Savonarola was alone in knowing how to comfort citizens with his sermons and in urging the King to get out of Florence. He foretold a universal 'scourging', but made pleas, above all, for the renewal of Christianity and for the political voice of the people. This work presents the story of his impact on Florence and of the city's spell over him.

In April 1478, a plot to murder the two heads of the powerful Medici family miscarried dramatically in the cathedral of Florence. A bloodbath followed in reprisal. All Italy was affected as it emerged that the Pope, the King of Naples and the Duke of Urbino were deeply implicated in the plot.

In the 1490s, with Florence at the height of its Renaissance glories, the most remarkable man in the city, called Savonarola, was a charismatic preacher and the talk of all Italy. Many young men from leading Florentine families joined him as friars. This is the story of the Friar's impact on Florentines and of their grip on him.

In 1700, a Venetian priest, Fra Benedict Loredan, compiles an assembly of documents - letters, written confessions, top-secret state files, diary excerpts, pieces of a secret chronicle - which together tell the story of two lovers caught up in a dangerous and controversial revolutionary movement.

This study rethinks the evolution of the city-state in Renaissance Italy, recasting the conventional distinction between society and culture . It traces the growth of commerce and the governments as well as exploring the period's towering works in literature, painting and philosophy.