Fire in the City: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Renaissance Florence

By Lauro Martines

Book Overview

A gripping and beautifully written narrative that reads like a novel, Fire in the City presents a compelling account of a key moment in the history of the Renaissance, illuminating the remarkable man who dominated the period, the charismatic Savonarola.
Lauro Martines, whose decades of scholarship have made him one of the most admired historians of Renaissance Italy, here provides a remarkably fresh perspective on Girolamo Savonarola, the preacher and agitator who flamed like a comet through late fifteenth-century Florence. The Dominican friar has long been portrayed as a dour, puritanical demagogue who urged his followers to burn their worldly goods in "the bonfire of the vanities." But as Martines shows, this is a caricature of the truth--the version propagated by the wealthy and powerful who feared the political reforms he represented. In fact, Savonarola emerges as a complex and subtle man: compassionate, wise, a poet and scholar, and even, at critical moments, a force for moderation. The friar, a mesmerizing preacher, set the city afire with his message of Christian charity wedded to republican ideals.
It is this reality--of Savonarola as both religious and civic leader--that Martines captures in all its complexity, showing how he inspired an outpouring of political debate in a city newly freed from the tyranny of the Medici. In the end, the volatile passions he unleashed--and the powerful families he threatened--sent the friar to his own fiery death. But the fusion of morality and politics that he represented would leave a lasting mark on Renaissance Florence.
For the many readers fascinated by histories of Renaissance Italy--such as Brunelleschi's Dome or Galileo's Daughter, and Martines's acclaimed April Blood--Fire in the City offers a vivid portrait of one of the most memorable characters from that dazzling era.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195177487
• ISBN13: 9780195177480
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 1.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.4" x 1.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Savonarola and Florence emerge into the light!

Fire in the City is another revealed hornet's nest from Martines that picks up the thread where his previous book April Blood left off. As the title suggests, this is not an exclusive biography on Savonarola, the author casts his net wider than that detailing, in a very readable fashion, the political and social settings that were bound in with Savonarola's actions. With Lorenzo's death, Florence is at the mercy of his vain and incompetent son, Piero de Medici, whose diplomatic bungling with the invading King of France, Charles the VIII, gets him run out of town by the citizens of Florence, creating political alternatives to Medici rule. Into this anxious period of uncertainty, the searing personality of the reforming Dominican Friar, Savonarola, is catapulted. Martines shows how Savonarola's political instinct was very much in line with the Christian ethos he espoused from the pulpit, preferring a broader based franchise through the Great Council, sustained by a Republic, instead of oligarchic rule by an elite. Salvation meant not just the deliverance by redemption from the power of sin, but also preservation from tyrannical harm. Yet Savonarola's motives were not as subversive or ego driven ('vainglorious') as his inquisitors and future Medici regimes led history to believe. Martines also shows how Savonarola's prophecies, another contentious quality to his personality used against him by his enemies in Rome and elsewhere, were not far off the mark. The sack of Rome by Christian mercenaries in 1527, twenty-nine years after Savonarola's execution, seemed to vindicate much of Savonarola's visionary utterances. Was that, indeed, the scourge against the Church he claimed Charles the VIII capable of a generation earlier? Emphasising the importance of this little Dominican Friar from Ferrara who was prepared to take on Pope Alexander VI over issues of simony and moral corruption, reminds us just how much of a precursor he was to Martin Luther. His insistence on a reformed Church was not merely rhetorical either, his own example proved otherwise. No doubt Savonarola was a force to behold with his lightning bolts of apocalyptic doom. He profoundly affected Michelangelo and Botticelli who heard him speak, but Martines has stained orthodox whitewash with the blood of historical realism, showing us that Savonarola was more vital and complex and his contribution more positive, than that of just a preaching terrorist who infuriated Rome and encouraged the `bonfire of the vanities'. After reading April Blood and Fire in the City, the enigma of Florence is much better understood. We patiently wait for his next publication, to read again where it will lead.

Another view

I had read enough about Savonarola to have a vague idea as to what he was about, but this book gave me a very different perspective. Savonarola was much more complicated, and less a mad man than I had thought. The destuction of the "vanities", which was the most lamentable of all his actions from our perspective, is better understood after reading this book. Obviously, the value of the destroyed art in Savanarola's context is quite different than it is in ours, and Mr Martines made the point very well. It is a great read, full of history, and I enjoyed it very much.

Florence Comes Alive

This is a must read for anyone planning a vacation to Florence, or for those wanting to experience the place and time without the expense, as Martines reaches far beyond the story of a single man and into Renassiance Florence. Readers will find this gripping and complex historical drama impossible to put down. "April Blood" (the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici) sets the stage for this great book, and Martines combines expert scholarship with dramatic narrative skill in both works.

A burning in Florence

This is an excellent, well-written book about Savonarola and the Medici era in Florence. It presents the Friar in a different light from the perception of him that I was taught in parochial school. Here we have a deeply religious reformer, who tried to change the government type of a city that had been under the thumb of the Medici family for many years. His sermons attracted huge crowds, but he also acquired many enemies, not only in Florence, but more importantly, in the Roman Curia. Eventually his enemies won out and he and two of his fellow monks were hanged and burned. This is definitely a sympathetic look at a man who, in some ways, foreshadowed Luther and his attempts at Church reform. It's a book well worth reading by everyone.

A Fabulous Historical Biography

I've been a Common Reader for over 40 years and have read literally hundreds of books including many histories and biographies. This is one of the best books I've ever read. Lauro Martines has created an artful, compelling, and illuminating biography of Savonarola that is strongly tied to the political and historical context of Florence, Italy at the close of the 14th century. By establishing the people, events, and issues of the time, Savonarola's life is made incredibly more interesting and compelling than a simple biography often portrays. If you simply think of Savonarola and the infamous bonfire of the vanities, you really need to read this book. Martines clearly demonstrates that this Catholic friar was not the intolerant moralist, but rather a defender of a much broader definition of democracy and a Church critic with more in common with Luther. This biography also illustrates the perils anyone may face when one combines a reformer's zeal with both religion and politics. If you like history and biography, read this book. It is worth anyone's time and effort.