Jerome Savonarola
JEROME SAVONAROLA
Savonarola was an Italian monk, very well educated, who began to preach to the people against the evil living he witnessed within his own order, demanding reforms. As Savonarola’s popularity grew, Pope Alexander VI ordered his vicar to proceed with the needed reforms in an attempt to silence the monk, but Savonarola wouldn’t be silenced.
When the pope denounced Savonarola’s testimony and ordered him to be silent, the monk finally realized the danger he was in and temporarily stopped preaching. But he took it up again in Florence in 1496 at the request of the people longing for God’s Word. Cursed as a heretic, Savonarola told the people that such curses were against true doctrine and should be ignored.
Savonarola was taken from his cloister in 1498, along with two other friars who supported him, and burned as a heretic on May 24, 1499.