Obeying the magic of his eloquence and the magnetism of his personality, her citizens accepted this Dominican friar as their political leader and moral reformer, when events brought about the expulsion of the Medici in 1494.

Michelangelo was one of his constant listeners at S.Marco and in the Duomo.

He witnessed those stormy scenes of religious revival and passionate fanaticism which contemporaries have impressively described.

The shorthand-writer to whom we owe the text of Savonarola's sermons at times breaks off with words like these: "Here I was so overcome with weeping that I could not go on." Pico della Mirandola tells that the mere sound of the monk's voice, startling the stillness of the Duomo, thronged through all its space with people, was like a clap of doom; a cold shiver ran through the marrow of his bones the hairs of his head stood on end while he listened.

Another witness reports: "Those sermons caused such terror, alarm, sobbing, and tears, that every one passed through the streets without speaking, more dead than alive." One of the earliest extant letters of Michelangelo, written from Rome in 1497 to his brother Buonarroto, reveals a vivid interest in Savonarola.