The Story of Florence

It was the republican hero, Piero Capponi, who now gave utterance to the voice of the people. "Piero dei Medici," he said in the Council of the Seventy called by the Signoria on November 4th, "is no longer fit to rule the State: the Republic must provide for itself: the moment has come to shake off this baby government." They prepared for defence, but at the same time sent ambassadors to the "most Christian King," and amongst these ambassadors was Savonarola. In the meantime Piero dei Medici returned to Florence to find his government at an end; the Signoria refused him admittance into the palace; the people assailed him in the Piazza. He made a vain attempt to regain the State by arms, but the despairing shouts of Palle, Palle, which his adherents and mercenaries raised, were drowned in the cries of Popolo e Libertà, as the citizens, as in the old days of the Republic, heard the great bell of the Palace tolling and saw the burghers once more in arms. On the 9th of November Piero and Giuliano fled through the Porta di San Gallo; the Cardinal Giovanni, who had shown more courage and resource, soon followed, disguised as a friar. There was some pillage done, but little bloodshed. The same day Pisa received the French troops, and shook off the Florentine yoke–an example shortly followed by other Tuscan cities. Florence had regained her liberty, but lost her empire. But the King had listened to the words of Savonarola–words preserved to us by the Friar himself in his Compendium Revelationum– who had hailed him as the Minister of Christ, but warned him sternly and fearlessly that, if he abused his power over Florence, the strength which God had given him would be shattered.

On November 17th Charles, clad in black velvet with mantle of gold brocade and splendidly mounted, rode into Florence, as though into a conquered city, with lance levelled, through the Porta di San Frediano. With him was that priestly Mars, the terrible Cardinal della Rovere (afterwards Julius II.), now bent upon the deposition of Alexander VI. as a simoniacal usurper; and he was followed by all the gorgeous chivalry of France, with the fierce Swiss infantry, the light Gascon skirmishers, the gigantic Scottish bowmen–uomini bestiali as the Florentines called them–in all about 12,000 men. The procession swept through the gaily decked streets over the Ponte Vecchio, wound round the Piazza della Signoria, and then round the Duomo, amidst deafening cries of Viva Francia from the enthusiastic people. But when the King descended and entered the Cathedral, there was a sad disillusion–parve al popolo un poco diminuta la fama, as the good apothecary Luca Landucci tells us–for, when off his horse, he appeared a most insignificant little man, almost deformed, and with an idiotic expression of countenance, as his bust portrait in the Bargello still shows. This was not quite the sort of Cyrus that they had expected from Savonarola's discourses; but still, within and without Santa Maria del Fiore, the thunderous shouts of Viva Francia continued, until he was solemnly escorted to the Medicean palace which had been prepared for his reception.

That night, and each following night during the French occupation, Florence shone so with illuminations that it seemed mid-day; every day was full of feasting and pageantry; but French and Florentines alike were in arms. The royal "deliverer"–egged on by the ladies of Piero's family and especially by Alfonsina, his young wife–talked of restoring the Medici; the Swiss, rioting in the Borgo SS. Apostoli, were severely handled by the populace, in a way that showed the King that the Republic was not to be trifled with. On November 24th the treaty was signed in the Medicean (now the Riccardi) palace, after a scene never forgotten by the Florentines. Discontented with the amount of the indemnity, the King exclaimed in a threatening voice, "I will bid my trumpets sound" (io farò dare nelle trombe). Piero Capponi thereupon snatched the treaty from the royal secretary, tore it in half, and exclaiming, "And we will sound our bells" (e noi faremo dare nelle campane), turned with his colleagues to leave the room. Charles, who knew Capponi of old (he had been Florentine Ambassador in France), had the good sense to laugh it off, and the Republic was saved. There was to be an alliance between the Republic and the King, who was henceforth to be called "Restorer and Protector of the Liberty of Florence." He was to receive a substantial indemnity. Pisa and the fortresses were for the present to be retained, but ultimately restored; the decree against the Medici was to be revoked, but they were still banished from Tuscany. But the King would not go. The tension every day grew greater, until at last Savonarola sought the royal presence, solemnly warned him that God's anger would fall upon him if he lingered, and sent him on his way. On November 28th the French left Florence, everyone, from Charles himself downwards, shamelessly carrying off everything of value that they could lay hands on, including the greater part of the treasures and rarities that Cosimo and Lorenzo had collected.

It was now that all Florence turned to the voice that rang out from the Convent of San Marco and the pulpit of the Duomo; and Savonarola became, in some measure, the pilot of the State. Mainly through his influence, the government was remodelled somewhat on the basis of the Venetian constitution with modifications. The supreme authority was vested in the Greater Council, which created the magistrates and approved the laws; and it elected the Council of Eighty, with which the Signoria was bound to consult, which, together with the Signoria and the Colleges, made appointments and discussed matters which could not be debated in the Greater Council. A law was also passed, known as the "law of the six beans," which gave citizens the right of appeal from the decisions of the Signoria or the sentences of the Otto di guardia e balìa (who could condemn even to death by six votes or "beans")–not to a special council to be chosen from the Greater Council, as Savonarola wished, but to the Greater Council itself. There was further a general amnesty proclaimed (March 1495). Finally, since the time-honoured calling of parliaments had been a mere farce, an excuse for masking revolution under the pretence of legality, and was the only means left by which the Medici could constitutionally have overthrown the new regime, it was ordained (August) that no parliament should ever again be held under pain of death. "The only purpose of parliament," said Savonarola, "is to snatch the sovereign power from the hands of the people." So enthusiastic–to use no harsher term–did the Friar show himself, that he declared from the pulpit that, if ever the Signoria should sound the bell for a parliament, their houses should be sacked, and that they themselves might be hacked to pieces by the crowd without any sin being thereby incurred; and that the Consiglio Maggiore was the work of God and not of man, and that whoever should attempt to change this government should for ever be accursed of the Lord. It was now that the Sala del Maggior Consiglio was built by Cronaca in the Priors' Palace, to accommodate this new government of the people; and the Signoria set up in the middle of the court and at their gate the two bronze statues by Donatello, which they took from Piero's palace–the David, an emblem of the triumphant young republic that had overthrown the giant of tyranny, the Judith as a warning of the punishment that the State would inflict upon whoso should attempt its restoration; exemplum salutis publicae cives posuere, 1495, ran the new inscription put by these stern theocratic republicans upon its base.

But in the meantime Charles had pursued his triumphant march, had entered Rome, had conquered the kingdom of Naples almost without a blow. Then fortune turned against him; Ludovico Sforza with the Pope formed an Italian league, including Venice, with hope of Germany and Spain, to expel the French from Italy–a league in which all but Florence and Ferrara joined. Charles was now in full retreat to secure his return to France, and was said to be marching on Florence with Piero dei Medici in his company–no reformation of the Church accomplished, no restoration of Pisa to his ally. The Florentines flew to arms. But Savonarola imagined that he had had a special Vision of the Lilies vouchsafed to him by the Blessed Virgin, which pointed to an alliance with France and the reacquisition of Pisa.20 He went forth to meet the King at Poggibonsi, June 1495, overawed the fickle monarch by his prophetic exhortation, and at least kept the French out of Florence. A month later, the battle of Fornovo secured Charles' retreat and occasioned (what was more important to posterity) Mantegna's Madonna of the Victory. And of the lost cities and fortresses, Leghorn alone was recovered.

But all that Savonarola had done, or was to do, in the political field was but the means to an end–the reformation and purification of Florence. It was to be a united and consecrated State, with Christ alone for King, adorned with all triumphs of Christian art and sacred poetry, a fire of spiritual felicity to Italy and all the earth. In Lent and Advent especially, his voice sounded from the pulpit, denouncing vice, showing the beauty of righteousness, the efficacy of the sacraments, and interpreting the Prophets, with special reference to the needs of his times. And for a while Florence seemed verily a new city. For the wild licence of the Carnival, for the Pagan pageantry that the Medicean princes had loved, for the sensual songs that had once floated up from every street of the City of Flowers–there were now bonfires of the vanities in the public squares; holocausts of immoral books, indecent pictures, all that ministered to luxury and wantonness (and much, too, that was very precious!); there were processions in honour of Christ and His Mother, there were new mystical lauds and hymns of divine love. A kind of spiritual inebriation took possession of the people and their rulers alike. Tonsured friars and grave citizens, with heads garlanded, mingled with the children and danced like David before the Ark, shouting, "Viva Cristo e la Vergine Maria nostra regina." They had indeed, like the Apostle, become fools for Christ's sake. "It was a holy time," writes good Luca Landucci, "but it was short. The wicked have prevailed over the good. Praised be God that I saw that short holy time. Wherefore I pray God that He may give it back to us, that holy and pure living. It was indeed a blessed time." Above all, the children of Florence were the Friar's chosen emissaries and agents in the great work he had in hand; he organised them into bands, with standard-bearers and officers like the time-honoured city companies with their gonfaloniers, and sent them round the city to seize vanities, forcibly to stop gambling, to collect alms for the poor, and even to exercise a supervision over the ladies' dresses. Ecco i fanciugli del Frate, was an instant signal for gamblers to take to flight, and for the fair and frail ladies to be on their very best behaviour. They proceeded with olive branches, like the children of Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday; they made the churches ring with their hymns to the Madonna, and even harangued the Signoria on the best method of reforming the morals of the citizens. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise," quotes Landucci: "I have written these things because they are true, and I have seen them and have felt their sweetness, and some of my own children were among these pure and blessed bands."21

But the holy time was short indeed. Factions were still only too much alive. The Bigi or Palleschi were secretly ready to welcome the Medici back; the Arrabbiati, the powerful section of the citizens who, to some extent, held the traditions of the so-called Ottimati or nobili popolani, whom the Medici had overthrown, were even more bitter in their hatred to the Frateschi or Piagnoni, as the adherents of the Friar were called, though prepared to make common cause with them on the least rumour of Piero dei Medici approaching the walls. The Compagnacci, or "bad companions," dissolute young men and evil livers, were banded together under Doffo Spini, and would gladly have taken the life of the man who had curtailed their opportunities for vice. And to these there were now added the open hostility of Pope Alexander VI., and the secret machinations of his worthy ally, the Duke of Milan. The Pope's hostility was at first mainly political; he had no objection whatever to Savonarola reforming faith and morals (so long as he did not ask Roderigo Borgia to reform himself), but could not abide the Friar declaring that he had a special mission from God and the Madonna to oppose the Italian league against France. At the same time the Pope would undoubtedly have been glad to see Piero dei Medici restored to power. But in the early part of 1496, it became a war to the death between these two–the Prophet of Righteousness and the Church's Caiaphas–a war which seemed at one moment about to convulse all Christendom, but which ended in the funeral pyre of the Piazza della Signoria.

On Ash Wednesday, February 17th, Fra Girolamo, amidst the vastest audience that had yet flocked to hear his words, ascended once more the pulpit of Santa Maria del Fiore. He commenced by a profession of most absolute submission to the Church of Rome. "I have ever believed, and do believe," he said, "all that is believed by the Holy Roman Church, and have ever submitted, and do submit, myself to her… I rely only on Christ and on the decisions of the Church of Rome." But this was a prelude to the famous series of sermons on Amos and Zechariah which he preached throughout this Lent, and which was in effect a superb and inspired denunciation of the wickedness of Alexander and his Court, of the shameless corruption of the Papal Curia and the Church generally, which had made Rome, for a while, the sink of Christendom. Nearly two hundred years before, St Peter had said the same thing to Dante in the Heaven of the Fixed Stars:–

"Quegli ch'usurpa in terra il loco mio,il loco mio, il loco mio, che vacanella presenza del Figliuol di Dio,fatto ha del cimitero mio cloacadel sangue e della puzza, onde il perversoche cadde di quassù, laggiù si placa."22

These were, perhaps, the most terrible of all Savonarola's sermons and prophecies. Chastisement was to come upon Rome; she was to be girdled with steel, put to the sword, consumed with fire. Italy was to be ravaged with pestilence and famine; from all sides the barbarian hordes would sweep down upon her. Let them fly from this corrupted Rome, this new Babylon of confusion, and come to repentance. And for himself, he asked and hoped for nothing but the lot of the martyrs, when his work was done. These sermons echoed through all Europe; and when the Friar, after a temporary absence at Prato, returned to the pulpit in May with a new course of sermons on Ruth and Micah, he was no less daring; as loudly as ever he rebuked the hideous corruption of the times, the wickedness of the Roman Court, and announced the scourge that was at hand:–

"I announce to thee, Italy and Rome, that the Lord will come forth out of His place. He has awaited thee so long that He can wait no more. I tell thee that God will draw forth the sword from the sheath; He will send the foreign nations; He will come forth out of His clemency and His mercy; and such bloodshed shall there be, so many deaths, such cruelty, that thou shalt say: O Lord, Thou hast come forth out of Thy place. Yea, the Lord shall come; He will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. I say to thee, Italy and Rome, that the Lord will tread upon thee. I have bidden thee do penance; thou art worse than ever. The feet of the Lord shall tread upon thee; His feet shall be the horses, the armies of the foreign nations that shall trample upon the great men of Italy; and soon shall priests, friars, bishops, cardinals and great masters be trampled down…

"Trust not, Rome, in saying: Here we have the relics, here we have St Peter and so many bodies of martyrs. God will not suffer such iniquities! I warn thee that their blood cries up to Christ to come and chastise thee."23

But, in the meanwhile, the state of Florence was dark and dismal in the extreme. Pestilence and famine ravaged her streets; the war against Pisa seemed more hopeless every day; Piero Capponi had fallen in the field in September; and the forces of the League threatened her with destruction, unless she deserted the French alliance. King Charles showed no disposition to return; the Emperor Maximilian, with the Venetian fleet, was blockading her sole remaining port of Leghorn. A gleam of light came in October, when, at the very moment that the miraculous Madonna of the Impruneta was being borne through the streets in procession by the Piagnoni, a messenger brought the news that reinforcements and provisions had reached Leghorn from Marseilles; and it was followed in November by the dispersion of the imperial fleet by a tempest. At the opening of 1497 a Signory devoted to Savonarola, and headed by Francesco Valori as Gonfaloniere, was elected; and the following carnival witnessed an even more emphatic burning of the vanities in the great Piazza, while the sweet voices of the "children of the Friar" seemed to rise louder and louder in intercession and in praise. Savonarola was at this time living more in seclusion, broken in health, and entirely engaged upon his great theological treatise, the Triumphus Crucis; but in Lent he resumed his pulpit crusade against the corruption of the Church, the scandalous lives of her chief pastors, in a series of sermons on Ezekiel; above all in one most tremendous discourse on the text: "And in all thy abominations and thy fornications thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth." In April, relying upon the election of a new Signoria favourable to the Mediceans (and headed by Bernardo del Nero as Gonfaloniere), Piero dei Medici–who had been leading a most degraded life in Rome, and committing every turpitude imaginable–made an attempt to surprise Florence, which merely resulted in a contemptible fiasco. This threw the government into the hands of the Arrabbiati, who hated Savonarola even more than the Palleschi did, and who were intriguing with the Pope and the Duke of Milan. On Ascension Day the Compagnacci raised a disgraceful riot in the Duomo, interrupted Savonarola's sermon, and even attempted to take his life. Then at last there came from Rome the long-expected bull of excommunication, commencing, "We have heard from many persons worthy of belief that a certain Fra Girolamo Savonarola, at this present said to be vicar of San Marco in Florence, hath disseminated pernicious doctrines to the scandal and great grief of simple souls." It was published on June 18th in the Badia, the Annunziata, Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, and Santo Spirito, with the usual solemn ceremonies of ringing bells and dashing out of the lights–in the last-named church, especially, the monks "did the cursing in the most orgulist wise that might be done," as the compiler of the Morte Darthur would put it.

The Arrabbiati and Compagnacci were exultant, but the Signoria that entered office in July seemed disposed to make Savonarola's cause their own. A fresh plot was discovered to betray Florence to Piero dei Medici, and five of the noblest citizens in the State–the aged Bernardo del Nero, who had merely known of the plot and not divulged it, but who had been privy to Piero's coming in April while Gonfaloniere, among them–were beheaded in the courtyard of the Bargello's palace, adjoining the Palazzo Vecchio. In this Savonarola took no share; he was absorbed in tending those who were dying on all sides from the plague and famine, and in making the final revision of his Triumph of the Cross, which was to show to the Pope and all the world how steadfastly he held to the faith of the Church of Rome.24 The execution of these conspirators caused great indignation among many in the city. They had been refused the right of appeal to the Consiglio Maggiore, and it was held that Fra Girolamo might have saved them, had he so chosen, and that his ally, Francesco Valori, who had relentlessly hounded them to their deaths, had been actuated mainly by personal hatred of Bernardo del Nero.

But Savonarola could not long keep silence, and in the following February, 1498, on Septuagesima Sunday, he again ascended the pulpit of the Duomo. Many of his adherents, Landucci tells us, kept away for fear of the excommunication: "I was one of those who did not go there." Not faith, but charity it is that justifies and perfects man–such was the burden of the Friar's sermons now: if the Pope gives commands which are contrary to charity, he is no instrument of the Lord, but a broken tool. The excommunication is invalid, the Lord will work a miracle through His servant when His time comes, and his only prayer is that he may die in defence of the truth. On the last day of the Carnival, after communicating his friars and a vast throng of the laity, Savonarola addressed the people in the Piazza of San Marco, and, holding on high the Host, prayed that Christ would send fire from heaven upon him that should swallow him up into hell, if he were deceiving himself, and if his words were not from God. There was a more gorgeous burning of the Vanities than ever; but all during Lent the unequal conflict went on, and the Friar began to talk of a future Council. This was the last straw. An interdict would ruin the commerce of Florence; and on the 17th of March the Signoria bowed before the storm, and forbade Savonarola to preach again. On the following morning, the third Sunday in Lent, he delivered his last sermon:–

"If I am deceived, Christ, Thou hast deceived me, Thou. Holy Trinity, if I am deceived, Thou hast deceived me. Angels, if I am deceived, ye have deceived me. Saints of Paradise, if I am deceived, ye have deceived me. But all that God has said, or His angels or His saints have said, is most true, and it is impossible that they should lie; and, therefore, it is impossible that, when I repeat what they have told me, I should lie. O Rome, do all that thou wilt, for I assure thee of this, that the Lord is with me. O Rome, it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Thou shalt be purified yet… Italy, Italy, the Lord is with me. Thou wilt not be able to do aught. Florence, Florence, that is, ye evil citizens of Florence, arm yourselves as ye will, ye shall be conquered this time, and ye shall not be able to kick against the pricks, for the Lord is with me, as a strong warrior." "Let us leave all to the Lord; He has been the Master of all the Prophets, and of all the holy men. He is the Master who wieldeth the hammer, and, when He hath used it for His purpose, putteth it not back into the chest, but casteth it aside. So did He unto Jeremiah, for when He had used him as much as He wished, He cast him aside and had him stoned. So will it be also with this hammer; when He shall have used it in His own way, He will cast it aside. Yea, we are content, let the Lord's will be done; and by the more suffering that shall be ours here below, so much the greater shall the crown be hereafter, there on high."

"We will do with our prayers what we had to do with our preaching. O Lord, I commend to Thee the good and the pure of heart; and I pray Thee, look not at the negligence of the good, because human frailty is great, yea, their frailty is great. Bless, Lord, the good and pure of heart. Lord, I pray Thee that Thou delay no longer in fulfilling Thy promises."

It was now, in the silence of his cell, that Savonarola prepared his last move. He would appeal to the princes of Christendom–the Emperor, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Henry VII. of England, the King of Hungary, and above all, that "most Christian King" Charles VIII. of France–to summon a general council, depose the simoniacal usurper who was polluting the chair of Peter, and reform the Church. He was prepared to promise miracles from God to confirm his words. These letters were written, but never sent; a preliminary message was forwarded from trustworthy friends in Florence to influential persons in each court to prepare them for what was coming; and the despatch to the Florentine ambassador in France was intercepted by the agents of the Duke of Milan. It was at once placed in the hands of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza in Rome, and the end was now a matter of days. The Signoria was hostile, and the famous ordeal by fire lit the conflagration that freed the martyr and patriot. On Sunday, March 25th, the Franciscan Francesco da Puglia, preaching in Santa Croce and denouncing Savonarola, challenged him to prove his doctrines by a miracle, to pass unscathed through the fire. He was himself prepared to enter the flames with him, or at least said that he was. Against Savonarola's will his lieutenant, Fra Domenico, who had taken his place in the pulpit, drew up a series of conclusions (epitomising Savonarola's teaching and declaring the nullity of the excommunication), and declared himself ready to enter the fire to prove their truth.