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Michael Dirda
In recent years, Savonarola has sometimes been caricatured as a political and moral terrorist, but Martines refuses to accept this reductionist caricature. The friar certainly worked hard for the moral cleansing of a society that sorely needed it, and he seems to have been honorable, devout and sincere. As Martines reminds us, an old Medici watchword goes " omne nefas victis, victoribus omnia sancta " -- "All crimes to the losers, to the winners all things pure." In the end, while Savonarola may have burned "vanities," the city fathers of Florence, with the approbation of a dissolute and cynical pope, burned the man himself. There's fanaticism, and then there's fanaticism.— The Washington Post
Overview
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 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 Girolamo Savonarola, the preacher and agitator who flamed like a ...