Museo di San Marco

This guide to the Museo di San Marco in Florence centers on Girolamo Savonarola, the fiery Dominican prior who effectively ran the city for a few years after 1494, staging bonfires of the vanities against luxury and sin outside these walls. It traces his fall from Rome's excommunication in 1497 through a proposed trial by fire in April 1498 that collapsed before either man stepped forward. Look closely at the frescoed cell where he once slept, painted by Fra Angelico for quiet contemplation.