The brethren entreated Savonarola to flee, but he, together with Domenico, gave himself up, and they were haled to prison. The guards were unable or unwilling to defend them from the insults of the crowd, who struck Fra Girolamo from behind, crying:—
'Prophesy unto us, thou man of God, who is he that smote thee?'
Others crawled at his feet as though seeking something, and cried: 'The key? The key? Where is Fra Girolamo's key?'
—in allusion to the key often spoken of in his sermons, with which he would unlock the secrets of the abominations of Rome.
The very children who had belonged to the Sacred Troop of inquisitors now pelted him with apples and rotten eggs. Those who could not penetrate the crowd howled from a distance, reiterating their abuse till their throats were hoarse.
'Dastard! Coward! Judas! Sodomite! Sorcerer! Antichrist!'
Giovanni followed him to the doors of the prison of the Palazzo Vecchio, whence he was not to issue till the day of his execution.
On the following morning Leonardo and Boltraffio quitted Florence.
At once, on arrival in Milan, the painter set himself to the task which had baffled him for eighteen years—the face of the Christ in the 'Last Supper!'