AN ADULT EDUCATION LECTURE BY DR. WILLIAM J. NEIDINGER. Many extol Lorenzo de’ Medici as the consummate Renaissance man and condemn Girolamo Savonarola as a freakish throwback to the worst of the Middle Ages. Yet the two Florentines were contemporaries – and enemies. And despite our love affair with Lorenzo, a good case can be made that Savonarola had a greater impact on art, politics, and history in the Renaissance.