Saints and Heroes to the End of the Middle Ages

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... SAVONAROLA 1452-1498 The monastery of San Marco in Florence faces a quiet square, and is adorned with the paintings of Fra Angelico. There is the picture of the two disciples who invite the Lord to come and be their guest, and the picture of the brother with his finger on his lips in symbol of silence. In every cell is painted a Madonna, or a crucifix, or the figure of an angel, to help the prayers of the friars of St. Dominic. In one cell, somewhat apart from the others, meant for the prior, are treasured a desk at which Savonarola wrote and a chair in which he sat, and a portrait of him hangs upon the wall. Savonarola had intended to be a doctor, like his grandfather; though even as a lad he was interested in theology, and looked SAVONAROLA From the picture by Fra Bartolomipeo, San Marco, Florence out upon the world with serious eyes. At the age of nineteen, he was deeply in love with a girl whose parents would not allow her to marry him. His family, they said, was not so good as hers. This made him more serious still. He had never cared for the pleasures of society; now he hated them. He wrote an essay about this time, entitled, " Contempt of the World." It was a bad world; that was plain even to a young man of nineteen. What Hus saw in the streets of Prague, Savonarola saw in the streets of Ferrara. There were pride and oppression, vice and drunkenness, men fighting with sharp swords and women looking on applauding, and no peace or order. Savonarola separated himself from it. He entered a monastery and became a Dominican. Presently he was sent to live in Florence with the brothers of San Marco. The ruler of Florence was Lorenzo, called "the Magnificent." Under his government all bad things were growing in the city like weeds on a...