Savonarola
GIROLAMO, an Italian reformer; born of a noble family in Ferrara, Sept. 21, 1452. He was educated at home, and at a very early age became deeply versed in the philosophy of the schools; but his disposition was from the SAVONAROLA first tinged with religious asceticism, and in 1474 he formally withdrew from secular affairs and entered the Dominican Order at Bologna. Having completed his novitiate and the studies of the order, he seems to have made his first public appearance as a preacher in 1482, at Florence, where he had entered the celebrated convent of his order, San Marco, and where he preached the Lent in that year.
His first trial, however, was a failure.
His voice was harsh and he failed to interest. He was later sent to a convent in Brescia, where his zeal began to attract notice, and the disadvantages of manner and address ceased to be felt under the influence of his sterling genius and irresistible enthusiasm. In 1489 he was once more recalled to the convent of San Marco in Florence.
His second appearance in the pulpit of San Marco was a complete success. The great subject of his declamation was the sinfulness and apostasy of the time and denunciation of the vices and crimes of his age. Under the rule of the great head of the Medici family, Lorenzo the Magnificent, art, literature, and philosophy had all followed the common direction of that elegant but semi-pagan revival which the scholars of the 15th century had inaugurated; and the whole spirit of the social as well as intellectual movement of which Florence, under the Medici, was the center, was utterly at variance with the lofty Christian spirituality and severe asceticism in which Savonarola placed the very first conditions of the restoration of true religion and morality. His preaching, therefore, in its spirit, as well as in its direct allusions, was no less antagonistic to the established system of the government than to the worldly and irreligious manners of the age.
Up to this time Savonarola's relations with the Church were, if not of harmony, at least not of antagonism; and when, in the year 1493, a reform of the Dominican Order in Tuscany was proposed under his auspices, it was approved by the Pope, and Savonarola was named the first vicargeneral. About this date, however, his preaching had assumed a directly political character, and the predictions and denunciations which formed the staple of many of his discourses pointed plainly to a political revolution in Florence and in Italy as the divinely ordained means for the regeneration of religion and morality.
In one of his discourses he pointed plainly to the advent of the French under Charles VIII.; and when this prediction was fulfilled by the triumphant appearance of the French expedition, Savonarola was one of a deputation of Florentines sent to welcome Charles VIII. as the savior of Italy, and to invite him to Florence. Very SAVONAROLA soon, however, the French were compelled to leave Florence, and a republic was established, of which Savonarola became, though without political functions, the guiding and animating spirit, his party, who were popularly called Piagnoni, or "Weepers," from the penitential character which they professed, being completely in the ascendant.
It was during this brief tenure of influence that Savonarola displayed to the fullest extent both the extraordinary powers of his genius and the full extravagance of the theories to which his enthusiastic asceticism impelled him. The republic of Florence was to be the model of a Christian commonwealth, of which God Himself was the chief ruler, and His Gospel the sovereign law; and thus the most stringent enactments were made for the repression of vice, and of all the sinful follies by which it is fomented and maintained.
The extremes of his rigorism; the violence of his denunciations, which did not spare even the Pope himself (Alexander VI.); the assumption by him, or attribution to him, of a supernatural gift of prophecy; and the extravagant interpretation of the Scriptures, and especially of the Apocalypse, by which he sought to maintain his views, drew on him the displeasure of Rome. He was cited, in the year 1495, to answer a charge of heresy at Rome; and, on his failing to appear, he was forbidden to preach; the brief by which the Florentine branch of his order had been made independent was revoked; he was offered a cardinal's hat on condition of his changing his style of preaching-an offer he indignantly refused; and he was again forbidden to preach. Once again Savonarola disregarded this order.
But his difficulties at home now began to deepen. The measures of the new republic proved impracticable. The party of the Medici, called "Arrabbiati" ("Enraged"), began to recover ground. A conspiracy for the recall of the exiled house was formed; and though, for the time, it failed of success, and five of the conspirators were condemned and executed, yet this very rigor served to hasten the reaction.
At the critical point of the struggle of parties came, in 1497, a sentence of excommunication from Rome against Savonarola. Savonarola openly declared the censure invalid, because unjust, and refused to hold himself bound by it. During the plague Savonarola, precluded by the excommunication from administering the sacred offices, devoted himself zealously to ministering to the sick monks. A second "bonfire of vanities" in 1498 led to riots. In the same year, when the new elections took place, the party opposed to SAVOY Savonarola, the Arrabbiati, came into power. He was ordered to desist from preaching; and the struggle was brought ties to the interposition of divine provi- was made by both of the contending par- popular mind thus produced an appeal a preacher of the Franciscan order, long an antagonist of Savonarola, Francesco da Puglia. In popular mind thus produced an appeal In the excited state of the was made by both of the contending parwhen the trial was to have come off dence by the ordeal of fire; and one of Savonarola's disciples agreed to make (April, 1498) difficulties and debates Franciscan friar. But at the moment when the trial was to have come off (April, 1498) difficulties and debates arose, and nothing was actually done.
The result of this was to destroy with the populace the prestige of Savonarola's reputation, and to produce a complete revulsion of public feeling.
In the midst of this reaction he was cited before the council, and brought to visions and uttered real prophecies, for other religious errors, and for political insubordination. He denied the charges; but, put to the torture, he made avowals which he afterward withdrew. The conclusion was a foregone one; he was depeace of the Church. The acts of the teaching, and of being an enemy to the peace of the Church. The acts of the trial were sent to Rome, where the sentence was confirmed; he, with two disciples of his order, was given up to the secular power; so on May 23, 1498, this extraordinary man and his two companions, brothers Domenico and Silvestro, were strangled, and their bodies burned by the executioner.
SAVOY (sa-voi'), a former duchy of the kingdom of Sardinia, now annexed to France, and forming the departments of Savoie and Haute-Savoie, having N. and N. E. Switzerland, S. E. and S. Piedmont, and W. the departments of Isère and Ain; area, 4,162 square miles. It is the most elevated country of Europe, consist- Ain; area, 4,162 square miles. It is the and W. the departments of Isère and ing principally of mountains, the highest of which is Mont Blanc. The valleys ing principally of mountains, the highest and low grounds are fertile and well culand Isere; lakes: Annecy and Bourget. Products: wheat, oats, barley, rye, hemp. Minerals: iron, copper, silver, lead, coal, and salt. Manufactures, cotton and woolen fabrics, hosiery, watches, clocks, hemp. Minerals: iron, copper, silver, lead, glass, earthenware, etc. Capital of Savoie, woolen fabrics, hosiery, watches, clocks, coal, and salt. Manufactures, cotton and voy was anciently a part of Sapaudia, whence the name Saboia, or Savoy, is derived. It was erected into a duchy under Amadeus VIII., in 1416, and was ceded to France in 1860. Pop. about and SAW ancient royal families, and also distinguished for having produced a remarkable number of eminent warriors and statesmen.