Girolamo Savonarola was born on September 21, 1452, in Ferrara, and devoted from childhood to piety, solitude, and study. Distance from worldly pleasures caused him to quickly realize that beneath the splendor of the grand Renaissance lay the decay of a paganism striving to be reborn. He never once set foot in the Este Castle, where the nobility of his lineage could have easily granted him access, and where his rare and precocious knowledge could have earned him the most honorable positions.
