Word: friar
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...best, and the worst, that can be said of the tempestuous friar is that he loved God so passionately that he had very little love left for man. Biographer Ridolfi-a Florentine descended from both Lorenzo de' Medici, an early antagonist of the Dominican, and Giovambat-tista Ridolfi, one of the priest's loyal supporters-is clearly an admirer of Savonarola. He feuds pompously with previous biographers, argues expertly and with almost contemporary urgency in defense of the contentious martyr. The reader may reflect that the excesses of body and spirit against which Savonarola thundered were the underside...
...Hailstorm. In 1482, after eight years of training, the young friar was appointed lecturer to the Dominican Convent of San Marco in Florence. The pulpit orator whose thundering was to keep a city in terror, and who seldom spoke to fewer than 15,000 people in his great years, wrote of his beginnings: "I had neither voice, vigour, nor talent for preaching; indeed, my sermons bored everyone...
...hero canonized. But sainthood is unlikely, say Vatican spokesmen, because the man Savonarola defied was a Pope, even though he was a Borgia. To the historian, perhaps the most fascinating question is what would have happened if the Roman Catholic Church had been reformed at the time the angry friar demanded it. When Savonarola died, Martin Luther was 14 years...
...play is at times literarily self-conscious and structurally too obvious in its symmetrical balance. Every idea has its complement: love vs. hate, day vs. night, patience vs. impetuosity, chastity vs. bawdry, and so on. Every character has its foil: Romeo and Mercutio, Juliet and Roasline, Benvolio and Tybalt, Friar Laurence and the Nurse. If it is not a supreme achievement, it is still a great play; and let us be thankful we have...
...supporting roles represent different attitudes towards love and marriage. Of these the best-drawn are Friar Laurence and the Nurse; but their portrayals, by Hiram Sherman and Aline MacMahon, fall short. Morris Carnovsky as Capulet and Nancy Wickwire as his Lady are both commendable; Capulet's denunciation of Juliet is particularly forceful...