Word: savonarola
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...news of Derek Monsey's novel reaches the right ears, he will surely be barred for life from the Book-of-the-Month and P.E.N. clubs. His book is didactic, and his thesis-previously embraced by Savonarola, Bowdler and certain 17th century New England pastors, but expounded by no fiction writer within memory-is simple: among the higher primates, sex is nasty...
...course, an unmixed good." Its great artists-Michelangelo, Leonardo, Cellini-wrought wonders in a time of bloody political and family feuds such as history has seldom seen. Murders were committed at the very altar; homosexuality was a passion shared by artists and businessmen alike; the sins that Savonarola thundered against were as much a part of the city as its great sculpture and painting...
...mystical revelation reinforced Savonarola's conviction that the church must be reformed. The following year he began the first of his jeremiads on the iniquity of the church, and this time no one was bored. For five years, he developed his somber theme in preaching missions throughout northern Italy. In 1490 he was back in Florence, and the words rang out: "I am the hailstorm that shall break the heads of those who do not take shelter...
...Savonarola added withering philippics on the tyranny of Lorenzo the Magnificent to his repertory of complaints against the church. Sensation-hungry Florentines packed in to hear his denunciations, and when friends warned him not to anger the powerful Lorenzo, Savonarola replied grimly: "Though I am here a stranger and he the highest citizen, yet I shall remain and he shall depart." In 1492 Lorenzo was dead. Echoing in the ears of the impressed Florentines was the preacher's reiterated warning: "Ecce gladius Domini super terram, cito et velociter [Behold the sword of the Lord, swift and sure, over...
...ashes were "dispersed in the gentle winds of a Florentine May"; the city might have donned sackcloth to go with them, but instead, it quickly reverted to its old ways. Today, a simple plaque marks the place where Savonarola was burned; few tourists ever notice it in the pavement, are drawn instead to a spot only a short distance away, where an array of nude marble statues seem to look ironically down at the inconspicuous marker. Dominicans have made several attempts-the last only five years ago-to have their hero canonized. But sainthood is unlikely, say Vatican spokesmen, because...