Portrait of Girolamo Savonarola, ca. 1498, Museum of San Marco
Please Note: This program has a rescheduled date (originally March 21, 2018).
How could a lowly Florentine preacher almost singlehandedly overthrow the mighty Medici family at the height of the Italian Renaissance and unleash the "bonfire of vanities" that consigned priceless paintings and jewelry to flames? The fiery Girolamo Savonarola not only upended the civic and cultural norms of Florence, he installed himself as the head of a ruthless, ruling theocracy.
Tonight, Janna Bianchini, an associate professor in the department of history, University of Maryland, College Park tells the story of his unexpected rise, years-long domination of the city in the face of fierce outside opposition, and meteoric fall. Savonarola was burned at the stake in 1498—a fiery end to a cautionary tale about the dangers of blending religious and political extremes. His life and career committed to civic and religious reforms refute the old claim that Renaissance Italians were secularist or anti-Christian, revealing the passionate religious convictions at the heart of the Renaissance itself.
