Michele Savonarola (1385 - c.1466) was an Italian physician, humanist, and historian. He was professor of practical medicine at Padua before in 1440 becoming court physician to the House of Este at Ferrara. [1] His grandson was the Dominican Order friar and preacher Girolamo Savonarola.
Savonarola came from a noble family and served as a soldier before studying medicine. In 1434, he became a professor of medicine in Padua and, from 1440, he was the personal physician to Niccolò III d'Este in Ferrara, where he also held a professorship.
Savonarola was the author of a widely circulated medical textbook, PracticaMaior, first printed in 1479, as well as an early textbook on gynaecology and pediatrics. Savonarola's treatise on gynecology was the basis for Eucharius Rösslin's German-language midwifery textbook, Der Rosengarten (The Rose Garden, Strasbourg, Haguenau, 1513). Savonarola was influenced by the Neapolitan physician Francesco da Piedimonte, who died in 1320. A proto-chemist, he opposed alchemists' gold-making practices, studied pharmacy and botany. He had two sons, Giovanni and Niccolò. The latter was the father of Girolamo Savonarola.
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