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Portrait of Savonarola

14 1/2 in. x 10 1/2 in. (36.83 cm x 26.67 cm)

, Italian

Object Type: Sculpture and Installations
Creation Place: Europe, Italy
Medium and Support: low relief Castelline marble
Credit Line: Carleton College Art Collection, gift of James Woodward Strong, president 1870-1903
Accession Number: 1997.286
Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) was a Dominican friar, preacher, adn reformer. He preached in Florence against moral corruption- targeting individual citizens and the papacy, and staged ôbonfires of vanitiesö where people brought worldly items to be burned. Ultimately, Savonarola lost the support of the Florentines; he was condemned as a heretic, hanges, and his body was burned.

For Madame Linda Villari, writing in 1890 in the Enclyclopedia Britannica, Savonarola was a patriot and outspoken defender of "pure Christianity" against the "splendid corruptions of the Italian Renaissance." This author, whose strongly antipapal views color her work, saw Savonarola as an orator whose words "wrought upon the minds of the Florentines and strung them to a pitch of pious emotion never before- and never since- attained by them." Perhaps her description fo Savonarola’ s appearance reflects her idea of his presence as an orator:

"All portraits of this extraordinary man are at first sight almost repulsively ugly, but written descriptions tell us that his gaunt features were beautified by an expression of singular force adn benevolence. Luminous dark eyes sparkled and flamed beneath his thick, black brows, adn his large mouth and prominent nether lip were as capable as gentle sweetness as of power and set to resolve."

Savonarola the "patriot," clearly numbered among the forebearers of the "heroes of modern Italy" whose busts adorned the Mole’s forecourt in Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908).

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