{"id":10119,"date":"2026-10-20T03:18:28","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T03:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finearttouch.com\/blog\/?p=10117"},"modified":"2026-10-20T03:18:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T03:18:28","slug":"the-dark-side-of-art-botticelli-lorenzo-and-savonarola-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finearttouch.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/20\/the-dark-side-of-art-botticelli-lorenzo-and-savonarola-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dark Side of Art: Botticelli, Lorenzo and Savonarola Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It was a time of turmoil, both political and religious, so Lorenzo provided elaborate entertainments for the masses. It has been suggested that such activities were perhaps intended to divert attention from Lorenzo’s own extravagant lifestyle. Pageants and festivals were a favorite Florentine custom, and Lorenzo wrote poems to be sung during the festivities extolling the pursuit of pleasure and encouraging female promiscuity. One such vocal performance penned by Lorenzo was delivered to the people in front of the cathedral during his pageant “The Triumph of Bacchus”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florence prospered economically under Lorenzo’s rule and his political machinations provided a peaceful interlude from war during his reign for most of the Italian city-states. It appears that Lorenzo was a benevolent tyrant, but there was still the issue of Savonarola with which to deal, a thorn in his side, no doubt, but in truth, one which hindered his lifestyle very little.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preaching fire and brimstone against the immorality of the people, the general corruption of the Catholic Church and wealthy aristocrats, Lorenzo de’ Medici in particular, Savonarola developed quite a following in Florence. His sermons played to packed audiences from the pulpit of San Marco itself, a Medici-sponsored church. Summoned to Rome in 1481 to work on three Sistine Chapel frescoes for Pope Sixtus IV, Botticelli returned to Florence in 1485 where he attended the sermons of Savonarola. Michelangelo read them as well through the new invention of mass publication with the printing press. Savonarola had a profound affect on both artists as evidenced in their art works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<< Previous 1 2 [3] 4 Next >> It was a time of turmoil, both political and religious, so Lorenzo provided elaborate entertainments for the masses. It has been suggested that such activities were perhaps intended to divert attention from Lorenzo’s own extravagant lifestyle. Pageants and festivals were a favorite Florentine custom, and Lorenzo wrote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-italian-renaissance-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finearttouch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finearttouch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finearttouch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finearttouch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finearttouch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/finearttouch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10221,"href":"https:\/\/finearttouch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10119\/revisions\/10221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finearttouch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finearttouch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finearttouch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}