Few authors have received greater honour for their works, or endured
severer calamities on account of them, than the famous Florentine preacher
Savonarola. Endowed with a marvellous eloquence, imbued with a spirit of
enthusiastic patriotism and intense devotion, he inveighed against the
vices of the age, the worldliness of the clergy, the selfish ease of the
wealthy while the poor were crying for bread in want and sickness. The
good citizens of Florence believed that he was an angel from heaven, that
he had miraculous powers, could speak with God and foretell the future;
and while the women of Florence cast their jewels and finery into the
flames of the "bonfire of vanities," the men, inspired by the preacher's
dreams of freedom, were preparing to throw off the yoke of the Medicis and
proclaim a grand Florentine Republic. The revolution was accomplished, and
for three years Savonarola was practically the ruler of the new state. His
works were: _Commentatiuncula de Mahumetanorum secta; Triumphus crucis,
sive de fidei Christianae veritate_ in four books (1497), de _Simplicitate
vitae Christianae_ in five books, and _Compendium Revelationis_ (1495),
and many volumes of his discourses, some of which are the rarest treasures
of incunabula.
[Footnote: At Venice in the library of Leo S. Olschki I have met
with some of these volumes, the rarest of which is entitled:--
PREDICHE DEL REVERENDO
PADRE FRATE HIERONYMO
_Da Ferrara facie lanno del_.
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