On 21 September, 1452, Girolamo Savonarola was born in Ferrara, the third of seven children. His father came of Paduan stock, his mother, Elena dei Bonacossi, from a noble family of Mantua. The centenary has naturally given rise to renewed interest in the great Dominican whose character has always been so much debated, who has been so much admired and so much condemned by Catholics and Protestants alike.