The burning of Savanarola

Ralph Roeder, The Man of the Renaissance: Reading Notes Part VII

Savanarola sternly criticized by Vatican as an "innovator" and abandoned by his political partisans in Florence. Roeder concludes that "the great theocratic experiment had failed . . . He had demonstrated exhaustively the sterility of Christianity either as a system of statecraft or a way of practical life."

Roeder avers that "the Roman tradition had been broken by two calamities, the barbarian invasions and the effeminizing influence of Christianity." Latter calls to mind that Savaronola, in Roeder's account, entered monastery out of failed romance and disgust over the masculine behavioral norms of his fellow students."

Roeder relates Machiavelli's witnessing of Savanarola's last sermons. Suggests that while Machiavelli sees clearly everything on the surface, he fails to understand Savanarola's inspiration, his sincere belief in his rightness. Machiavelli's insights are purely cerebral; he is blind to the spiritual.

On failure of Savanarola's trial and torture to reveal any motives for his pronouncements other than sincere belief, Roeder writes that "the Renaissance was trying the Middle Ages."

Savanarola hanged and burned in the Piazza -- with children casting stones at his corpse -- sharing the fate of so many "vanities" burned during his ascent.

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