Savanarola as Mao

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

Election of licentious, greedy, but politically astute Roderigo Borgia as Pope: "a large bovine man, he weighed two hundred pounds worth of stability and order."

Savaranola heightens the level of his prophecy of godly retribution, the emblem of which becomes an arm and sword reaching down from the clouds with the words: "the sword of the Lord, swift over the earth and sudden."

Savaranola's reform of his convent of San Marco resonant of Mao's cultural revolution: a stamping out of property and individuality achieved by inciting the zeal of the youngest followers followed by a period of relaxed stringency and a fascination with pageantry (including one in which a young boy is dressed-up as the Virgin and adored by the chanting monks).

Also thought of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson post-9/11 and Katrina in Savanarola's gleefull greeting of the murdurous French invasion of Italy as act of personal vindication and godly retribution: "Lo the sword is come, the prophecies are verified, the scourging has begun . . . the time of singing and dancing is over; now is the time to weep your sins with torrents of tears."


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