
Fully illustrated with paintings of Savonarola and photographs of relevant locations in Florence, this is a concise and vivid slice of history. Featuring a colourful cast of characters including everyone’s favourite hedonists, the Borgias, (a singular family on which Samantha Morris has previously written very successfully), it is a solid biography of a remarkable man who still divides opinion today.
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