SAVONAROLA, GIROLAMO

Dominican reformer; b. Ferrara, Italy, Sept. 21, 1452; d. Florence, May 23, 1498.

Career to 1495. The Savonarolas came from Padua, whence Girolamo's grandfather, a distinguished and pious physician, had migrated to Ferrara in 1440. Girolamo, the third of seven children, was intended for the medical profession and received a good education, studying Aristotle and Aquinas and becoming familiar with the Bible. His growing sense of a religious vocation was accompanied by deep distress at the prevalent moral corruption both in the world and in the Church. In April 1475 he suddenly, without warning his parents, entered the do minican novitiate at Bologna. In 1479 his studies brought him back to Ferrara, a circumstance that led to his friendship with the celebrated humanist pico della mirandola. In 1482 he was assigned, as lector in theology, to the priory of San Marco, florence. During the next four years the characteristic "prophetical" note began to sound in his sermons: the Church, he declared, would soon be terribly chastised and then renewed. An interval of preaching in northern Italy preceded his recall to Florence in 1490 at the instance of the city's ruler, Lorenzo de' medici, and in July 1491 he became prior of San Marco. During the same year he delivered his first sermons to ever-increasing audiences in the Duomo, combining violent onslaughts on vice with criticisms of the Medici government.

For the next three years Savonarola's influence in Florence grew steadily; by mid-1495 he virtually ruled the city from his pulpit. It was, however, a moral ascendancy facilitated by political events, by the fall of the Medici government, and by the Italian expedition of the French King, Charles VIII, in 1494. Lorenzo had died in 1492. The account that Savonarola had refused him absolution at the end is groundless. In fact the friar was at first on good terms with Lorenzo's son and successor, Piero, who, for political reasons, supported Savonarola's plan to set up a reformed Dominican congregation in Tuscany, independent of the Lombard congregation, to which San Marco actually belonged. In May 1493 a papal brief was obtained placing San Marco directly under the jurisdiction of the Dominican master general. This was the first step to the establishment of a new congregation including, with San Marco, priories at Fiesole, Prato, and Pisa, and ruled by Savonarola as vicar-general.

In autumn 1494 the French invaded Italy and were soon at the gates of Florence. Piero de' Medici fled, and the whole city turned for guidance to Savonarola. For his part, the friar saw in this invasion a fulfillment of his prophecies of a divine chastisement that was to come upon Italy: Charles VIII was the gladius Domini, the "new Cyrus." This identification was to have fatal consequences for Savonarola. Since c. 1490 he had formed the conviction (due in part to his predilection for the prophetical books of the Bible) that he was a prophet inspired to announce God's judgments on Italy and the Church. It was not this claim as such, however, but his support of the French invader that brought him into conflict with the reigning pope. Already in 1493 alexander vi had formed an alliance with Milan and Naples against the French, and in 1495 the league included Venice, Spain, and the Emperor Maximilian I. Florence, kept faithful to Charles by Savonarola, was an obstacle to the pope's plans. It was inevitable, even apart from the moral issues involved, that Alexander should come to regard Savonarola as a political nuisance and should attempt either to silence him or to remove him from Florence.

Meanwhile this city's internal affairs also were developing in a way to make it ever more difficult for Savonarola (given his temperament) to avoid an eventual clash with the pope. Through 1495 his influence in Florence was supreme. The new "popular" regime was inspired by his ideals. The city was swept by a campaign of rigorous moral reform, in which children were incited— imprudently—to take a large part. The Duomo could not contain the crowds that came to hear their prophet. San Marco swarmed with young recruits to the Dominican Order. And all this was only part of a wider program: from Florence, "the watchtower of Italy," the light of reform was to shine out on Italy and thence over Christendom. But this grand design became increasingly dangerous, spiritually as well as politically, as Savonarola grew convinced that its success depended on his own presence and preaching in Florence and on the maintenance, in the form he had given it, of the new San Marco congregation; for these were matters he could not legitimately withdraw from papal control.

Savonarola and Alexander VI. The inevitable duel between Savonarola and Alexander VI began on July 21, 1495, when the pope, in courteous terms, summoned the friar to Rome to explain the revelations he claimed to have received from God. Savonarola replied (July 31) that he could not, for the present, obey: he was too ill to travel; he might be murdered on the road; in any case he was badly needed at Florence: "So it is not God's will that I leave just now." As for the revelations, he would send Alexander a book he had recently composed (Compendium revelationum ), which would give the pope all necessary information. To this letter Alexander did not reply directly. But on September 8, perhaps feeling his hand strengthened by the French army's retreat to northern Italy in the summer, he issued a brief vehemently condemning Savonarola's claim to divine inspiration and suspending him from preaching, pending the examination of his case by (Bl.) Sebastian Maggi (d. 1496), vicar-general of the Lombard congregation, to which San Marco was to be reunited. Savonarola's answer was a long letter (September 29) reducible to five main points:(1) he submits to the Holy See; (2) he has never claimed to be an inspired prophet; (3) but if he had done so, this would not imply unorthodoxy; (4) he vehemently protests against the reunion of San Marco with the Lombard congregation; and (5) he objects to the appointment of the Lombard vicar-general as his judge. In the meantime an inquiry into the whole case had been held at Bologna, and it seems to have reported favorably to the pope, to judge from the mildness of his next brief, Licet uberius (October 16). Savonarola was again ordered not to preach, but the reunion of San Marco with the Lombard congregation was temporarily suspended.

Through the winter 1495–96 Savonarola did not in fact preach; but he began to do so again on Feb. 16, 1496, and continued throughout Lent, using increasingly violent language against the Roman Curia. Incidentally, he made it clear that it was not out of obedience to the pope that he had desisted from preaching, but only to examine his conscience as to his motives and manner of preaching. He hinted, however, that he did in fact have Alexander's permission. The truth seems to be that in March or April Alexander had let it be known that he would tolerate Savonarola's preaching so long as he moderated his language and kept off the subject of politics. It is not likely that the pope thought these conditions would be realized, but he was loath to offend the Florentine Signory (which through the winter had continually begged him to lift the suspension), and he probably reckoned that—owing to the political isolation of Florence—the friar's fortunes would soon decline in any case—in short, that the pope could afford to bide his time. A period of calm ensued.

Florentine affairs were not going well, either politically or economically, but the opposition to Savonarola was not yet strong enough to challenge his power openly. It was Alexander who took the next step, this time attacking Savonarola indirectly through his position in the Dominican Order. A papal brief (Nov. 7, 1496) set up a new Tuscan-Roman congregation, in which San Marco and its dependent houses were included. The San Marco community, undoubtedly with the approval of their prior, protested at once to the pope. Later they published a manifesto against the brief, with a preface by Savonarola, declaring themselves not bound to obey the pope in this matter since his order was against the interests of religion. And in fact the brief remained, rather strangely, a dead letter for the time being. Savonarola continued, irregularly, as vicar-general, just as he went on preaching though officially suspended. Alexander for his part pursued his aim of getting Florence into his league with the other Italian states; but it would be rash to conclude that this political motive alone was decisive in bringing him to the point of at last excommunicating Savonarola with the brief Cum saepenumero (May 13, 1497). Sinner though he was, Alexander had a sense of the respect due his office, and there is no reason to doubt that a proper desire to uphold the authority of the Holy See played its part in convincing him to excommunicate one whose words and actions must have seemed plainly subversive of that authority.

The excommunication was published in Florence on June 18, and Savonarola immediately published a letter, addressed "to all Christians," denying its validity. However, he did not preach again in 1497. A plague prevented all preaching in Florence during the summer, and later that year his restraint was probably due to a wish not to impede the efforts that the Florentine government—still friendly to Savonarola—was making at Rome to have the censure removed. On October 13 he wrote to Alexander asking for pardon but without declaring his submission on any specific point. The pope did not reply. Savonarola then pushed his defiance to the point of saying Mass publicly on Christmas Day and of recommencing his preaching in the Duomo (February 11), declaring in his first sermon that whoever accepted his excommunication as valid was a heretic. On March 17, however, the Signory, fearing that Alexander was about to lay an interdict on the city, begged Savonarola to stop preaching; and he did. But he took the further and fatal step of drafting letters to the sovereigns of Europe, calling on them to summon a council to reform the Church and to depose Alexander. Meanwhile his disciple Domenico da Pescia had foolishly accepted a challenge from a Franciscan of S. Croce to an ordeal by fire that would, by a miracle, decide the issue between Savonarola and his enemies. The ordeal (April7) proved a fiasco and touched off a popular reaction against Savonarola, who surrendered to the Signory after the mob had stormed San Marco.

Evaluation. Savonarola's trial, which, with the pope's permission, involved torture, was begun before lay judges but concluded before two papal commissioners sent from Rome. The official records of his confessions made under torture were falsified, but one thing stands out clearly enough: from the canonical point of view the most serious charge against Savonarola, and the one that justified (if anything could) his condemnation for heresy, schism, and contempt of the Holy See, was that he had invoked the civil power to call a council and depose the pope. Sentenced to death with two companions, Savonarola was hanged and then burned in the Piazza della Signoria at Florence. Savonarola was a great Christian and, in some sense, certainly a martyr. His subjective position regarding Alexander VI is beyond question; and only the matter of his objective guilt, depending on the legal judgment of his day, awaits further investigation. Indeed, as early as 1499, Savonarola was locally venerated as a saint.

Bibliography: r. ridolfi, Cronologiae bibliografia delle prediche (Florence 1939); Studi Savonaroliani, 2 v. (Florence 1935); Life of Girolamo Savonarola, tr. c. grayson (New York 1959). m. ferrara, Bibliografia savonaroliana (Florence 1958). Edizione nazionale delle opere di Girolamo Savonarola (Rome 1955-), to be completed in 20 v. l. pastor, The History of the Popes From the Close of the Middle Ages 4, 5, 6. j. schnitzer, Savonarola: Ein Kulturbild aus der Zeit der Renaissance, 2 v. (Munich 1924). g. soranzo, Il tempo di Alessandro VI papae di Fra G. Savonarola (Milan 1960). g. gieraths, ed. and tr., S. Ketzer oder Heiliger? (Freiburg 1961); Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche ²9:353–355.

[k. foster]