In late 15th-century Florence, the Dominican friar Savonarola preached
the Book of Revelation and the coming of a new Flood - as well as of a new Cyrus (messiah) who would save the Church. By railing
against the exploitation of the poor and against clerical corruption,
Savonarola ran afoul of the two most powerful families in Italy: the
Medici and the Borgias.
The Medici, whose vast banking
operations made them de facto rulers of Florence, were ousted from the
city ahead of the invading French King Charles VIII. Savonarola
supported and celebrated the overthrow, declaring Florence a "New
Jerusalem" and organizing a political party and popular reforms.
Claiming to have been taken up into heaven where he received a mandate
for all this from the Virgin Mary, Savonarola sent patrollers into the
streets to enforce morality laws, and organized "bonfires of the
vanities" in which items of vice and luxury were publicly destroyed.
Refusing to cooperate with the Borgia Pope Alexander VI's alliance
to eject the French from Italy, Savonarola was excommunicated. But he
continued writing savage attacks against the Church, and intimated that
he could perform miracles. A fellow monk issued a challenge to Savonarola to prove himself in a
public trial by fire. The event, after several nervous delays during the appointed day, was eventually botched by rain, and Savonarola's popular power was so
diminished that the Pope saw an opportunity to strike. Arrested and tortured, Savonarola confessed that
his spiritual visions had all been fraudulent. For this, he and
two fellow friars were hanged for heresy and burned in the Piazza della
Signoria in Florence on May 23, 1498.
