
By the end of the fifteenth century, Florence was well established as the home of the Renaissance. As generous patrons to the likes of Botticelli & Michelangelo, the ruling Medici embodied the progressive humanist spirit of the age, & in Lorenzo the Magnificent they possessed a diplomat capable of guarding the militarily weak city in a climate of constantly shifting allegiances between the major Italian powers. However, in the form of Savonarola, an unprepossessing provincial monk, Lorenzo found his nemesis. Filled with Old Testament fury & prophecies of doom, Savonarola's sermons reverberated among a disenfranchised population, who preferred medieval Biblical certainties to the philosophical interrogations & intoxicating surface glitter of the Renaissance. Savonarola's aim was to establish a ' City of God' for his followers, a new kind of democratic state, the likes of which the world had never seen before. The battle which this provoked would be a fight to the death, a series of sensational events
- invasions, trials by fire, the ' Bonfire of the Vanities', terrible executions & mysterious deaths
- featuring a cast of the most important & charismatic Renaissance figures. This famous struggle has often been portrayed as a simple clash of wills between a benign ruler & religious fanatic, between secular pluralism & repressive extremism. However, in an exhilaratingly rich & deeply researched story, Paul Strathern reveals the paradoxes, self-doubts & political compromises which made the battle for the soul of the Renaissance city one of the most complex & important moments in Western history.