Editing Girolamo Savonarola (section)

== Aftermath ==
Resisting censorship and exile, the friars of San Marco fostered a cult of "the three martyrs" and venerated Savonarola as a saint. They encouraged women in local convents and surrounding towns to find mystical inspiration in his example,<ref>Lorenzo Polizzotto, "When Saints Fall Out: Women and the Savonarolan Reform Movement in Early Sixteenth Century Florence," Renaissance Quarterly 46 (1993) 486–525; Sharon T. Strocchia, "Savonarolan Witnesses: the Nuns of San Iacopo and the Piagnone Movement in Sixteenth-century Florence," The Sixteenth Century Journal 38 (2007), 393–418;  Tamar Herzig, Savonarola's Women: Visions and Reform in Renaissance Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2008); Strocchia,  Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance Florence (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.</ref> and, by preserving many of his sermons and writings, they helped keep his political as well as his religious ideas alive.<ref>Polizzotto, The Elect Nation, Chapters 5–8; Weinstein, Savonarola The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet, Chapter 25.</ref> 

The return of the [[House of Medici|Medici]] in 1512 ended the Savonarola-inspired republic and intensified pressure against the movement, although both were briefly revived in 1527 when the Medici were once again forced out.<ref>Cecil Roth, The Last Florentine Republic (London, 1925).</ref> In 1530, Medici [[Pope Clement VII]] (Giulio de' Medici), with the help of soldiers of the Holy Roman Emperor, restored Medici rule, and Florence became a hereditary dukedom. Savonarola's contemporary [[Niccolò Machiavelli]] discusses the friar in Chapter VI of his book ''[[The Prince]]'', writing:<ref>{{cite book | chapter = IV. Concerning New Principalities Which Are Acquired by One's Own Arms and Ability | title = The Prince | last = Machiavelli | via = One Tenth Blog|chapter-url=http://onetenthblog.wordpress.com/readings/machiavelli-the-prince-chapter-iv/|url-status=dead |archive-url= https://archive.today/20121130074358/http://onetenthblog.wordpress.com/readings/machiavelli-the-prince-chapter-iv/|archive-date=30 November 2012|access-date=22 August 2012}}</ref>{{Quote|If Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus had been unarmed they could not have enforced their constitutions for long—as happened in our time to Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was ruined with his new order of things immediately the multitude believed in him no longer, and he had no means of keeping steadfast those who believed or of making the unbelievers to believe.}}

[[File:SavonarolaPlaque crop gobeirne.jpg|thumb|A plaque commemorates the site of Savonarola's execution in the [[Piazza della Signoria]], [[Florence]].]]
Savonarolan religious ideas found a reception elsewhere. In Germany and Switzerland the early Protestant reformers, most notably Martin Luther himself, read some of the friar's writings and praised him as a martyr and forerunner whose ideas on faith and grace anticipated Luther's own doctrine of [[Sola fide|justification by faith alone]]. In France many of his works were translated and published and Savonarola came to be regarded as a precursor of evangelical, or [[Huguenot]] reform. In [[Wittenberg]], the hometown of Martin Luther, a statue of Girolamo Savonarola was erected to honour him.<ref name="Dehsen2013">{{cite book |last1=Dehsen |first1=Christian von |title=Philosophers and Religious Leaders |date=2013 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn= 978-1-135-95102-3 |page=169 |quote=Martin Luther, the German reformer, may have been influenced by Savonarola's teachings on the doctrine of justification, his emphasis on individual faith, and compassion for the poor. A statue of the Italian was erected in Luther's hometown of Wittenberg.}}</ref>

[[Carafa]] [[Pope Paul IV]] in 1558 declared that Savonarola was not a heretic.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Allen |first1=John |title=Jesuits and Dominicans square off anew over Savonarola |url=https://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/1999a/012299/012299g.htm |website=natcath.org}}</ref> Savonarola had remained a believer in the dogmas of the Catholic church and even in his last major work had defended the institution of the papacy.<ref>Weinstein, Savonarola Rise and Fall, 360, note 26, drawing on works in German (Nolte) and Italian (Simoncelli and Dall' Aglio).</ref>  Within the Dominican Order Savonarola was seen as a devotional figure ("the evolving image of a Counter-Reformation saintly prelate"<ref>Lorenzo Polizzotto, The Elect Nation p. 443.</ref>), and in this benevolent guise his memory lived on. [[Philip Neri]], founder of the [[Oratory of Saint Philip Neri|Oratorians]], a Florentine who had been educated by the San Marco Dominicans, also defended Savonarola's memory.

=== 18th century Spanish defense ===
In the early 18th century, Savonarola’s reputation was defended in Spain by the Dominican friar [[Manuel Joseph de Medrano]], ''Predicador'' General and ''Choronista'' of the Dominican Order. Medrano authored the ''Vida de la admirable Virgen Santa Inés de Monte Policiano'', which included a [[Theology|theological]] defense of Savonarola's sanctity and prophetic mission. His writings were praised and analyzed in ''Tertulia histórica y apologética'' (Zaragoza, c. 1730) by the jurist Doctor Jayme Ardanaz y Centellas.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |title=Tertulia historica y apologetica, o examen critico, donde se averigua en el chrisòl de monumentos antiguos, y escritores de mayor autoridad, lo que contra ... pp. 14-53. |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ucm.5327253596&seq=1&q1=Medrano |access-date=2025-05-08 |website=HathiTrust |language=en}}</ref> In this work, Medrano's scholarship, moderation, and courteous style were highlighted, and his arguments against the criticisms of Savonarola by the renowned Benedictine scholar [[Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro|Benito Jerónimo Feijóo]] were carefully examined in a scholarly dialogue. This Spanish Dominican contribution reflects the continued cross-European reassessment of Savonarola’s moral and prophetic role well before the modern period.<ref name=":4" />

=== 19th century ===
In the mid-nineteenth century, the "New Piagnoni" found inspiration in the friar's writings and sermons for the Italian national awakening known as the [[Risorgimento]]. By emphasising his political activism over his puritanism and cultural conservatism they restored Savonarola's voice for radical political change. The venerable pre-Reformation icon ceded to the fiery Renaissance reformer. This somewhat anachronistic image, fortified by much new scholarship, informed the major new biography by [[Pasquale Villari]], who regarded Savonarola's preaching against Medici despotism as the model for the Italian struggle for liberty and national unification.<ref>Pasquale Villari, ''The Life and Times of Girolamo Savonarola'' trans. by Linda Villari 2 vols (New York, 1890).</ref> In Germany, the Catholic theologian and church historian [[Joseph Schnitzer]] edited and published contemporary sources which illuminated Savonarola's career. In 1924 he crowned his vast research with a comprehensive study of Savonarola's life and times in which he presented the friar as the last best hope of the Catholic Church before the catastrophe of the Protestant Reformation.<ref>Joseph Schnitzer, ''Savonarola Ein Kulturbild aus der Zeit der Renaissance'' 2 vols (Munich, 1924); Italian translation ''Savonarola'' trans. Ernesto Rutili 2 vols (Milan, 1931). No English translation.</ref> In the [[Italian People's Party (1919)|Italian People's Party]] founded by Don [[Luigi Sturzo]] in 1919, Savonarola was revered as a champion of social justice, and after 1945 he was held up as a model of reformed Catholicism by leaders of the [[Christian Democracy (Italy)|Christian Democratic Party]]. From this milieu, in 1952 came the third of the major Savonarola biographies, the ''Vita di Girolamo Savonarola'' by Roberto Ridolfi.<ref>Roberto Ridolfi, ''Vita di Girolamo Savonarola'' 6th ed. with additional notes by Armando F. Verde O.P. (Florence, 1981.)</ref> For the next half century Ridolfi was the guardian of the friar's saintly memory as well as the dean of Savonarola research which he helped grow into a scholarly industry. Today, most of Savonarola's treatises and sermons and many of the contemporary sources (chronicles, diaries, government documents, and literary works) are available in critical editions. 

The present-day Church has considered his [[beatification]].<ref>Innocenzo Venchi, O.P. "Iniziative dell'Ordine Domenicano per promuovere la causa di beatificazione del Ven. fra Girolamo Savonarola O.P.," ''Studi Savonaroliani Verso il V centenario'' ed. Gian Carlo Garfagnini (Florence, 1996) pp. 93–97</ref>

The Polish National Catholic Church, a reform movement in Catholicism, named its Theological Seminary after Savonarola.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.savonarola.net |title= Savonarola Theological Seminary of the Polish National Catholic Church|publisher= Polish National Catholic Church |access-date= 6 April 2025}}</ref>