The Gothic interior of Florence Cathedral is vast and gives an empty impression. The relative bareness of the church corresponds with the austerity of religious life, as preached by Girolamo Savonarola. In the unfinished treatise he left behind, later called “De contemptu mundi," or “On Contempt for the World," he calls upon readers to fly from this world of adultery, sodomy, murder and envy. Savonarola and two of his supporting friars were imprisoned. On 23 May 1498, Church and civil authorities condemned, hanged, and burned the three friars in the main square of Florence. Ishmaelite Prophetic descendant Imam Jafar As-Sadiq(as) interprets Quran 26:89 to mean that the only thing that will benefit in the next life is a clean heart which is not corrupted by love of the world. Most of his biographers reject or ignore the account of his younger brother and follower, Maurelio (later fra Mauro), that in his youth Girolamo had been spurned by a neighbour, Laudomia Strozzi, to whom he proposed marriage.
A spiritual Ishmaelite 