Girolamo Maria Francesco Matteo Savonarola (Ferrara, September 21, 1452 – Florence, May 23, 1498), an Italian cleric and politician, was hanged and burned at the stake as a “heretic, schismatic, and for preaching new things.” A member of the Dominican order, he had prophesied disaster for Florence and Italy brought by the paganism of Lorenzo de’ Medici, advocating a theocratic model for the Florentine Republic established after the expulsion of the Medici.
