The other and most famous prior of S. Marco was Savonarola.  Girolamo Savonarola was born of noble family at Ferrara in 1452, and after a profound education, in which he concentrated chiefly upon religion and philosophy, he entered the Dominican order at the age of twenty-two.  He first came to S. Marco at the age of thirty and preached there in Lent in 1482, but without attracting much notice.  When, however, he returned to S. Marco seven years later it was to be instantly hailed both as a powerful preacher and reformer.  His eloquent and burning declarations were hurled both at Florence and Rome:  at the apathy and greed of the Church as a whole, and at the sinfulness and luxury of this city, while Lorenzo the Magnificent, who was then at the height of his influence, surrounded by accomplished and witty hedonists, and happiest when adding to his collection of pictures, jewels, and sculpture, in particular did the priest rebuke.  Savonarola stood for the spiritual ideals and asceticism of the Baptist, Christ, and S. Paul; Lorenzo, in his eyes, made only for sensuality and decadence.

The two men, however, recognized each other’s genius, and Lorenzo, with the tolerance which was as much a mark of the first three Medici rulers as its absence was notable in most of the later ones, rather encouraged Savonarola in his crusade than not.  He visited him in the monastery and did not resent being kept waiting; and he went to hear him preach.  In 1492 Lorenzo died, sending for Savonarola on his death-bed, which was watched by the two closest of his scholarly friends, Pico della Mirandola and Politian.  The story of what happened has been variously told.  According to the account of Politian, Lorenzo met his end with fortitude, and Savonarola prayed with the dying man and gave him his blessing; according to another account, Lorenzo was called upon by Savonarola to make three undertakings before he died, and, Lorenzo declining, Savonarola left him unabsolved.  These promises were (1) to repent of all his sins, and in particular of the sack of Volterra, of the alleged theft of public dowry funds and of the implacable punishment of the Pazzi conspirators; (2) to restore all property of which he had become possessed by unjust means; and (3) to give back to Florence her liberty.  But the probabilities are in favour of Politian’s account being the true one, and the later story a political invention.

Lorenzo dead and Piero his son so incapable, Savonarola came to his own.  He had long foreseen a revolution following on the death of Lorenzo, and in one of his most powerful sermons he had suggested that the “Flagellum Dei” to punish the wicked Florentines might be a foreign invader.  When therefore in 1493 the French king Charles VIII arrived in Italy with his army, Savonarola was recognized not only as a teacher but as a prophet; and when the Medici had been again banished and Charles, having asked too much, had retreated from Florence, the Republic was remodelled with Savonarola virtually controlling its Great Council.  For a year or two his power was supreme.