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Savonarola, the Italian monk, was by no means a spectator; he was a fighter of the most strenuous type. Historians may differ in their accounts of his character and his work. But one thing is certain: few men have lived a life of such vigorous activity or one that was so filled with exciting incidents: few men have stood by their convictions with such courage and persistence or suffered more cruelly for their opinions. He spent the best part of his life fighting authority, upsetting public opinion, and defying his superiors. He was defeated in the end because those who were for the moment stronger than he killed him. But perhaps his death, as in other cases that may occur to you, was his greatest triumph. Men may kill the body of their victim, but they cannot kill the spirit he has roused by his influence and example. That lives on when all his persecutors are dead and forgotten.

Girolamo Savonarola was born in Ferrara, a town in Northern Italy, in the year 1452. He was the third of five brothers and he had two sisters. His grandfather was a physician and a man of learning, and his father was a courtier of no great importance. Girolamo was devoted to his mother, and he corresponded with her all through his eventful life. As a boy he seems to have been very serious and reserved—one of those boys whom other boys do not understand. He did not like playing with other children, but preferred going out for long rambles by himself. It was arranged by his family that he should be a doctor, like his grandfather; but as he grew up and began to think deeply about everything he saw around him, he became appalled at the cruelty and wickedness and frivolity of the society in which he lived, and his mind was filled with doubts and misgivings. Poets, players, fools, court flatterers, knights, pages, scholars, and fair ladies were entertained in the great red-brick castle of Ferrara, and below in the dark dungeons lay, confined and chained, prisoners who had incurred the Duke’s displeasure. It was in the precincts of this palace that young Girolamo gained his first experience of life.