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gregational home missionary in California;1864; was pastor at Framingham, mass., 1867-69; at Hannibal, Mo., 1869-7 3; Unitarian pastor in Chicago, 1873-74; of the Church of the Unity, Boston, 18741896; and of the Church of the Messiah, New York, 1896-1906, when he retired from the ministry on account of the failure of his health. He is the author of Christianity the Science of Manhood (Boston, 1873); The Religion of Evolution (1876); Light on the Cloud (1876); Blufton, a Story of To-Day (1878); Life Questions (1879); The Morals of Evolution (1880); Talks about Jesus (1880); Minister's Handbook (1880); Belief in God (1881); Beliefs about Man (1882); Poems (1882 and 1905); Beliefs about the Bible (1883); The Modern Sphinx (1883); Sacred Songs for Public Worship, edited with H. M. Dow (1883); Man, Woman, and Child (1884); The Religious Life (1886); Social Problems (1886); My Creed (1887); Life (1890); Four Great Questions Concerning God (1891); The Irrepressible Conflict between Two World Theories (1891); The Evolution of Christianity (1892); Jesus and Modern Life (1893); Life beyond Death. (New York, 1901); and Life's Dark Problems (1905).

(HIERONYMUS).

Life till 1491 (§ 1). His Preaching (§ 2). His Prophecies (§ 3). As a Reformer of the Church (§ 4). Lorenzo de Medici; Charles VII. (§ 5). The Florentine Theocracy (§ 6). Relations with Alexander VI. (§ 7). Turn of Sentiment against Savonarola (§ 8). The End (§ 9). His Character and work (§ 10).

Girolamo (or Hieronymus) Savonarola, Italian

Roman Catholic, origniator and victim of an eccle

siastical-political reform, was born at Ferrara Sept.

21, 1452; d. at Florence May 23, 1498. He has

been variously represented as an inspired prophet,

as a precursor of the Reformation, and as an ambi

tious demagogue and deluded fanatic. His right

place is among the fearless preachers of

r. Life till righteousness and moral reform at the

1491. side of Nathan, Elijah, John the Bap

tist, and John Knox. Destined by his

parents for the study of medicine, he was led to seek

a religious life in the seclusion of the convent through

a deepening sense of the corruption of society and the

refusal of a family of the Strozzi living in Ferrara

to give him their daughter in marriage. In 1475 he

secretly left the parental home and betook himself

to Bologna, where he entered the Dominican con

vent. His subsequent letters to his parents were

full of filial affection and begged forgiveness for the

suddenness of his flight and his failure to make

known his intention. To the usual routine of con

ventual life, he added the study of Augustine and

the great Dominican, Thomas Aquinas, and also

of the Bible, with which he became thoroughly

conversant. In 1481 he was sent to Ferrara, where

he discovered that a prophet may not expect honor

in his own country. The same year he went to

Florence and became an inmate of the convent of

St. Mark's. His preaching attracted no attention

in Florence, and his audiences during Lenten season

in San Lorenzo were reduced to twenty-five persons. Suddenly in 1486, while preaching in Brescia, his eloquence broke forth in all its wealth. In 1489 he returned to the convent in Florence, Lorenzo de Medici, at the representation of Pico dells Mirandola, urging his return. In 1491 he became prior of St. Mark's.

During the next nine years Florence was filled with Savona,rola's personality, and he became the most conspicuous religious figure in Italy. During the first part of this period, he had conflicts with

Lorenzo de Medici, the political despot s. His of the city, and during the second part Preaching. with Alexander VI., all the while seeking by his exhortations and startling prophecies to bring about the civic and moral regeneration of the city. He preached first in St. Mark's and then in the cathedral, immense audiences pressing to hear him expound the Hebrew prophets and the Book of Revelation. At the time of his greatest popularity throngs waited hours for his appearance and his biographer Villari estimates his audiences at from 10,000 to 12,000. "Your sins make me a prophet," he cried out, and from the depths of that stirring, brilliant half-pagan life which the Medicis had fostered in Florence he conjured up a stinging sense of its emptiness and desolation. His message was addressed to the clergy as well as to the people, and the flashes of his indignation often fell upon the palace of Lorenzo. In the last sermon he preached during Advent season, 1492, he portrayed a vision he had had the night before of a sword held by a hand in the heavens and bearing the inscription "Behold the sword of the Lord will descend quickly and suddenly upon the earth." He heard many voices proclaiming mercy for the good and judgment for the wicked. Then suddenly the sword was turned toward the earth, the sky was darkened, and swords, arrows, and flames rained down. The preacher was commanded to preach these things. This was one of those visions the description of which from the pulpit of the cathedral impressed and terrified the great audiences. The severity of his warnings upon the pleasurelovng city was at times so fearful that SavonaroLa himself shrank back from delivering them.

To his gifts of vivid description, pure language, and fervor of heart he added as a chief element of his power unshaken confidence in his divinely appointed mission. He felt that he received communi-

cations directly from God, and he g. His stood forth as a divinely commissioned Prophecies. prophet. His prophecies of future

events were the amazement of Florence, though not all joined in accepting the preacher as an inspired seer. He, however, applied to these prophecies the words of Scripture that not one jot or tittle of them should fail till they were fulfilled. These prophecies were usually given to him in visions or transports of the soul. His views on prophecy in general and on his own prophetic endowment found utterance from the pulpit and also in two works, Compendium revelationum (1495) and Dialogusdeverwtateetprophetica(1497). Savonarola's most famous prophecy was of the coming of a new Cyrus from across the Alps who should bring about