GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA, Heart Aflame, by Douglas McComas and Douglas Bond, my friend, mentor, and member of INKBLOTS! This is my first book, and it has been a privilege to have Doug Bond showing me the ropes. The book is a short biography (one in a series published by Evangelical Press (EP) in the UK, with Michael Haykin in the role of series editor - the same series as Bond's biography of Augustus Toplady). It is scheduled for a March, 2014 release with EP in the UK.
We found Savonarola's life fascinating. Luther considered him one of the Pre-Reformers God raised up in the 15th-century (with some theological mud still adhering to the holy man's feet, as Luther put it) to prepare the way for men like Luther and Calvin in the Reformation.
As we read Savonarola, I appreciated the man's boldness in confronting the corruption of the Medici's of Florence and the Vatican. His faith was far from that which would soon become Protestant, but he was on the way and not afraid to challenge the hierarchy. A man who prayed, “O Lord! Arise, and come to deliver thy Church from the hands of devils, from the hands of tyrants, from the hands of iniquitous prelates,” was the aggressor needed for the time.
When imprisoned and fighting doubt, he questioned himself, “Do you have faith?" He answered, "Yes, I have it. Good: this is a great grace of God, for faith comes of his gift, not of your works, that no one may glory in them.”
Living in 15th-century Italy, Savonarola was familiar with many of the greats of the Renaissance.
Timeline of Girolamo Savonarola:
1452 Born in Ferrara, Italy (the same year as Leonardo da Vinci and Ghiberti, who was creating the bronze doors of the Florentine Baptistery)
1453 Fall of Constantinople to the Turks
1454 First editions of the Gutenberg Bible were available for purchase
1469 Birth of Niccolo Machiavelli
1470 Enters university in Bologna
1473 Birch of Copernicus
1475 Enters Dominican monastery in Bologna
1481 Fails as preacher in Florence
1482 Leaves the monastery for Lombardy
1483 Birth of Martin Luther
1490 Called to Florence by Lorenzo Medici
1491 Becomes Prior of San Marco
1492 Lorenzo dies; Piero Medici assumes power
1492 Columbus discovers America
1494 King Charles VIII of France invades Italy
1495 Republic re-established in Florence
1497 Bonfire of the Vanities
1498 Ordeal by fire and arrest (March)
1498 Imprisonment and torture (April)
1498 Hanged and burned (May)