Go to Rome and see! In the mansions of the great prelates there is no concern save for poetry and the oratorical art. “They have built up a new Church after their own patter. He hated poetry, literature, perfume, non religious art or anything that was vaguely “fun”. Savonarola was opposed to the humanist trend which had become popular. Savonarola loathed some of the religious art of the time with its eroticized Virgin Marys and the smirking putti such as could be seen in the works of Raphael. For many, he was a prophet and what he uttered were words which came directly from God. It was not just the common peasant but artists, writers and members of the aristocracy who listened to this great orator and was swayed by what he preached. By this time printing had been introduced in Florence and Savonarola was one of the first figures to use printing to spread political and religious propaganda. He spoke to the masses and what he told them quickly earned him massive influence over all who heard him. By 1491, Savonarola stood before massive crowds with a fiery and fervent enthusiasm. Initially his sermons were met with little enthusiasm but over time his following grew. He arrived in Florence in 1481 having been sent there by his order in Bologna to “go out and preach”. The Renaissance scholar John Van Dyke even went further calling him a religionist, a person addicted to religion in other words, a religious zealot.ĭuring his late twenties Fra Bartolomeo became a follower of Girolamo Savonarola the fierce and passionate Dominican friar, who vehemently preached against the moral corruption of much of the clergy at the time. Besides being a gifted artist and one of the most accomplished painters of the Italian Renaissance, Fra Bartolomeo was a very religious man and it was said that he spent as many hours praying as he did painting. As a teenager he worked in the workshop of Cosimo Rosselli, the Florentine painter. He was born in Savignano di Prato, a town in Tuscany in 1472. He would be later known as Fra Bartolomeo. Portrait of Girolamo Savonarola by Fra Bartolomeo (c.1498)īaccio della Porta was nicknamed as such due to his house being near the Porta (“Gate”) San Pier Gattolini.
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