but also
from the bosom of the same Church, of two men so diverse as the Pope
Alexander VI. and the Prophet Girolamo Savonarola. Savonarola has been
claimed as a precursor of the Lutheran Reformers, and as an inspired
exponent of the spirit of the fifteenth century. In reality he neither
shared the revolutionary genius of Luther, which gave a new vitality to
the faiths of Christendom, nor did he sympathize with that free
movement of the modern mind which found its first expression in the arts
and humanistic studies of Renaissance Italy. Both toward Renaissance and
Reform he preserved the attitude of a monk, showing on the one hand an
austere mistrust of pagan culture, and on the other no desire to alter
either the creeds or the traditions of the Romish Church. Yet the
history of Savonarola is not to be dissociated from that of the Italian
Renaissance. He more clearly than any other man discerned the moral and
political situation of his country. When all the states of Italy seemed
sunk in peace and cradled in prosperity, he predicted war, and felt the
imminence of overwhelming calamity. The purification of customs which he
preached was demanded by the flagrant vices of the Popes and by the
wickedness of the tyrants. The scourge which he prophesied did in fact
descend upon Italy. In addition to this clairvoyance by right of which
we call him prophet, the hold he took on Florence at a critical moment
of Italian history is alone enough to entitle him to more than merely
passing notice.

Girolamo Savonarola was born at Ferrara in 1452.[1] His grandfather
Michele, a Paduan of noble family, had removed to the capital of the
Este princes at the beginning of the fifteenth century. There he held
the office of court physician; and Girolamo was intended for the same
profession. But early in his boyhood the future prophet showed signs of
disinclination for a worldly life, and an invincible dislike of the
court. Under the House of Este, Ferrara was famous throughout Italy for
its gayety and splendor. No city enjoyed more brilliant and more
frequent public shows. Nowhere did the aristocracy maintain so much of
feudal magnificence and chivalrous enjoyment. The square castle of red
brick, which still stands in the middle of the town, was thronged with
poets, players, fools who enjoyed an almost European reputation, court
flatterers, knights, pages, scholars and fair ladies. But beneath its
cube of solid masonry, on a level with the moat