This remarkable man was born at Ferrara in 1452. Having gradually won a reputation as a preacher of wonderful power and zeal, he was in the year 1491, elected PriorSavonarola, Prior of San Marco, 1491. of the Dominican Convent of San Marco in Florence. In spite of the independent attitude which he here assumed, Lorenzo showed him no ill favour, and even summoned the friar to his deathbed to ask a blessing.[9] In all probability, however, Savonarola would have remained a great revivalist preacher and nothing more, had it not been for the expedition of Charles VIII. The constant theme of his sermons had been that the scourge of God should visit Italy to punish her for her sins and purify her by fire. The French invasion, and the rapid success of Charles were looked upon as the fulfilment of his prophecy, and Savonarola became one of the leading men in Florence.
In the overthrow of the Medici he did not take an active part, but on Piero’s flight (November 1494) he was suckedSavonarola and the revolution of 1494. into the politics of the city. Supported by his powerful advocacy from the pulpit in the Duomo, and guided by his advice, the popular party, to which he naturally belonged, was able to introduce and carry a reform of the Constitution. By the decree of December 23, the government was to be as follows:—
A permanent Great Council (Consiglio Maggiore) was to be composed of all eligible ‘citizens,’ that is, of all citizens of the age of thirty whose father, grandfather, or great-grandfather had been elected to the greater offices of state. This Council, numbering some 3000, was to elect out of its own members a ‘senate’ (Consiglio degli ottanta), holding office for six months, and forming with the Consiglio Maggiore the legislative body of the city. Further, the Great Council was to nominate the Signory and other magistrates out of a list presented by a body of nominators, themselves elected in the Council, and to hear appeals on criminal cases. The Signory remained as it was before, composed of the Gonfalonier and the eight priors: it was to be elected every two months, while the Ten of Liberty and Peace (Dieci di Libertà e Pace), in whose hands lay the conduct of foreign affairs, were to hold office for six months.
The constitution can scarcely be called a democratic one, for at least 7000 citizens were disenfranchised. In common with most theorists of his day, Savonarola admired the stability of Venice, and vainly thought to secure this for his native city by establishing a closed and permanent electoral and legislative body, the Consiglio Maggiore, after the Venetian type. Nevertheless, the government was preferable to the old system, by which the city, a republic in name, had fallen into the control of a single family and their clique.
Savonarola did not content himself with this. From his pulpit he insisted on moral reformation as the necessary basis of true liberty, and pressed for a general amnesty which might allay the dangers of party strife. In thus becoming a politician, Savonarola protested that he acted unwillingly. In his sermon of December 21, 1494, he declared that he had pleaded with God to be excused from meddling with the government, but had been bidden to go on and establish a holy city, which favoured virtue and looked to Christ as its master.
That Savonarola was sincere we may well believe. None the less the interference in politics was a fatal error. Thereby he became closely associated with aSavonarola becomes associated with a political party and arouses enmity at home and abroad. party, responsible for its faults, and dependent on its success. This weakened his position as a reformer, while his adherents had henceforth to count as enemies all those who disliked his attempts at a reform of morals. A serious opposition was thus aroused. The Bigi (the Greys) worked for the restoration of the Medici; the Arrabiati (the enraged), while casting off the Medici, objected to the changes in the Constitution; the Compagnacci (companions) disliked the preacher’s interference with their pleasures. These three groups, working at first with very different aims, were eventually united together in common opposition to the Piagnoni (weepers), the followers of the friar. But if Savonarola’s interference in the politics of the city weakened his position in Florence, the attitude of his party drew down upon him the enmity of foreign statesmen. The desire to regain Pisa was an overmastering passion at Florence, and there was nothing she would not suffer to attain that end. She had refused to join the League of Venice, in the hopes of regaining Pisa from the hands of Charles. These hopes had been disappointed. Still the adherents of the friar headed by Francesco Valori, clung fondly to the dream that Charles would once more enter Italy, and at last fulfil his promise. In these expectations they were supported by the preaching of Savonarola, who announced that Italy must yet suffer much, but that eventually Florence should after much tribulation be saved by God. By thus refusing to join the League, Florence drew down upon her the enmity of Ludovico, of Maximilian, of Venice, and of the Pope. The three first in turn supported the Pisans with arms, and, in October 1496, Maximilian himself came to Italy. But mutual jealousies prevented united action, and the expedition of Maximilian ended in a fiasco.
The opposition of the Pope was to prove more serious. Alexander VI. cared but little for the denunciation of the reformerAlexander VI. interferes. Sept. 1495. against the vices of the times, but his interference with politics he would not brook. Accordingly, in September 1495, he had suspended him from preaching. Savonarola at first obeyed, and was silent during the following Advent. But, in the Lent of 1496, the Signory, then composed of the friar’s partisans, ordered him to resume his preaching. He complied, and in the Carnival of 1496, the enthusiasm of the Piagnoni broke forth in religious processions. The children swept the streets in thick array, bearing olive-branches in their hands and chanting hymns. This disobedience Savonarola justified, by declaring that no papal prohibitions should move him from his duty, and that if they contradicted the Law of Love set forth in the Gospel, they must be withstood, since ‘a Pope that errs does not represent the Church,’ of which he claimed to be a loyal son. Even this bold conduct did not immediately rouse Alexander—nay, some would fix this as the date when he tried to win the friar by the offer of a cardinal’s hat. If so, Savonarola contemptuously rejected the offer, and the Pope was driven to take further measures.
The Tuscan congregation of the Dominican order had, at Savonarola’s request, been separated from that of Lombardy. This had given him a position of exceptional independence, which aroused the jealousy of many of his order. Alexander now united the convent of San Marco with a new formed Tusco-Roman congregation (Nov. 7, 1496). This was clearly within the competence of the Pope, it was popular with the order generally, and the Pope hoped to strike at the friar through a superior of his own brotherhood. Savonarola, however, refused to obey, and was supported by some 250 of his brethren of San Marco. The Carnival of 1497 followed. Here the enthusiasm of the Piagnoni reached its highest pitch. The children going from house to house begged for ‘vanities.’ Cards, trinkets, immodest books, pictures, works of art, were handed up, and these, heaped promiscuously in one common pyre, were solemnly burned in the Piazza. These and other extravagances, which unfortunately cannot be denied,[10] disgusted many, and added to the number of the friar’s enemies. The reaction was seen in the election of Bernardo delReaction against Savonarola. Nero, a secret adherent of the Medici, to the office of Gonfalonier, March 1497; in the unsuccessful attempt of Piero to regain Florence in April, and in a riot in the Duomo, raised by the Compagnacci, while Savonarola preached, on Ascension Day, May 4.
Influenced, perhaps, by the knowledge that Savonarola was losing ground, Alexander now decided to strike. After a vain appeal to the Florentines, in which he even promisedThe Pope excommunicates him. May 1497. to regain Pisa for them if they would join the League, a promise which they prudently distrusted, he declared that they were being misled by the prophecies of a chattering friar, and proceeded to excommunicate him, May 1497. The Signory meanwhile had attempted to stay the excitement in Florence by forbidding all preaching either from Savonarola or his opponents, and things remained more quiet for a time.
The elections of July, however, again gave the Piagnoni a majority in the Signory; and in August, the city was startled by the news that five of the leading citizens stoodThe Piagnoni regain power. accused of complicity with the Medicean plot of the preceding April. On condemnation, they were refused their right of appeal to the Great Council, contrary to the express provision of the new Constitution, and executed. The condemned belonged to Savonarola’s opponents, and some of them, notably Bernardo del Nero, had lately held office. Their execution therefore, for a time, materially strengthened Savonarola’s position, and from this date until the ensuing March the Signory was filled with Piagnoni.