Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: The name Girolamo Savonarola immediately conjures up a brooding image of the severe-looking reactionary Dominican friar who epitomizes the anti-Renaissance through his famous "Bonfire of the Vanities."Scholars of the Renaissance tend to see him as a crackpot fanatic, whose arrogant showmanship and political meddling finally led to his grisly demise: first hanged, then consumed in flames in the main piazza of Florence in 1498.Scholars of the Reformation see him more as a visionary prophet, a man before his time, who prefigured Martin Luther, and who died a tragic martyr's death for his just criticism of the corrupt Renaissance Church and papacy.In a sense both these views of Savonarola are accurate because Savonarola did indeed use his gift for oratory to sway many of the citizens of Florence away from the decadence and luxuries associated with the Medici regime towards a greater piety-making powerful enemies in the process.What is lacking in either of these views of Savonarola, though, is a sense of the real man, and this is what Konrad Eisenbichler's interesting new compilation and translation of Savonarola's works provides.Former English translations of Savonarola's works have tended to concentrate heavily on his treatises on topics ranging from worldly governments to the truth of the Christian faith.But only a few of his letters, and only one of his sermons, have ever been translated into English.Eisenbichler has chosen a variety of the Dominican's writings hitherto unavailable to English scholars, thereby making available texts which contribute to our understanding of the charismatic preacher's character and motivation.The selection includes personal letters, religious poems, sermons and pastoral works, all of which help to reveal Savonarola as a complex but compassionate and very human figure, who, through his own struggles, was able inspire and advise others seeking the path to righteousness.While all of these documents will be of value to scholars of varying disciplines, two sets of documents will be particularly interesting to instructors and students of Renaissance and Reformation studies: his personal letters and his advice manuals, especially the one addressed specifically to widows.Girolamo Savonarola was born in Ferrara in 1452, the son of Niccolò Savonarola, a middle-class businessman.His father gave him a classical humanist education designed to prepare him for a lucrative secular career, but the young Girolamo ran away from home in 1475 at the age of twenty-two and entered a Dominican convent in Bologna.In his letter dated 25 April 1475, he explains to Niccolò his reasons for this secretive desertion.Realizing the hurt he has caused, he attempts to console his father by appealing to his rationality and understanding.Despite the fact that Girolamo vehemently rejected Italian humanism and its reverence of the classics, his letter actually demonstrates his rhetorical skill, as he expounds on the necessity of his flight from the wickedness of worldly Italian people.Surely his father would rather he shunned wickedness rather than
Source: Renaissance and Reformation
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W321592726