By Desmond Seward

From the Preface: “In the priory of San Marco at Florence there is a painting by an unknown artist of an execution ni the city's Piazza della Signoria. Dating from about 1500, scarcely more than folk art, the painting has a disturbing quality that for me verges on the sinister reminiscent of the irrational fear felt when reading ghost stories. Clearly the work of an eyewitness, it tells a tale ni three parts. First, three figures in long white shirts kneel before a group of dignitaries; next, each figure flanked by men in black hoods, they are led down a timber platform to a gibbet in the middle ot the Piazza; finally, they hang in chains over a great fire - the executioners are bringing faggots to make the flames burn higher. Some of the spectators in the scene look on with fascination, others run away in dismay. Such a death in so beautiful a setting seems peculiarly cruel and unnatural; but it was this painting, supplizio del Savonarola, that made me want to know more.”

London. Sutton Publishing. 2006. 332p.

By Karen A. Winstead

From Amazon: Stories of the torture and execution of beautiful Christian women first appeared in late antiquity and proliferated during the early Middle Ages. A thousand years later, virgin martyrs were still the most popular female saints. Their legends, in countless retellings through the centuries, preserved a standard plot―the heroine resists a pagan suitor, endures cruelties inflicted by her rejected lover or outraged family, works miracles, and dies for Christ. That sequence was embellished by incidents emblematic of the specific saint: Juliana's battle with the devil, Barbara's immurement in the tower, Katherine's encounter with spiked wheels. Karen A. Winstead examines this seemingly static story form and discovers subtle shifts in the representation of the virgin martyrs, as their legends were adapted for changing audiences in late medieval England.

Ithaca. Cornell University Press. 1997. 209p.

By Willam Clarke

From The Preface: The life and character of Savonarola Haw have been rightly supposed to present great difficulties in the historian.. From the day of his death – nay, morefrom the day of his power in Florence— up to our own times, opinions of the most diverse kind have been entertained…. The supporters of despotism, ecclesiastical and civil, have cherished a feeling of bitter enmity against the man who had such an ardent love of liberty; and they have joined the prophets of scepticism, who have had nothing but contempt and hatred for one who was so powerful a witness for religion and God. ..According to the sceptic style, he was a ridiculous and base imposter, who richly deserved the fate that befell him …

Chicago. A. C. MCCLURG & Co. I900. 342p.

By S. Chandler.

From the Preface by Charles Atmore.: This work comprises everything of importance connected with the dreadful persecutions which have disgraced human nature, both in ancient and modern times, both at home and abroad ; and is designed to prove that the things for which Christians have persecuted one another have generally been of small importance; that pride, ambition, and covetousness, have been the grand sourses of persecution; and that the religion of Jesus Christ absolutely condemns all persecution for conscience sake…..While this work was in the press, one of the most important events to Religious Liberty occurred, which has taken place the glorious area of The Revolution, in 1688 viz. the repeal of the Persecuting laws, and the passing of the New Toleration Act. This event is so closely connected with the subject matter of work, and reflects so much honour on the British government and nation that I feel highly gratified in affording the reader, a detail of the various steps which were taken to obtain that Act : which www effectually secures to every subject of the British Em.Empire all the Religious Liberty he can expect or desire. I willingly record this memorial, that we, and our children after us, may know how to appreciate our invaluable privileges ; and that the names of those nobleman and others who boldly stood forth in fthedefence and support of Religious Toleration, might be handed down to posterity, that “ our children may tell their children, and their children another generation.”

London. Longman Hirst et al. 1813.514p.

By Mandell Creighton

From the introduction: ‘The existence of persecution in the Christian Church is a fact which is more frequently commented on than explained. Greater attention has been paid to the methods and extent of persecution than to the causes which produced it, or the causes which brought it to an end. It is indeed dificult to approach the subject in an impartial spirit. Those who write the history of any period of persecution tend either to exag- gerate or to apologise. On the one side, there is a desire to represent persecution as especially inherent in all religious systems, or it may be, as especially inherent in Christianity. On the other side, there is a tendency to plead the generally beneficent action of a particular form of religious organisation in relation to the world's progress as an extenuation of its particular misdoings. The history of persecution is a large subject…”

London. Longmans Green. 1906. 152p. Read-Me.Org classic reprint.

By Thielman J. von Braght. Introduction by Graeme R. Newman

From the introduction: It is difficult to go one better than Foxe’s Book of Martyrs of the 17th century that contains endless illustrations of the dreadful tortures and deaths inflicted on the Christian martyrs. The book was so popular that it went through at least three editions in Foxe’s lifetime. Since then, various authors have reproduced aspects of Foxe’s classic, interspersed with some new prints and illustrations,  This book, compiled by Mennonites for Mennonites,  is one such book. The descriptions of the martyrs and their lives and deaths do become tiresome to the secular reader, and the lessons their editors presume to convey – those of the moral superiority, chastity and devotion to their faith – focus on the tenets of Christianity of course, but fail to make any attempt at under­standing the details, procedures, and choices of the tortures and horrible deaths inflicted upon the martyrs by their brutal captors.

Prepared by W. Grinton Berry

The Actes and Monuments (full title: Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church), popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, is a work of Protestant history and martyrology by Protestant English historian John Foxe, first published in 1563 by John Day. It includes a polemical account of the sufferings of Protestants under the Catholic Church, with particular emphasis on England and Scotland. The book was highly influential in those countries and helped shape lasting popular notions of Catholicism there. The book went through four editions in Foxe's lifetime and a number of later editions and abridgements, including some that specifically reduced the text to a Book of Martyrs. (Wikipedia)

London John Day 1563. NY. Abingdon Press. 1913. 413p.