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

by Martines, Lauro

• ISBN13: 9780195327106
• ISBN10: 0195327101
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780199884308
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-07-10
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

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 Girolamo 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 Savonarola, the preacher and agitator who flamed like a comet through late fifteenth-century Florence. The Dominican friar has longbeen 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. Here,Savonarola emerges as a complex and subtle man, both a religious and a civic leader--who 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 ownfiery 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.

Author Biography

Lauro Martines is Professor Emeritus of European History at the University of California, Los Angeles. A renowned scholar of Renaissance Italy, he now writes regularly for The Times Literary Supplement. The author of April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici, he lives in London with his wife, the novelist Julia O'Faolian. His novel of Renaissance Italy, Loredana, won the Sagittarius Prize for 2005.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. xi
List of Illustrations	p. xiii
An X-Ray of Florentine Government	p. xiv
Glossary of Terms	p. xvi
Chorus	p. 1
Vile Bodies: 1472-1490	p. 8
The Friar Returns: 1490-1491	p. 19
The Wait: 1492-1494	p. 29
Fear and Loathing: November 1494	p. 34
Holy Liberty	p. 58
Stamping out Tyranny: 1494-1495	p. 74
God and Politics	p. 85
Angels and Enforcers: 1496-1498	p. 111
The Pope and the Friar: 1495-1497	p. 121
The Savonarolan Moment	p. 140
Wailers and Bigots	p. 156
Excommunication: May-June 1497	p. 166
Five Executions: August 1497	p. 175
Rome Closes In	p. 201
Foiled Fire	p. 219
The Siege of San Marco: April 1498	p. 231
Confessions of a Sinner	p. 244
Fire Again: Three Executions: May 1498	p. 265
The Conscience of a City	p. 282
Notes	p. 299
Bibliography	p. 313
Index	p. 322
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