From Savonarola to Today
Fintan Steele, a former priest with a Ph.D. in biology and genetics, in his opinion piece published Dec. 24, 2025, in The Denver Post, reminds readers of the late 15th-century Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola. Savonarola, under the misguided protection of the powerful Florentine leader Lorenzo de’ Medici, worked to undermine nearly everything the Renaissance had achieved.
He fulminated from the pulpit in Florence against what he viewed as creeping scientific secularism and human achievement, inspiring a growing number of followers to help him destroy not only “vain” ideas and institutions of learning but also their physical manifestations. His first “bonfire of the vanities,” on Feb. 7, 1497, destroyed art, books, clothing, early scientific instruments and other items. In short, it targeted any human-made object that Savonarola and his zealous followers believed undercut their vision of how society should be ordered.
Does this historical episode from the Renaissance sound familiar?
Do we now have an individual, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who, supported by powerful political benefactors reminiscent of Lorenzo de’ Medici, engages in contemptuous actions that please his most ardent supporters while securing his position within the federal government?
Like Savonarola, Kennedy is neither a physician, a public health expert nor a medical scientist or researcher. Yet, as noted by Halpert in an August 2025 BBC News report, Kennedy was rebuked by more than 750 current and former employees of the U.S. Department of Health in a letter criticizing his dangerous and misleading statements. The letter stated that his “politicalized rhetoric” fuels mistrust in institutions, endangers public health and undermines the nation’s ability to respond to public emergencies. His “Make America Healthy Again” movement has further disrupted the nation’s health care and scientific infrastructure.
Six former surgeons general, writing in an October opinion essay in The Washington Post, asserted that Kennedy “presided over the decline in America’s public health.” They cited actions including the dismissal of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, the removal of CDC Director Susan Monarez, Ph.D., and inconsistent messaging on measles vaccines that complicated efforts to contain a severe outbreak. They also criticized his promotion of unsubstantiated claims linking autism to Tylenol and circumcision, assertions that autistic children will never pay taxes, and other remarks they described as degrading and unsupported by evidence.
Additional allegations documented by Rafi Schwartz and Brigid Kennedy in The Week magazine on Dec. 12, 2025, include Kennedy’s promotion of the scientifically discredited claim that vaccines cause autism; false assertions that HIV originated from a vaccine program; his decision to stop recommending COVID-19 vaccinations for pregnant women and healthy children; disruption of established vaccination schedules; suggestions that COVID-19 was engineered to spare Jewish and Chinese populations; involvement in the cancellation of $700 million in funding for avian flu vaccine development; claims linking endocrine disruptors to increases in LGBTQ+ youth; and efforts to associate school shootings with antidepressant use.
Further concerns include his remarks about Black people’s immune systems, dismissal of risks associated with raw milk consumption, opposition to fluoride in drinking water, reliance on nonexistent or unpublished studies, participation in the termination of significant research grants and involvement in the dismissal of thousands of department employees. Many of these actions occurred over a relatively short period but are likely to have long-term consequences.
History, however, has a way of repeating itself. Savonarola, within a year of his rise and the fervor of his followers, saw those same supporters turn against him as conditions worsened rather than improved. Both the man and his movement were ultimately consigned to the trash bin of history.
A Marginal Note From Leonardo
I could not help but overhear Dr. Bartecchi speaking of my old contemporary, Girolamo. Ah, Savonarola. We entered the world in the same year, yet could scarcely have traveled farther apart. He saw fire as a cure for human weakness. I saw light as its remedy. He made bonfires. I made notebooks.
Florence once mistook shouting for wisdom and fear for virtue. Paintings burned, books vanished, and joy was treated as a moral crime. Curiously, the city survived him, not his ideas.
If Pueblo wishes instruction from our ancient quarrel, let it be this: when men begin smashing mirrors, they are usually afraid of what reflection might reveal.
I hear that two houses bearing my name now stand, or have fallen, across this continent. In Allentown, Pennsylvania, curiosity has been fed for more than thirty years and still grows stronger with age, like a well-used sketchbook. In Lehi, Utah, the doors have closed, proving that even wonder starves when left unattended.
Molly Cotner and Gregory Howell will visit both places, listening not only to success, but to silence. This is wise. Before one builds temples to ideas, one must first learn how they breathe, where they stumble, and why some are abandoned altogether.
As for Pueblo, standing beside its river, I would advise only this: do not fear imagination, do not chain inquiry, and never invite Savonarola to curate the gift shop.
Follow Molly Cotner and Gregory Howell as they continue In Search of Da Vinci, an ongoing reporting series exploring what it takes to build a living museum of curiosity in Pueblo. Leonardo da Vinci is appearing courtesy of history, curiosity, and imagination.
