The controversial figure of the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola (1452–98) has attracted considerable scholarly attention in the English-speaking world since the publication in 1970 of Donald Weinstein's seminal book, Savonarola and Florence: prophecy and patriotism in the Renaissance. In 1994 Lorenzo Polizzotto's The elect nation: the Savonarolan movement in Florence, 1494–1545, pointed to the Dominican preacher's enduring political and religious influence during the half century that followed his burning at the stake in Florence. In more recent years several studies have uncovered Savonarolan currents in other parts of the Italian peninsula, and highlighted the impact of the friar's spiritual writings in other European regions, notably in Spain and in France. Stefano Dall'Aglio's Savonarola and Savonarolism, which was first published in Italian in 2005, is the first attempt to deal both with the figure of the Dominican prophet and reformer and with the efforts to spread his legacy in the late fifteenth century and throughout the sixteenth century. Dall'Aglio, an expert in Florentine history and the author of several books devoted to specific aspects of sixteenth-century Savonarolism, provides the readers of Savonarola and Savonarolism with a masterful survey of the Savonarolan movement in Florence during the friar's lifetime, as well as after his death. Dall'Aglio also delineates the reception of Savonarola's spiritual works across the Alps, especially by leading German, French and Swiss Protestant reformers. In the last two chapters of the book, Dall'Aglio elucidates the transformation of Savonarolan spirituality in the Italian peninsula after the Council of Trent. Savonarola and Savonarolism is an erudite book, which takes into consideration the numerous studies of Savonarola and his followers and includes a comprehensive, up-to-date, section of suggestions for further reading. At the outset of the book, Dall'Aglio defines Savonarolism as ‘the mass of political, religious, and cultural tensions tied to Savonarola’, and acknowledges the ‘purely political perspective’ of his treatment of the friar's influence (pp. 11–12). The explicit focus on Florentine political history in ten out of twelve chapters in the book somewhat elides the appeal that Fra Girolamo's spiritual and religious teaching had for many Italian Savonarolans – especially those who were active outside the region of Tuscany – in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Savonarolan sympathisers such as Ercole i d'Este, the duke of Ferrara who welcomed the Savonarolans exiled from Florence into his duchy, or Giovanfrancesco Pico, who wrote an early hagiography of Savonarola, evidently did not share the republican sentiments of their Florentine counterparts. In his discussion of Florentine devotees of Fra Girolamo, Dall'Aglio sometimes seems to portray those who did not embrace republican ideology ‘despite the friar's fierce opposition to Medici tyranny’ (p. 146) as second-rank Savonarolans. None the less Savonarola and Savonarolism, which has been skilfully translated from Italian, is an important contribution to Savonarola scholarship available in the English language. The book is a pleasure to read, and will be welcomed by scholars and non-specialist readers alike.