Girolamo Savonarola, 1452-1498

On May 23 this year, 450 years will have passed since the martyrdom at Florence, Italy, of Girolamo Savonarola, last of the great medieval friars and last of the so-called forerunners of the Reformation. Columbus had discovered America six years before. Martin Luther, 15 years old, was attending the school of the Brethren of the Common Life at Magdeburg when Savonarola died. Thirty years later Luther published Savonarola\u27s exposition of Psalm 51-an exposition written while he was awaiting execution - as an example of evangelical doctrine and Christian piety. To understand the background of the martyrdom of the Monk of Florence means to understand why a reformation of the Church was necessary. In the Church-directed death of this man we see the culmination, as it were, of all the evils that had gradually developed and taken root in medieval Christendom