Savonarola, Girolamo

Savonarola, Girolamo (1452–98), Italian preacher and reformer. He entered the Dominican Order in 1475 and in 1491 became prior of San Marco in Florence. About this time he adopted an apocalyptic style of preaching, prophesying an impending Divine chastisement of the corruption of Church and society and claiming to receive special revelations from God. Wanting to go beyond the existing Dominican reform, he secured the independence of San Marco from the Reformed Congregation of Lombardy in 1493, thus launching a new Congregation to which other priories were added. Politically he called for social and moral reform, and established a kind of theocratic democracy in Florence. He supported Charles VIII of France in his Italian campaign of 1494–5, seeing in him God's instrument for reform. In 1495 Alexander VI summoned him to Rome; he pleaded that he could not leave Florence. In 1497 he was excommunicated but held that the excommunication was invalid and continued to preach. In 1498 he wrote to the major Christian princes asking them to convene a Council. Popular opinion turned against him and, abandoned by the Florentine authorities, he was arrested, condemned for schism and heresy, and hanged. Steps are being taken to secure his canonization.