La storia di Girolamo Savonarola e de' suoi tempi, volume 1 (of 2)

The first volume offers a richly detailed portrait of Girolamo Savonarola’s origins, assembled from a cache of recently discovered archival material. It traces his family’s movement from Padua to Ferrara, the scholarly environment fostered by his physician grandfather, and the expectations that surrounded the third of seven children. Readers get a vivid sense of the Renaissance courts, the humanist education of the time, and the early signs of the temperament that would later drive him.

The narrative follows Savonarola’s first years in a Florentine convent, where his serious demeanor and love of books set him apart from his more boisterous siblings. Through letters to his mother Elena, the author reveals a deep familial bond that shaped his moral rigor and his early fascination with philosophy, natural science, and the works of Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle. While the book stops before his public preaching erupts, it lays the groundwork for the passionate reformer readers will soon encounter.