Maruffi, Fra Salvestro (Hist.)

A Dominican brother of San Marco, designated by Savonarola as Romola's confessor. "It was not that there was anything manifestly repulsive in Fra Salvestro's face and manner, any air of hypocrisy, any tinge of coarseness ; his face was handsomer than Fra Girolamo's, his person a little taller . . . But his face had the vacillating expression of a mind unable to concentrate itself strongly in the channel of one great emotion or belief . . . Such an expression is not the stamp of insincerity; it is the stamp simply of a shallow soul, which will often be found sincerely striving to fill a high vocation . . . Fra Salvestro had a peculiar liability to visions." Fra Silvestro Maruffi, one of the two Dominicans arrested with Savonarola and executed with him. He was, according to Villari, a weak and frivolous man. The spelling used by Villari, and by most other authorities, is Silvestro, but some, including Nerli, whose work was used by George Eliot, give the form Salvestro.

<em>Romola</em>

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