Girolamo Savonarola - Prophet

Prophet

Savonarola preached on the First Epistle of John and on the Book of Revelation, drawing such large crowds he eventually moved to the Cathedral. Without mentioning names, he made pointed allusions to tyrants who usurped the freedom of the people, and he excoriated their allies, the rich and powerful who neglected and exploited the poor. Complaining of the evil lives of a corrupt clergy, he now called for repentance and renewal before the arrival of a divine scourge. Scoffers dismissed him as an over-excited zealot and "preacher of the desperate," and sneered at his growing band of followers as "Piagnoni," or Wailers, an epithet they adopted. In 1492 Savonarola warned of "the Sword of the Lord over the earth quickly and soon" and envisioned terrible tribulations to Rome. Around 1493 (these sermons have not survived) he began to prophesy that a New Cyrus was coming over the mountains to begin the renewal of the Church.

In late summer 1494 King Charles VIII crossed the Alps with a formidable army throwing Italy into political chaos. His arrival was widely understood as proof of Savonarola’s gift of prophecy. In the fall Charles advanced on Florence, sacking Tuscan strongholds and threatening to punish the city for refusing to support his expedition. As the populace took to the streets to expel Piero, the late Lorenzo de’ Medici’s son and successor, Savonarola led a delegation to the camp of the French king. He pressed Charles to spare Florence and enjoined him to take up his divinely appointed role as the reformer of the Church. After a short, tense occupation of the city and another intervention by fra Girolamo (as well as the promise of a huge subsidy), the French resumed their journey southward on November 28, 1494. Savonarola now declared that by answering his call to penitence the Florentines had begun to build a new Ark of Noah which had saved them from the waters of the divine flood.

Even more sensational was the message in his sermon of December 10:

"I announce this good news to the city, that Florence will be more glorious, richer, more powerful than she has ever been; First, glorious in the sight of God as well as of men: and you, O Florence will be the reformation of all Italy, and from here the renewal will begin and spread everywhere, because this is the navel of Italy. Your counsels will reform all by the light and grace that God will give you. Second, O Florence, you will have innumerable riches, and God will multiply all things for you. Third, you will spread your empire, and thus you will have power temporal and spiritual."

This astounding guarantee may have been an allusion to the traditional patriotic myth of Florence as the new Rome which Savonarola would have encountered in his readings in Florentine history. In any case, it encompassed both temporal power and spiritual leadership.