Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Downy, and it is
Speaker 1: a gorgeous day in Atlanta today it feels like spring.
Speaker 1: But Sarah, you know, I was taking this walk earlier
Speaker 1: in the sunshine, and I was wondering if you'd thought
Speaker 1: about the last days lately, you know, Redney Revelation, Maybe
Speaker 1: thought about how you'd like to spend the apocalypse. No,
Speaker 1: I's not, Katie. Well, I really think you should, and
Speaker 1: I think you should repent, and I think you should reform.
Speaker 1: I would like to go burn your books and your makeup,
Speaker 1: and I want you to stop telling jokes. I'm really
Speaker 1: not interested in that. Not interested in burning my things,
Speaker 1: especially my body CELLI paintings and my priceless books. Um
Speaker 1: So no, thanks us, Sorry, sir, it's it's not me.
Speaker 1: I was channeling our subject for to day, Gerlamo Savonarola,
Speaker 1: and I read a good quote about him earlier in
Speaker 1: an article by Donald Weinstein in History Today, and he
Speaker 1: was quoting Machiavelli, who was thinking of Savonarola when he
Speaker 1: wrote Unarmed prophets are bound to fail. So Savonarola is
Speaker 1: known as a book burner, a destroyer of Boticelli paintings,
Speaker 1: and his sermons are full of fire in brimstone, and
Speaker 1: that's probably how you know him. But he's also a
Speaker 1: reformer of the church, the government, the scourge of Lorenzo
Speaker 1: de Medici, and an enemy of Pope Alexander the seventh.
Speaker 1: He died by fire, and some think he should be
Speaker 1: made a saint. Who was this man? We're going to
Speaker 1: take you to his early life, like we like to do.
Speaker 1: He was born in fourteen fifty two in Ferrara, and
Speaker 1: he got his book learning and also his moral education
Speaker 1: from his grandfather Michelle, who was both a doctor and
Speaker 1: a medieval scholar. And Grandpa's sense of morality definitely rubbed
Speaker 1: off on the child Alamo. He seems like a pretty
Speaker 1: serious kid at one point, I think in his teens
Speaker 1: he references the blind wickedness of the peoples of Italy,
Speaker 1: which sounds like something I also would have written in
Speaker 1: my middle school diary. Oh that's pretty dramatic, Katie. He's
Speaker 1: a very dramatic twelve year old. So he gets a
Speaker 1: liberal arts degree and starts studying medicine, but he leaves
Speaker 1: it all behind in fourteen seventy five to become a
Speaker 1: Dominican priest in Bologna. Right, he's found his calling. It's
Speaker 1: not in medicine, it's in religious life. And in fourteen
Speaker 1: eighty two, Savonarola left for Florence, which was called the
Speaker 1: city of his destiny and many of my sources, and
Speaker 1: he became a lecturer at the Convent of San Marco.
Speaker 1: But he doesn't really impress anyone. His sermons are kind
Speaker 1: of boring. He's not a great public speaker. He doesn't
Speaker 1: make much of a mark on the city, and so
Speaker 1: he leaves for a while, returns to Bologna to act
Speaker 1: as a master of studies in fourteen eighty seven, and
Speaker 1: then embarks on a year of traveling and preaching. And
Speaker 1: sometime during this time he has a revelation and everything
Speaker 1: changes for him. Yeah, and he returns to Florence in
Speaker 1: fourteen ninety and this is when he begins to make
Speaker 1: his reputation for great sermons. And yeah, like you've said,
Speaker 1: something happens to him spiritually, but something also happens to
Speaker 1: him in terms of public speaking. He's really compelling now
Speaker 1: a lot of his sermons are prophetic too. He predicts
Speaker 1: the date of Innocent the Eighth's death, for example, and
Speaker 1: the theme of most of them is corruption. Corruption of
Speaker 1: the city and the government and the church that have
Speaker 1: all been ruined by vices, and he wants reform, and
Speaker 1: that's what he's proposing through these radical sermons. He believed
Speaker 1: that the church would need to be scourged before it
Speaker 1: could be renewed, and he preached again a lot about
Speaker 1: the apocalypse and the end days and for all the
Speaker 1: fire and brims. It was so very fiery. He also
Speaker 1: preached specifically about how corrupt and greedy the Medici are,
Speaker 1: which makes him a powerful enemy and Lorenzo de Medici.
Speaker 1: While he's advocating a set us is um, he's also
Speaker 1: busy predicting Lorenzo's death. So Lorenzo the Medici is known
Speaker 1: for some pretty amazing accomplishments. We've already talked about some
Speaker 1: of them in our Popsy Conspiracy podcast, mostly how he
Speaker 1: managed to survive the Pozzy conspiracy. But he's also known
Speaker 1: as the father of the Italian Renaissance. He's brilliant, he's important,
Speaker 1: he's from a huge, powerful family and he's got a
Speaker 1: lot of personal talents, like if he writes poetry, he's
Speaker 1: a patron of the arts, but he's not necessarily loved.
Speaker 1: And one historian who we also mentioned in our earlier
Speaker 1: podcasts referred to his style of government as a benevolent tyranny.
Speaker 1: So Lorenzo wants Savonarola to stop these sermons. They're they're
Speaker 1: threatening him, and they're threatening the power of the Medici.
Speaker 1: And he does what Medici, the Medici family does best,
Speaker 1: which is to to try to threaten, try to bribe um.
Speaker 1: But Savonarola is immune to this. He's not a player
Speaker 1: in this whole name, and he lives by a very
Speaker 1: strict moral code. He doesn't just apply it to other people,
Speaker 1: he also applies it to himself. And so none of
Speaker 1: this works. But soon Lorenzo gets very ill, and there's
Speaker 1: this legend that Savonarola refused to give Lorenzo absolution in
Speaker 1: his dying days, but there's actually no evidence to support this.
Speaker 1: It's not true. It's a slur on Savonarola's character. And
Speaker 1: he did give a blessing to Lorenzo, his enemy before
Speaker 1: he died, which Katie and I were talking about this earlier.
Speaker 1: But I don't quite understand why Lorenzo would have Savonarola
Speaker 1: at his death when you I don't. I mean, unless
Speaker 1: it's just because he was such a prominent and powerful figure.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of nice Medici,
Speaker 1: friendly priests and town probably family members. You know. If
Speaker 1: you have an idea, drop us an email history podcast
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. But going back to Savonarola,
Speaker 1: he's only growing in popularity during this time. This message
Speaker 1: of reform in government and in the church has really
Speaker 1: struck a chord with the Florentines. And now that Lorenzo
Speaker 1: the Magnificent is dead, what will happen to Savonarola? So
Speaker 1: the Medici are overthrown and eggsiled. When Charles the eighth
Speaker 1: of France invades Italy um Savonarola had predicted this, and
Speaker 1: he tries to make it happen. He sees his chance
Speaker 1: to to make the changes that he deemed so necessary
Speaker 1: for Florence, right, knocking everything down so you can starting overbuild.
Speaker 1: And if that sounds a little traitorous to you, it
Speaker 1: also did to Pope Alexander the sixth, who wasn't the
Speaker 1: greatest pope. If you remember our podcast on the Crazia Borgia,
Speaker 1: this was her father. So yes, the pope had several
Speaker 1: children actually, And of course this kind of behavior is
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that Savonarola wanted to stamp out completely.
Speaker 1: He thought the papacy had become a mockery, or, if
Speaker 1: not the papacy in general, because he did still have
Speaker 1: respect for the pope, but the clergy wasn't living like
Speaker 1: they should in this pope in particular, really bugs Savonarola.
Speaker 1: So Savonarola basically takes over in Florence, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: a move of ambition. His motive wasn't about power. He
Speaker 1: wanted to dedicate Florence to God. He felt that both
Speaker 1: his religion and Florence had strayed too far from the path,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to bring them back to the fold.
Speaker 1: And he did some pretty fantastic things in Florence. His
Speaker 1: contemporaries were amazed with how he'd managed to turn this
Speaker 1: city around, and as government corruption is still prevalent pretty
Speaker 1: much everywhere, it's a pretty fantastic accomplishment. But of course
Speaker 1: people are jealous of this kind of success, especially if
Speaker 1: you're if you're striking down a system of patronage and
Speaker 1: bribes that's been in place for ages, people are going
Speaker 1: to be upset about that. His opposition is a party
Speaker 1: known as the Arabbiati, and I will try very hard
Speaker 1: not to say a rabbiata like the sauce throughout the
Speaker 1: rest of this podcast. They were Florentine and they had
Speaker 1: some powerful friends, the Duke of Milan, and of course
Speaker 1: the Pope, and the Pope had an axe to grind
Speaker 1: with Savona Rola, not just because of the corruption stuff.
Speaker 1: He wanted Florence to join the Holy League or the
Speaker 1: Holy Alliance, which was a group against the King of
Speaker 1: France that's somewhat united Italians. It's maybe a precursor to
Speaker 1: the Resorgimento, but it required Florence to join, and they
Speaker 1: didn't want to. This could have been because of old
Speaker 1: Florentine ties to France, or it could have been Savonarola
Speaker 1: who was in the way, but either way, the Pope
Speaker 1: thought the best way to get around this was to
Speaker 1: target Savona Rolla. So a brief from Alexander to Savonarola
Speaker 1: appears in July, and in it he's praising Savonarola, you
Speaker 1: know you're doing a really really great job, such a
Speaker 1: great job in fact, that you should come to Rome
Speaker 1: and tell me all about these amazing prophecies you're having,
Speaker 1: because I'd really like to hear Savonarola's responses along the
Speaker 1: lines of, uh, yeah, you know, I think I'm not
Speaker 1: feeling eight. Maybe we could do this some other time,
Speaker 1: because he knows it's a trap. He knows Alexander is
Speaker 1: bad news. You heard in our the Crazia Borgia podcast
Speaker 1: how the Borgia's like to dispatch with their enemies, and
Speaker 1: Savonarola wants no part of it. But the Pope is
Speaker 1: not going to be put off quite that easily, and
Speaker 1: Savonarola is an obstacle to what he wants, what he
Speaker 1: wants to happen, and so in September he sends another brief.
Speaker 1: This time he's saying, go to Bologna or I'll excommunicate you.
Speaker 1: Savonarola is still unwilling to accede to these bizarre and
Speaker 1: kind of frightening demands from the Pope, though, and pressured
Speaker 1: by the Holy League, the Pope writes another brief in
Speaker 1: September forbidding Savonarola to preach anymore. He relents a bit
Speaker 1: near lent and doesn't enforce it. And this is when
Speaker 1: Savonarola gives what some call his best sermons. But I
Speaker 1: don't think he was, you know, taking it easy and
Speaker 1: playing it cool and laying off a little bit because
Speaker 1: he'd riled up the Pope, because he's still decrying all
Speaker 1: the same things and just as vocaling. Yeah, you would
Speaker 1: think that you could kind of interpret these papal warnings
Speaker 1: um as you know, you better watch your back and
Speaker 1: and tone everything down a little. But he doesn't do
Speaker 1: that at all. So there's still somewhat even an uneasy truce.
Speaker 1: But things begin to escalate due to Savonarola's popularity. The
Speaker 1: Pope offers him a Cardinals hat, and Savonarola's response is
Speaker 1: a red hat. I want a hat of blood, so,
Speaker 1: you know, a negative. And in fourteen, the Arabbiati in
Speaker 1: the league have finally had it with Savonarola, so they
Speaker 1: apply pressure to the Pope, and this time he incorporates
Speaker 1: Savonarola's congregation, basically taking away his power. I kind of
Speaker 1: try to think of it as redistricting. So suddenly he
Speaker 1: Savonarola doesn't have anybody to preach to if he's going
Speaker 1: to follow the pope's orders. And this of course proposes
Speaker 1: a bit of a predicament for him, because if he
Speaker 1: goes along with the Pope's you know, increasingly crazy town demands,
Speaker 1: then everything he's worked for is gone. But if he doesn't,
Speaker 1: he'll be excommunicated, which is a big, huge deal. So
Speaker 1: he goes along with it, but again, no one really
Speaker 1: enforces this order, so he keeps on a preaching people
Speaker 1: keep on coming. So this brings list to probably the
Speaker 1: most famous episodes of his life, which is the Bonfire
Speaker 1: the vanities, and Savonarola is against so many things. But
Speaker 1: you know, while you can't burn vices and sins like
Speaker 1: greed or adultery or sodomy, you can burn expensive clothes
Speaker 1: and jewelry and gambling equipment and makeup and pornography. And
Speaker 1: while he did burn a lot of things, some of
Speaker 1: his reputation is a bit unfair. He's generally been blamed
Speaker 1: for destroying great books and art, but according to modern historians,
Speaker 1: there are very few pieces that were destroyed. Although he
Speaker 1: is connected to the painter Sandro Boticelli and some say
Speaker 1: that he came under Savonarola's spell and that's when his
Speaker 1: art changed, and that Boticelli himself through his own paintings
Speaker 1: on the bonfire. We don't know if this is true
Speaker 1: or not. A lot of people think it isn't, but
Speaker 1: all can agree that his paintings did take a serious turn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they go from being these beautiful, bright paintings to being
Speaker 1: very dark and gloomy. There there there's a world of
Speaker 1: difference between them. So we have this tension still between
Speaker 1: the Pope, the Duke of Milan, and Savonarola. It obviously
Speaker 1: cannot go on forever. It's got a break at some point,
Speaker 1: and who's gonna Who's gonna come out on top? Well again,
Speaker 1: Savonarola is forbidden to preach, but now we have it.
Speaker 1: The Pope finally does excommunicate him, but the Arabbiati had
Speaker 1: actually bribed the Roman Curia for this pool of excommunication,
Speaker 1: and it's riddled with mistakes. I think at one point
Speaker 1: the Pope actually says he didn't even write it because
Speaker 1: it's so incredibly bizarre it wouldn't even have been valid. Well,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting that they have to bribe him too,
Speaker 1: because you. And though the Pope clearly does not like Savonarola,
Speaker 1: he's not willing to take this step himself, so risky,
Speaker 1: and the whole thing is just ridiculous. It's very sneaky,
Speaker 1: it's very underhanded. The Florentine government knows it. They're a
Speaker 1: bit up in arms. Savonarola doesn't respond to this at all.
Speaker 1: He just retreats and he prays, and then Rome says,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll take the whole excommunication thing back if
Speaker 1: Florence joins the alliance. So Savonarola preaches on exodus, which, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's symbolism for you. And he's not supposed to be preaching,
Speaker 1: of course, And so the city is threatened with interdict,
Speaker 1: which we also talked a bit about in our Popsy
Speaker 1: Conspiracy podcast. But that's when you know you're not allowed
Speaker 1: to worship. Several religious ceremonies are suspended. It's a big deal.
Speaker 1: And Savonarola starts to write appeals to the church council,
Speaker 1: but then he burns the letters. Perhaps he just didn't
Speaker 1: want to go behind the Pope's back or start any
Speaker 1: kind of internal conflict, because again he did respect the
Speaker 1: office of the papacy. But he's clearly concerned about the
Speaker 1: souls of Florentines. Yes, and so now we enter Frau
Speaker 1: Domenico Dipacia, who is one of Savonarola's followers. So to
Speaker 1: give this story, there is another priest, a Franciscan, who
Speaker 1: said that Savonarola's excommunication was in fact valid and that
Speaker 1: he shouldn't be violating the Pope's order by preaching. And
Speaker 1: the Franciscans in general weren't huge fans of Savonarola's very
Speaker 1: passionate fire and brimstone type of methods. They also thought
Speaker 1: it was ridiculous that he said he communicated directly with
Speaker 1: God and the saints, that maybe he was even a heretic.
Speaker 1: So the Franciscan issues a challenge to the Dominicans and
Speaker 1: he says, if you think this excommunication isn't valid, you
Speaker 1: should undergo an ordeal by fire. You know, of course,
Speaker 1: what else would you do. So a representative is picked
Speaker 1: from each side. It's going to be a fire off contest,
Speaker 1: and if the Dominican dies, Savonarola will be banished. If
Speaker 1: the Franciscan dies, then for a Francesco is banished. So
Speaker 1: the people as Savonarola's side hope that he'll perform a miracle,
Speaker 1: save his guys, save the dominican Um. His opponents hope
Speaker 1: that he'll mess it up. Maybe um the two priests
Speaker 1: will both die or something dramatic will happen, and Savonarola
Speaker 1: will be left looking embarrassed and exposed as a fraud
Speaker 1: or not everything that he said he could be, because
Speaker 1: he set himself up as this incredibly powerful person, you know,
Speaker 1: with his direct line to God and to the saints,
Speaker 1: and so both sides are looking at him to see
Speaker 1: what he'll prove himself to be. Savonarola himself thinks this
Speaker 1: ordeal by fire is a terrible idea, so does the Pope,
Speaker 1: but everyone else is just really excited by the drama
Speaker 1: of the Florentines. Oh yes. Savonarola does, however, say that
Speaker 1: it's been revealed to him that his side will win,
Speaker 1: although it wasn't mentioned to him whether the ordeal would
Speaker 1: actually take place, which is a bit convenient. Well, and
Speaker 1: that's a great way to to stoke a drama without
Speaker 1: actually having to go through with it, you know, Like,
Speaker 1: why do we even need to burn anybody? Because I
Speaker 1: know my side is gonna win. But anyways, they argue
Speaker 1: over every little detail of this burning and it doesn't
Speaker 1: end up happening, and this leaves everyone pretty dissatisfied, i'd imagine,
Speaker 1: except for the guys who are going to be burned.
Speaker 1: People want spectacle, they want a miracle, and Savonarola has
Speaker 1: failed to deliver. And the next day there is a riot.
Speaker 1: Savona Rola's people are at the Duomo. They're listening to
Speaker 1: a sermon and the opposition shows up with rocks, at
Speaker 1: which point they all retreat to San Marco, which is
Speaker 1: then attacked the convent and there's a bloody fight between
Speaker 1: both sides, with Savonarola urging an end to the violence, saying,
Speaker 1: you know, please, let's fight with prayer and not with weapons.
Speaker 1: But it's taken on a life of its own. At
Speaker 1: this point there are people fighting on the altar and
Speaker 1: Savonarola is completely horrified. I imagine him sitting here wondering
Speaker 1: how he'd ended up at the center of all of this.
Speaker 1: So he and Frau Domenica, the Dominican follower, are taken
Speaker 1: and there are two investigations of him and fred Domenico
Speaker 1: and Frost Silvestro, the third guy involved in this, and
Speaker 1: the examiners are all enemies of Savonarola's so clearly this
Speaker 1: is going to be a really fair thing. Right from
Speaker 1: the beginning, he's savagely tortured um, which of course doesn't
Speaker 1: usually result in reliable confessions. And we're not even sure
Speaker 1: what he was accused of. Was it armed rebellion, was
Speaker 1: it treason? The crimes seem really vague. Yes, Um that
Speaker 1: he's tried in a secular court for crimes against the state,
Speaker 1: and later in an ecclesiastical court for heresy and schism,
Speaker 1: and he is convicted on all counts. So he's sentenced
Speaker 1: to hang and burn, as are his two companions, and
Speaker 1: they received absolution and die in front of a crowd
Speaker 1: on May and some of the people in the crowd
Speaker 1: are actually taunting Savonarola to perform a miracle, kind of
Speaker 1: like Jesus. Yeah, it reminds me of another biblical story.
Speaker 1: And we have to note that some people do consider
Speaker 1: him to be a saint and a martyr. There are
Speaker 1: many who's still clamor for his canonization. I'd also like
Speaker 1: to add another detail. Apparently they were all hanged and
Speaker 1: then there were chains holding them up on both sides
Speaker 1: for when they were burned, so it looked a lot
Speaker 1: like a crucifixion, claiming that exactly according to accounts, Savonarola
Speaker 1: died with the lord's name on his lips, and people
Speaker 1: picked up little bits of their bones that were left,
Speaker 1: and the rest was thrown into the arno. So to conclude,
Speaker 1: you have to think about, I guess what we make
Speaker 1: of this man, because we've got this picture of him
Speaker 1: as someone who you know, burns books, which in Sarah's
Speaker 1: and my opinion, is a bit of a cardinal sin well,
Speaker 1: and I'll say in an art history class, he is
Speaker 1: so depicted as a villain, and of course he's not
Speaker 1: a big fan of art. I disapproved of sex, he
Speaker 1: disapproved of jokes. He prophesied, you know, doom and disaster.
Speaker 1: But on the good side, he always fought for the
Speaker 1: people against this ms he genuinely believed to be corrupt,
Speaker 1: and he was right they were, and he was put
Speaker 1: on a pedestal by the people, only to be abandoned
Speaker 1: watching a church desecrated with fighting in his name. He
Speaker 1: died in front of a crowd who taunted him, and
Speaker 1: remained faithful so we're left with a few questions at
Speaker 1: the end of this. You know, was this whole thing
Speaker 1: about religion or was it about politics? Was it about
Speaker 1: power or about higher motives? You know, like was he
Speaker 1: really communicating with God and he felt he had to
Speaker 1: do this? And also was it about one man, you know,
Speaker 1: Savonarola versus the Catholic Church or was he just just
Speaker 1: an excuse to to go after Florence? And was he
Speaker 1: a heretic or a saint. Oh, we have our questions,
Speaker 1: we don't have answers, So if you have an opinion,
Speaker 1: please drop us an email at History Podcast at how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. And that brings us to listener mail.
Speaker 1: So we got a lot of interesting responses about our
Speaker 1: questions regarding the amber, especially the electricity in the amber room.
Speaker 1: Listener Sean wrote, you mentioned that visitors of the amber
Speaker 1: room mentioned the heat or energy from the walls. Amber
Speaker 1: was used in early experiments with electricity. In fact, the
Speaker 1: word electric comes from the Latin word electron in Greek
Speaker 1: word electron, both meaning amber. I don't know if the
Speaker 1: tour are related, but having so much amber in one place,
Speaker 1: maybe even airflow can create enough friction to produce a
Speaker 1: low charge, which, uh, that's certainly an interesting theory. Another
Speaker 1: email we got from listener John, he sent lots of
Speaker 1: cool pictures of his own trip to Katherine Palace in
Speaker 1: the amber room, well not specifically the amber room. He
Speaker 1: said that we were right, and you cannot photograph it.
Speaker 1: You're not even allowed to linger in it. Apparently they
Speaker 1: give you the tour highlights you walk through quickly, and
Speaker 1: then they talked about it a little more on the
Speaker 1: other side. But one interesting point he mentioned was that
Speaker 1: the Katherine Palace is half a mile long, which I
Speaker 1: think would make for some really good, luxurious indoor jogging
Speaker 1: instead of making it to the gym, which I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone enjoys. So going back to our topic for today, Savonarola.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to learn a little bit more about censorship,
Speaker 1: you should check out our article how does Banning a Bookwork?
Speaker 1: On our homepage at ww dot how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: And if you'd like to keep up with what we're
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Speaker 1: we come across, follow us on Twitter at missed in History.
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