As a young man, Michelangelo was greatly impressed by the sermons of Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican monk from the monastery of San Marco in Florence. Under these sermons' influence, a powerful conflict arose in him between passion and joy of creation and humility and asceticism. Savonarola criticized everything that draws man away from God, including art. He extinguished the Renaissance joy of the young artist and introduced an atmosphere of condemnation.
Michelangelo left Florence four years before the Savonarola's execution and later burning of the preacher in the city's main square. Still, the doubts the friar had instilled in him remained with him until the end of his life. He expressed them when he painted the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.
