A plaque in Florence’s main square marks the site where Girolamo Savonarola was hanged and burned in 1498. His brutal death was not an aberration during a time of peaceful transformation: he was a victim of violence in violent times

In Lent of 1495, the Dominican Girolamo Savonarola travelled from Florence to Bologna to preach a series of sermons. Bologna was controlled by Giovanni Bentivoglio, who ruled like a tyrant prince although, in theory, he was a leading citizen. At 43, Savonarola was someone to reckon with: the moving spirit of a new anti-Medicean republicanism that aimed to purge Florence of corruption and widen the base of political participation.

The “little friar” from Ferrara had harnessed the power of the pulpit and the printing press to spread a message of apocalyptic renewal. He had refused to flatter the “Magnificent” Lorenzo de’ Medici; he had mobilised opposition to Lorenzo’s son and successor Piero, hastening the latter’s overthrow the previous year; and he was making himself intolerable to the genial but corrupt Pope Alexander VI.

An early biography tells us that the sermons were poorly attended at first. But Savonarola grew on the people of Bologna and especially its women – he was, rather dismissively, seen as a “women’s preacher” due to the simplicity of his arguments – and before long Bentivoglio’s consort Ginevra Sforza came to hear him. But she arrived late and with much fanfare, disturbing the friar mid-flow. A polite warning had no effect and so, when once again Ginevra made her grand entrance, Savonarola broke off and, “all fired up with zeal, began to exclaim in a loud voice: ‘Lo, the devil! Lo, the devil come to disrupt the word of the Lord!’”