Donald Weinstein
Savonarola
As an historian I have always been interested in the problem of defining historical periods and understanding the transitions between them.
How, for example, did the Middle Ages, with its religious, world-denying culture, give way to the world-embracing, life-affirming culture known as the Renaissance?
This was the perspective from which I began to study Savonarola, seemingly a representative of the first of these worlds who was embraced and exalted in the second. Gradually I arrived at a new understanding of Fra Girolamo and his reception. In so doing I had to discard the conventional labels that distort him and also to reject the practice of freezing history into such hard and fast designations as “Middle Ages” and “Renaissance.”
I would also like to share two historical lessons I have learned: one, the inadequacy of historical labels such as “medieval” and “modern,” and the limitation of moral judgments—such as “saint,” “fanatic,” “charlatan,” and “demagogue”—in explaining the behavior and ideas of charismatic figures; two, the complex psychological, social, political and ideological reasons behind peoples’ belief in and rejection of their heroes and leaders.
Editor: Erind Pajo
Savonarola
Donald Weinstein Savonarola: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet Yale University Press 352 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 inches ISBN 978 0300111934
Available here →March 1, 2012
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Donald Weinstein
Donald Weinstein is Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of Arizona. Besides the biography of Girolamo Savonarola, featured in his Rorotoko interview, Weinstein is the author and editor of several books, a number of which have also been translated into French and Italian.
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Florentine humanism owed far more to medieval traditions than has been recognized, which is why Savonarola captivated the city.
Against KF · Indigenous North America is a 20,000-year record of invention whose architecture stands comparison with medieval Europe's. On: Moral evaluation of past actors belongs inside scholarly explanation of them
Against SM · International human rights became a mass moral cause only in the 1970s, because earlier idealisms had failed. On: Period labels pick out real historical units rather than artifacts of how history is written
Against AS · A social worker's finding of neglect is as factual as a doctor's reading of a blood-pressure number. On: Moral evaluation of past actors belongs inside scholarly explanation of them
Against DR · Between the mid-1970s and 2001 the words Americans used to grasp society broke into smaller pieces. On: Period labels pick out real historical units rather than artifacts of how history is written
Alongside LR · Iraq's antiquities were pillaged for structural reasons, and most of the people involved acted in good faith. On: Moral evaluation of past actors belongs inside scholarly explanation of them
Alongside LG · Consumer activism is one continuous American political tradition from the 1760s on, and it is not a progressive one. On: Period labels pick out real historical units rather than artifacts of how history is written
Alongside JS · The judgment of history is a fantasy, and history renders no verdict at all, only a record of contention. On: Moral evaluation of past actors belongs inside scholarly explanation of them
Alongside WE · Baroque and neobaroque are one continuing strategy, and its ideological value cannot be read off period or geography. On: Period labels pick out real historical units rather than artifacts of how history is written
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