'Lord! Lord! have mercy on us miserable sinners! And to think that but for Fra Girolamo we should be still in our sins! And even now, who knows if we shall save our souls?'
He crossed himself and murmured prayers, fingering his rosary.
'Who is that?' Giovanni asked of Fra Domenico.
'Sandro Botticelli,' was the answer, 'son of Ser Mariano Filippepi, the tanner.'
IX
When at last the curtain of night had fallen upon Florence, a whisper ran through the crowd.
'They come! They come!'
Slowly, silently, without torches, without hymns, the procession advanced. Before the white-robed troop of the child inquisitors was borne the waxen image of the child Jesus, pointing with one hand to his crown of thorns, with the other blessing the people. After the children came monks, the clergy of the whole town, the gonfalonieri, the magnificent gentlemen of the Council of Eighty; the cathedral canons, the doctors of theology, the magistrates, the cavaliers, the guards of the Bargello, the heralds and trumpeters. Upon reaching the piazza the procession stood still, and a deathly silence came over the multitude, such as precedes an execution. Then Savonarola mounted the Ringhiera, a stone platform before the Palazzo Vecchio, lifted the crucifix, and commanded in sonorous tones:—