Mortar from Wall of Savonorola’s Cell – Florence

Mortar Fragment from Girolomo Savonarola’s Cell in San Marco, Florence, Italy

Mortar Fragment from Girolomo Savonarolla’s cell in the Monastery of San Marco
Florence, Italy
Acquired February 8th, 1887
BM# 1948.64.102

Container 102 holds a fragment of mortar from the Monastery of San Marco in the cell of Girolamo Savonorola. The fragment was collected as part of an unrecorded trip through Venice, Florence, Rome, and Pompeii in 1887 by Charles McCormick Reeve. The composition of the mortar is a mixture of water, soil, and lime, and it was used in medieval buildings for holding together large blocks of masonry (Graymont n.d., para. 1-4).

San Marco Church, Florence by Scott Oldham, Liscensed under CC BY-SA 2.o

The Monastery of San Marco was originally a small building in the Piazza San Marco renovated by an order of Silvestrian monks into a monastery, with the addition of a modest church; the Silvestrians inhabited the building for over a century, but after their morals deteriorated and complaints were lodged, the then-dilapidated building was granted to a more worthy brethren. The Dominicans, monks devoted to Christian scholarship and encouragement of Christian art and literature, were favored by Cosimo De Medici, and they were granted the monastery. Cosimo then commissioned an expansion and renovation of the building by Michelozzo in 1437, and the new library became the first public library in Florence (Godkin 1887, 16-18; “San Marco Museum” n.d., para. 1). Artist Fra’ Angelico decorated the walls of the monastery, and it now houses the largest collection of his art in the world (“Convent of San Marco” n.d., para 1).

Cloister of the Monastery of San Marco (Province of Saint Joseph CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The monastery was also home to Dominican monk Girolamo Savonorola. Savonorola dominated Florentine society from AD 1494-1498, reshaping its political landscape and moral philosophy and opposing the powerful Medici family (Martines 2006, 19). He preached about the need for repentance, and divine grace, and thought art and worldliness encouraged unbelief. In the face of the Renaissance, and its connections to classical antiquity and paganism, he believed the apocalypse was drawing near, and Florence could become a New Jerusalem if purified of its sins (Weinstein 2011, 14-19). He advocated for the burning of “vanities” like sculptures, paintings, literature, and even perfume and exotic drapings (Weinstein 2011, 239). However, after his excommunication, the city eventually turned on him, and he was tortured into confessing his prophecies were lies, before he was hanged, and burned (Godkin 1887, 103-110). Now, a portrait, a procession banner, some of his items, and a marble monument erected in 1873 sit in the monastery within his former cells, located in the upstairs of the complex above the entrance (Williams & Dixon 2018, 279; Bekker 2020).

The Baker Museum