CHAPTER IX
Everything from without was favouring Alexander's encroaching policy,
when he was compelled to turn his eyes from France towards the centre
of Italy: in Florence dwelt a man, neither duke, nor king, nor
soldier, a man whose power was in his genius, whose armour was his
purity, who owned no offensive weapon but his tongue, and who yet
began to grow more dangerous for him than all the kings, dukes,
princes, in the whole world could ever be; this man was the poor
Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola, the same who had refused
absolution to Lorenzo dei Medici because he would not restore the
liberty of Florence.
Girolamo Savonarola had prophesied the invasion of a force from
beyond the Alps, and Charles VIII had conquered Naples; Girolamo
Savonarola had prophesied to Charles VIII that because he had failed
to fulfil the mission of liberator entrusted to him by God, he was
threatened with a great misfortune as a punishment, and Charles was
dead; lastly, Savonarola had prophesied his own fall like the man who
paced around the holy city for eight days, crying, "Woe to
Jerusalem!" and on the ninth day, "Woe be on my own head!" None the
less, the Florentine reformer, who could not recoil from any danger,
was determined to attack the colossal abomination that was seated on
St. Peter's holy throne; each debauch, each fresh crime that lifted
up its brazen face to the light of day or tried to hide its shameful
head beneath the veil of night, he had never failed to paint out to
the people, denouncing it as the off spring of the pope's luxurious
living and lust of power. Thus had he stigmatised Alexander's new
amour with the beautiful Giulia Farnese, who in the preceding April a
added another son to the pope's family; thus had he cursed the Duke
of Gandia's murderer, the lustful, jealous fratricide; lastly, he had
pointed out to the Florentines, who were excluded from the league
then forming, what sort of future was in store far them when the
Borgias should have made themselves masters of the small
principalities and should come to attack the duchies and republics.
It was clear that in Savonarola, the pope had an enemy at once
temporal and spiritual, whose importunate and threatening voice must
be silenced at any cost.
But mighty as the pope's power was, to accomplish a design like this
was no easy matter. Savonarola, preaching the stern principles of
liberty, had united to his cause, even in the midst of rich,
pleasure-loving Florence, a party of some size, known as the
'Piagnoni', or the Penitents: this band was composed of citizens who
were anxious for reform in Church and State, who accused the Medici
of enslaving the fatherland and the Borgias of upsetting the faith,
who demanded two things, that the republic should return to her
democratic principles, and religion to a primitive simplicity.
Towards the first of these projects considerable progress had been
made, since they had successively obtained, first, an amnesty for all
crimes and delinquencies committed under other governments; secondly,
the abolition of the 'balia', which was an aristocratic magistracy;
thirdly, the establishment of a sovereign council, composed of 1800
citizens; and lastly, the substitution of popular elections for
drawing by lot and for oligarchical nominations: these changes had
been effected in spite of two other factions, the 'Arrabiati', or
Madmen, who, consisting of the richest and noblest youths of the
Florentine patrician families, desired to have an oligarchical
government; and the 'Bigi', or Greys, so called because they always
held their meetings in the shade, who desired the return of the
Medici.
The first measure Alexander used against the growing power of
Savonarola was to declare him heretic, and as such banished from the
pulpit; but Savonarola had eluded this prohibition by making his
pupil and friend, Domenico Bonvicini di Pescia, preach in his stead.
The result was that the master's teachings were issued from other
lips, and that was all; the seed, though scattered by another hand,
fell none the less on fertile soil, where it would soon burst into
flower. Moreover, Savonarola now set an example that was followed to
good purpose by Luther, when, twenty-two years later, he burned
Leo X's bull of excommunication at Wittenberg; he was weary of silence,
so he declared, on the authority of Pope Pelagius, that an unjust
excommunication had no efficacy, and that the person excommunicated
unjustly did not even need to get absolution. So on Christmas Day,
1497, he declared that by the inspiration of God he renounced his
obedience to a corrupt master; and he began to preach once more in
the cathedral, with a success that was all the greater for the
interruption, and an influence far more formidable than before,
because it was strengthened by that sympathy of the masses which an
unjust persecution always inspires.
Then Alexander made overtures to Leonardo dei Medici, vicar of the
archbishopric of Florence, to obtain the punishment of the rebel
Leonardo, in obedience to the orders he received, from Rome, issued a
mandate forbidding the faithful to attend at Savonarola's sermons.
After this mandate, any who should hear the discourses of the
excommunicated monk would be refused communion and confession;
and as when they died they would be contaminated with heresy, in
consequence of their spiritual intercourse with a heretic, their dead
bodies would be dragged on a hurdle and deprived of the rights of
sepulture. Savonarola appealed from the mandate of his superior both
to the people and to the Signoria, and the two together gave orders
to the episcopal vicar to leave Florence within two hours: this
happened at the beginning of the year 1498.
The expulsion of Leonard's dei Medici was a new triumph for
Savonarola, so, wishing to turn to good moral account his growing
influence, he resolved to convert the last day of the carnival,
hitherto given up to worldly pleasures, into a day of religious
sacrifice. So actually on Shrove Tuesday a considerable number of
boys were collected in front of the cathedral, and there divided into
bands, which traversed the whole town, making a house-to-house
visitation, claiming all profane books, licentious paintings, lutes,
harps, cards and dice, cosmetics and perfumes--in a word, all the
hundreds of products of a corrupt society and civilisation, by the
aid of which Satan at times makes victorious war on God. The
inhabitants of Florence obeyed, and came forth to the Piazza of the
Duoma, bringing these works of perdition, which were soon piled up in
a huge stack, which the youthful reformers set on fire, singing
religious psalms and hymns the while. On this pile were burned many
copies of Boccaccio and of Margante Maggiore, and pictures by Fro
Bartalommeo, who from that day forward renounced the art of this
world to consecrate his brush utterly and entirely to the
reproduction of religious scenes.
A reform such as this was terrifying to Alexander; so he resolved on
fighting Savonarola with his own weapons--that is, by the force of
eloquence. He chose as the Dominican's opponent a preacher of
recognised talent, called Fra Francesco di Paglia; and he sent him to
Florence, where he began to preach in Santa Croce, accusing
Savonarola of heresy and impiety. At the same time the pope, in a
new brief, announced to the Signaria that unless they forbade the
arch-heretic to preach, all the goods of Florentine merchants who
lived on the papal territory would be confiscated, and the republic
laid under an interdict and declared the spiritual and temporal enemy
of the Church. The Signoria, abandoned by France, and aware that the
material power of Rome was increasing in a frightful manner, was
forced this time to yield, and to issue to Savonarola an order to
leave off preaching. He obeyed, and bade farewell to his
congregation in a sermon full of strength and eloquence.
But the withdrawal of Savonarola, so far from calming the ferment,
had increased it: there was talk about his prophecies being
fulfilled; and some zealots, more ardent than their master added
miracle to inspiration, and loudly proclaimed that Savonarola had
offered to go down into the vaults of the cathedral with his
antagonist, and there bring a dead man to life again, to prove that
his doctrine was true, promising to declare himself vanquished if the
miracle were performed by his adversary. These rumours reached the
ears of Fra Francesco, and as he was a man of warm blood, who counted
his own life as nothing if it might be spent to help his cause, he
declared in all humility that he felt he was too great a sinner for
God to work a miracle in his behalf; but he proposed another
challenge: he would try with Savonarola the ordeal of fire. He knew,
he said, that he must perish, but at least he should perish avenging
the cause of religion, since he was certain to involve in his
destruction the tempter who plunged so many souls beside his own into
eternal damnation.
The proposition made by Fra Francesco was taken to Savanarola; but
as he had never proposed the earlier challenge, he hesitated to
accept the second; hereupon his disciple, Fra Domenico Bonvicini,
more confident than his master in his own power, declared himself
ready to accept the trial by fire in his stead; so certain was he
that God would perform a miracle by the intercession of Savonarola,
His prophet.
Instantly the report spread through Florence that the mortal
challenge was accepted; Savonarola's partisans, all men of the
strongest convictions, felt no doubt as to the success of their
cause. His enemies were enchanted at the thought of the heretic
giving himself to the flames; and the indifferent saw in the ordeal a
spectacle of real and terrible interest.
But the devotion of Fra Bonvicini of Pescia was not what Fra
Francesco was reckoning with. He was willing, no doubt, to die a
terrible death, but on condition that Savanarola died with him. What
mattered to him the death of an obscure disciple like Fra Bonvicini?
It was the master he would strike, the great teacher who must be
involved in his own ruin. So he refused to enter the fire except
with Savonarola himself, and, playing this terrible game in his own
person, would not allow his adversary to play it by proxy.
Then a thing happened which certainly no one could have anticipated.
In the place of Fra Francesco, who would not tilt with any but the
master, two Franciscan monks appeared to tilt with the disciple.
These were Fra Nicholas de Pilly and Fra Andrea Rondinelli.
Immediately the partisans of Savonarala, seeing this arrival of
reinforcements for their antagonist, came forward in a crowd to try
the ordeal. The Franciscans were unwilling to be behindhand, and
everybody took sides with equal ardour for one or other party. All
Florence was like a den of madmen; everyone wanted the ordeal,
everyone wanted to go into the fire; not only did men challenge one
another, but women and even children were clamouring to be allowed to
try. At last the Signoria, reserving this privilege for the first
applicants, ordered that the strange duel should take place only
between Fra Domenico Bonvicini and Fra Andrea Rondinelli; ten of the
citizens were to arrange all details; the day was fixed for the 7th
of April, 1498, and the place the Piazza del Palazzo.
The judges of the field made their arrangements conscientiously. By
their orders scaffolding was erected at the appointed place, five
feet in height, ten in width, and eighty feet long. This scaffolding
was covered with faggots and heath, supported by cross-bars of the
very driest wood that could be found. Two narrow paths were made,
two feet wide at most, their entrance giving on the Loggia dei Lanzi,
their exit exactly opposite. The loggia was itself divided into two
by a partition, so that each champion had a kind of room to make his
preparations in, just as in the theatre every actor has his dressing-
room; but in this instance the tragedy that was about to be played
was not a fictitious one.
The Franciscans arrived on the piazza and entered the compartment
reserved for them without making any religious demonstration; while
Savonarola, on the contrary, advanced to his own place in the
procession, wearing the sacerdotal robes in which he had just
celebrated the Holy Eucharist, and holding in his hand the sacred
host for all the world to see, as it was enclosed in a crystal
tabernacle. Fra Domenico di Pescia, the hero of the occasion,
followed, bearing a crucifix, and all the Dominican monks, their red
crosses in their hands, marched behind singing a psalm; while behind
them again followed the most considerable of the citizens of their
party, bearing torches, for, sure as they were of the triumph of
their cause, they wished to fire the faggots themselves. The piazza
was so crowded that the people overflowed into all the streets
around. In every door and window there was nothing to be seen but
heads ranged one above the other; the terraces were covered with
people, and curious spectators were observed an the roof of the Duomo
and on the tap of the Campanile.
But, brought face to face with the ordeal, the Franciscans raised
such difficulties that it was very plain the heart of their champion
was failing him. The first fear they expressed was that Fra
Bonvicini was an enchanter, and so carried about him some talisman or
charm which would save him from the fire. So they insisted that he
should be stripped of all has clothes and put on others to be
inspected by witnesses. Fra Bonvicini made no objection, though the
suspicion was humiliating; he changed shirt, dress, and cowl. Then,
when the Franciscans observed that Savanarola was placing the
tabernacle in his hands, they protested that it was profanation to
expose the sacred host to the risk of burning, that this was not in
the bond, and if Bonvicini would not give up this supernatural aid,
they far their part would give up the trial altogether. Savonarola
replied that it was not astonishing that the champion of religion who
put his faith in God should bear in his hands that very God to whom
he entrusted his salvation. But this reply did not satisfy the
Franciscans, who were unwilling to let go their contention.
Savonarola remained inflexible, supporting his own right, and thus
nearly four hours passed in the discussion of points which neither
party would give up, and affairs remained in 'statu quo'. Meanwhile
the people, jammed together in the streets, on the terraces, on the
roofs, since break of day, were suffering from hunger and thirst and
beginning to get impatient: their impatience soon developed into loud
murmurs, which reached even the champions' ears, so that the
partisans of Savonarala, who felt such faith in him that they were
confident of a miracle, entreated him to yield to all the conditions
suggested. To this Savonarola replied that if it were himself making
the trial he would be less inexorable; but since another man was
incurring the danger; he could not take too many precautions. Two
more hours passed, while his partisans tried in vain to combat his
refusals. At last, as night was coming on and the people grew ever
more and more impatient and their murmurs began to assume a
threatening tone, Bonvicini declared that he was ready to walk
through the fire, holding nothing in his hand but a crucifix. No one
could refuse him this; so Fra Rondinelli was compelled to accept his
proposition. The announcement was made to the populace that the
champions had come to terms and the trial was about to take place.
At this news the people calmed down, in the hope of being compensated
at last for their long wait; but at that very moment a storm which
had long been threatening brake over Florence with such fury that the
faggots which had just been lighted were extinguished by the rain,
leaving no possibility of their rekindling. From the moment when the
people suspected that they had been fooled, their enthusiasm was
changed into derision. They were ignorant from which side the
difficulties had arisen that had hindered the trial, so they laid the
responsibility on both champions without distinction. The Signoria,
foreseeing the disorder that was now imminent, ordered the assembly
to retire; but the assembly thought otherwise, and stayed on the
piazza, waiting for the departure of the two champions, in spite of
the fearful rain that still fell in torrents. Rondinelli was taken
back amid shouts and hootings, and pursued with showers of stones.
Savonarola, thanks to his sacred garments and the host which he still
carried, passed calmly enough through the midst of the mob--a miracle
quite as remarkable as if he had passed through the fire unscathed.
But it was only the sacred majesty of the host that had protected
this man, who was indeed from this moment regarded as a false
prophet: the crowd allowed Savonarola to return to his convent, but
they regretted the necessity, so excited were they by the Arrabbiati
party, who had always denounced him as a liar and a hypocrite. So
when the next morning, Palm Sunday, he stood up in the pulpit to
explain his conduct, he could not obtain a moment's silence for
insults, hooting, and loud laughter. Then the outcry, at first
derisive, became menacing: Savonarola, whose voice was too weak to
subdue the tumult, descended from his pulpit, retired into the
sacristy, and thence to his convent, where he shut himself up in his
cell. At that moment a cry was heard, and was repeated by everybody
present:
"To San Marco, to San Marco!" The rioters, few at first, were
recruited by all the populace as they swept along the streets, and at
last reached the convent, dashing like an angry sea against the wall.
The doors, closed on Savonarala's entrance, soon crashed before the
vehement onset of the powerful multitude, which struck down on the
instant every obstacle it met: the whole convent was quickly flooded
with people, and Savonarola, with his two confederates, Domenico
Bonvicini and Silvestro Maruffi, was arrested in his cell, and
conducted to prison amid the insults of the crowd, who, always in
extremes, whether of enthusiasm or hatred, would have liked to tear
them to pieces, and would not be quieted till they had exacted a
promise that the prisoners should be forcibly compelled to make the
trial of fire which they had refused to make of their own free will.
Alexander VI, as we may suppose, had not been without influence in
bringing about this sudden and astonishing reaction, although he was
not present in person; and had scarcely learned the news of
Savonarola's fall and arrest when he claimed him as subject to
ecclesiastical jurisdiction. But in spite of the grant of
indulgences wherewith this demand was accompanied, the Signoria
insisted that Savonarola's trial should take place at Florence,
adding a request so as not to appear to withdraw the accused
completely from the pontifical authority--that the pope would send
two ecclesiastical judges to sit in the Florentine tribunal.
Alexander, seeing that he would get nothing better from the
magnificent republic, sent as deputies Gioacchino Turriano of Venice,
General of the Dominicans, and Francesco Ramolini, doctor in law:
they practically brought the sentence with them, declaring Savonarola
and his accomplices heretics, schismatics, persecutors of the Church
and seducers of the people.
The firmness shown by the Florentines in claiming their rights of
jurisdiction were nothing but an empty show to save appearances; the
tribunal, as a fact, was composed of eight members, all known to be
fervent haters of Savonarola, whose trial began with the torture.
The result was that, feeble in body constitutionally nervous and
irritable, he had not been able to endure the rack, and, overcome by
agony just at the moment when the executioner had lifted him up by
the wrists and then dropped him a distance of two feet to the ground,
he had confessed, in order to get some respite, that his prophecies
were nothing more than conjectures. It is true that, so soon as he
went back to prison, he protested against the confession, saying that
it was the weakness of his bodily organs and his want of firmness
that had wrested the lie from him, but that the truth really was that
the Lord had several times appeared to him in his ecstasies and
revealed the things that he had spoken. This protestation led to a
new application of the torture, during which Savonarola succumbed
once more to the dreadful pain, and once more retracted. But
scarcely was he unbound, and was still lying on the bed of torture,
when he declared that his confessions were the fault of his
torturers, and the vengeance would recoil upon their heads; and he
protested yet once more against all he had confessed and might
confess again. A third time the torture produced the same avowals,
and the relief that followed it the same retractions. The judges
therefore, when they condemned him and his two disciples to the
flames, decided that his confession should not be read aloud at the
stake, according to custom, feeling certain that an this occasion
also he would give it the lie, and that publicly, which, as anyone
must see who knew the versatile spirit of the public, would be a most
dangerous proceeding.
On the 23rd of May, the fire which had been promised to the people
before was a second time prepared on the Piazza del Palazzo, and this
time the crowd assembled quite certain that they would not be
disappointed of a spectacle so long anticipated. And towards eleven
o'clock in the morning, Girolamo Savonarola, Domenico Bonvicini, and
Silvestro Maruffi were led to the place of execution, degraded of
their orders by the ecclesiastical judges, and bound all three to the
same stake in the centre of an immense pile of wood. Then the bishop
Pagnanoli told the condemned men that he cut them off from the
Church. "Ay, from the Church militant," said Savonarola, who from
that very hour, thanks to his martyrdom, was entering into the Church
triumphant. No other words were spoken by the condemned men, for at
this moment one of the Arrabbiati, a personal enemy of Savonarola,
breaking through the hedge of guards around the scaffold, snatched
the torch from the executioner's hand and himself set fire to the
four corners of the pile. Savonarola and his disciples, from the
moment when they saw the smoke arise, began to sing a psalm, and the
flames enwrapped them on all sides with a glowing veil, while their
religious song was yet heard mounting upward to the gates of heaven.
Pope Alexander VI was thus set free from perhaps the most formidable
enemy who had ever risen against him, and the pontifical vengeance
pursued the victims even after their death: the Signoria, yielding to
his wishes, gave orders that the ashes of the prophet and his
disciples should be thrown into the Arno. But certain half-burned
fragments were picked up by the very soldiers whose business it was
to keep the people back from approaching the fire, and the holy
relics are even now shown, blackened by the flames, to the faithful,
who if they no longer regard Savonarola as a prophet, revere him none
the less as a martyr.
