Light'em if You Got'em

Dear Folk,

Today we cautiously celebrate the birthday of a mystic, a preacher, a church reformer, a politician, a prophet, a convicted heretic, and generally not a guy you would invite to a birthday party. On September 21, 1452, Girolamo Savonarola was born.

Savonarola was delivered to a noble family at Ferrara, Italy. He seemed to have a calling to the Church and entered the Dominican order (remember Dominic Guzman who said "Kill them all, God will know His own"?) in Bologna in the year 1474. There is talk about his infatuation with a very haughty Florentine gal whose spurning him made him give up the love of women. Sigh. His first preaching gig in Florence (1484) was less than a sell-out. He took his show on the road for some polishing. At the convent at Brescia he wowed the nuns with his impassioned pleas. The nuns did not get many roadshows and Girolamo had this wonderfully large nose and sensual lips.

Sensing the time was right in 1489, he took it back to Florence. He got to stand up in the pulpit at San Marco and do his James Brown best. I mean he talked about sin (he was agin' it) and apostasy (made him apoplectic). He got down on all those folks who were painting themselves and looking at paintings of naked nymphs. That, incidentally, included almost all of Florence at the time.

Florence had been flowering under Lorenzo the Magnificent. Art and literature had gone through what we now call the humanist revival. Greek myths were being recalled and vividly portrayed. There was a sense of spring, prima vera, in the air. Artists like Michelangelo and Sandro Botticelli were capturing it exactly. Music, sculpture, dance, painting, love, lust, la dolce vita, you know, were being exhibited everywhere. Savonarola saw all of this as the temptings of a very real worldly spirit, Satan. The Medicis were necessarily a tad worried about this guy who was raining on their parade. Interestingly enough, when Lorenzo lay dying in 1492 he invited Fra. Savonarola to visit him and to hear his last confession. Wouldn't you like to have been an Italian-speaking fly on that wall?

In 1493 when the Dominican order in Tuscany (upper Italy) was being reformed, the pope approved Savonarola as the first Vicar-General. That may have been the position of power that tipped the balance for him. He got a tad political. He predicted that Florence would fall into misery and bondage if it did not mend its ways. Sure enough, Florence stayed sinful and France led by Charles VIII marched into town in 1494. Savonarola's prophecies seemed to be fulfilled. Florence became enemy-occupied territory. But this led to the restoration of the city, in part through Savonarola's efforts. He persuaded the French king not to destroy the city and he helped to reorganize its government as a republic. His political party, the Weepers, became the controlling force in the new republic of Florence after the French were forced to leave.

Savonarola became pretty darned popular around town. He was able to use his influence to create a sort of welfare system to care for the poor and the sick in that city of splendor. He also did everything he could to encourage education, science, and the arts. Of course his slant on things was from what he thought Christianity should be doing.

Much like the later Puritans in England, Savonarola's people believed that God was not well served by folks wearing designer jeans, driving SUVs while talking on cell phones, sipping double mochas, and surfing the Internet for porn. Well, not exactly his words but you get the drift. Savonarola called for a collection of all these worldly distractions and made of them "bonfires of the vanities." That's right, they burned Frederick's of Hollywood corsets, Bottecelli paintings, Versacci knockoffs, autographed pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar, twenty-sided D&D dice, books with Fabio on their covers, Guess jeans, whole Mary Kay makeup collections, you name it, in fifteen story bonfires. Looked like Texas A&M around homecoming.

Now worse yet, Savonarola turned his sharp eyes upon the Catholic Church, itself. He started talking bad about the Borgia pope and all of the vanities which were rampant in Rome. Since he had predicted the invasion of Florence, folks had been saying that Savonarola was some sort of a prophet. He did nothing much to disabuse his followers of that notion. This led to Rome asking him to put in a guest appearance on the Papal Late Show to answer charges of heresy in 1495. Savonarola said he would pass on the invite because Rome was part of Hell and the pope, no offense, was in league with the Devil. The pope said he understood and that Savonarola should just lay off preaching for awhile. What do you think he did? Yep! His message: "The Church is in sin; The Church will be scourged; It will happen soon."

Such preaching and disregard for respect could only lead to one place. On the way, in 1497, the Pope Alexander VI excommunicated him. Even so, Savonarola nursed the monks during an outbreak of the plague in Florence. He had a second bonfire of the vanities in 1498 which went astray. The Florentines were getting tired of having their houses ransacked by mobs. Even the Franciscans led by a Franciscan preacher, Francesco da Pugliacame came down against him. There was scheduled a Dominicans vs. Franciscans trial by fire in April 1498 but it never came off. Shucks. The Florentines were about through with Savonarola and arrested him.

He was brought to trial for falsely claiming to have seen visions, and uttered prophecies, for religious error, and for sedition. Under torture he made said some things which he afterwards denied. He was declared guilty and the sentence was confirmed by Rome. On May 23, 1498, this remarkable man and two of his Dominican disciples were hanged until almost dead and then burned at the stake, still professing their adherence to the Church.

A poet mourned:
Charity is extinct,
Love of God is no more.
All are lukewarm;
And without living faith. . .
Alas! the Saint is dead!
Alas! O Lord! Alas!
Thou hast taken our Prophet
And drawn him to thyself.

"The only good thing which we owe to Plato and Aristotle is that they brought forward many arguments which we can use against the heretics. Yet they and other philosophers are now in Hell. An old woman knows more about the Faith than Plato." Girolano Savonarola

What have we learned? Never disrespect a Borgia? Folks are made terribly uncomfortable by others telling them they are sinning? Haughty girls can cause really strange things? "He who says sinning ain't fun, hasn't sinned lately"? Billy Graham said that. Live by the bonfire, die by the same? How about "An old woman knows more about the Faith than Plato"? Amen to that.

If you are out there practicing apostasy, scourging a Church, or just scurrying away from folks with whips and want to forward these missives to others, gratias! Do remember to keep my name, sig., and secret watermark attached.

Not burning my Sarah Michelle Gellar photos no matter what,
J. Ellsworth Weaver

SCA - Sir Balthazar of Endor
AS - Polyphemus Theognis
TRV - Sebastian Yeats