The picture was not painted from life, but from an earlier portrait.

Fra Bartolommeo had some reason to know what Savonarola was like, for he was his personal friend and a brother in the same convent of S.Marco, a few yards from the Accademia, across the square.

He was born in 1475 and was apprenticed to the painter Cosimo Rosselli; but he learned more from studying Masaccio's frescoes at the Carmine and the work of Leonardo da Vinci.

It was in 1495 that he came under the influence of Savonarola, and he was the first artist to run home and burn his studies from the nude in response to the preacher's denunciations.

Three years later, when Savonarola was an object of hatred and the convent of S.Marco was besieged, the artist was with him, and he then made a vow that if he lived he would join the order; and this promise he kept, although not until Savonarola had been executed.