Who was Savonarola?
Savonarola, 1452-1498, like Fra Bartolommeo, was a Dominican Friar who sermonized before huge crowds with a fiery fanatical zeal. His radical sermons quickly earned him enormous influence over not only the common peasant but artists, writers and members of the aristocracy. Many of his followers declared him a prophet whose words came directly from God. Savonarola despised the eroticized Virgin Marys and the leering nude cherubs of Raphael. He was anti-humanistic and detested poetry, literature, perfume, non religious art or anything that was vaguely fun. Savonarola declared “They have built up a new Church after their own patter. Go to Rome and see! In the mansions of the great prelates there is no concern save for poetry and the oratorical art. Go thither and see!” He encouraged painters and patrons alike to burn all artworks that did not conform to his strict code of morality. Thousands of the greatest masterpieces ever created by some of the giants of renaissance art were tossed int
