The Piagnoni movement was only one symptom of the chronic neurosis and apocalyptic expectations which disturbed the Italian peninsula for decades after Savonarola was ashes. As in Spain, the mood affected high and low, powerful and destitute; female ‘living saints’ got a respectful hearing when they turned up to proclaim their message of imminent judgement in Italian princely courts. Through the sixteenth century and beyond, prophecies, accounts of monstrous births and wondrous signs became sure-fire money-spinners for the printing presses, as so often since in troubled times
