The Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), who hailed from Ferrara, rose to the position of Prior of San Marco in Florence, not least due to the protection of the Medici. Savonarola, a gifted speaker and preacher of penance, denounced the immorality and lack of faith of his time in numerous public appearances and proclaimed himself the tyrannical ruler of Florence after the expulsion of the Medici, until he was ultimately hanged and burned by an enraged mob. The portrayal by historian Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886) goes beyond a mere biography of Savonarola, placing his equally fascinating and repulsive personality at the center of a comprehensive depiction of the Florentine Republic in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era.