The Signoria appointed ten citizens to conduct the trial, and fixed it for April 6, but postponed it for a day in hopes of receiving from the pope a negative answer to an application for permission—a refusal which came, but came too late, possibly delayed on purpose. On April 7, accordingly, the preparations were completed. In the Piazza de’ Signori a huge pile of dry wood was built the height of a man’s eyes, with a central gangway through which the champions were to pass. It was plentifully supplied with gunpowder, oil, sulphur, and spirits, to insure the rapid spread of the flames, and when lighted at one end the contestants were to enter at the other, which was to be set on fire behind them, so as to cut off all retreat. An immense mass of earnest spectators filled the piazza, and every window and house-top was crowded. These were mostly partisans of Savonarola, and the Franciscans were cowed until cheered by the arrival of the Compagnacci, the young nobles fully armed on their war-horses, and each accompanied by eight or ten retainers—some five hundred in all, with Doffo Spini at their head.[240]
First came on the scene the Franciscans, anxious and terrified. Then marched in procession the Dominicans, about two hundred in number, chanting psalms. Both parties went before the Signoria, when the Franciscans, professing fear of magic arts, demanded that Domenico should change his garments. Although this was promptly acceded to, and both champions were clothed anew, considerable time was consumed in the details. The Dominicans claimed that Domenico should be allowed to carry a crucifix in his right hand and a consecrated wafer in his left. An objection being made to the crucifix he agreed to abandon it, but was unmoved by the cry of horror with which the proposition as to the host was received. Savonarola was firm. It had been revealed to Frà Salvestro that the sacrament was indispensable, and the matter was hotly disputed until the shades of evening fell, when the Signoria announced that the ordeal was abandoned, and the Franciscans withdrew, followed by the Dominicans. The crowd which had patiently waited through torrents of rain, and a storm in which the air seemed filled with howling demons, were enraged at the loss of the promised spectacle, and a heavy armed escort was necessary to convey the Dominicans in safety back to San Marco. Had the matter been one with which reason had anything to do, we might perhaps wonder that it was regarded as a triumph for the Franciscans; but Savonarola had so confidently promised a miracle, and had been so implicitly believed by his followers, that they accepted the drawn battle as a defeat, and as a confession that he could not rely on the interposition of God. Their faith in their prophet was shaken, while the exultant Compagnacci lavished abuse on him, and they had not a word to utter in his defence.[241]
His enemies were prompt in following up their advantage. The next day was Palm Sunday. The streets were full of triumphant Arrabbiati, and such Piagnoni as showed themselves were pursued with jeers and pelted with stones. At vespers, the Dominican Mariano de’ Ughi attempted to preach in the Duomo, which was crowded, but the Compagnacci were there in force, interrupted the sermon, ordered the audience to disperse, and those who resisted were assailed and wounded. Then arose the cry, “To San Marco!” and the crowd hurried thither. Already the doors of the Dominican church had been surrounded by boys whose cries disturbed the service within, and who, when ordered to be silent, had replied with showers of stones which compelled the entrance to be closed. As the crowd surged around, the worshippers were glad to escape with their lives through the cloisters. Francesco Valori and Paolo Antonio Soderini were there in consultation with Savonarola. Soderini made good his exit from the city; Valori was seized while skirting the walls, and carried in front of his palace, which had already been attacked by the Compagnacci. Before his eyes, his wife, who was pleading with the assailants from a window, was slain with a missile, one of his children and a female servant were wounded, and the palace was sacked and burned, after which he was struck from behind and killed by his enemies of the families Tornabuoni and Ridolfi. Two other houses of Savonarola’s partisans were likewise pillaged and burned.[242]
In the midst of the uproar there came forth successive proclamations from the Signoria ordering Savonarola to quit the Florentine territories within twelve hours, and all laymen to leave the church of San Marco within one hour. Although these were followed by others threatening death to any one entering the church, they virtually legalized the riot, showing what had doubtless been the secret springs that set it in motion. The assault on San Marco then became a regular siege. Matters had for some time looked so threatening that during the past fortnight the friars had been secretly providing themselves with arms. These they and their friends used gallantly, even against the express commands of Savonarola, and a melée occurred in which more than a hundred on both sides were killed and wounded. At last the Signoria sent guards to capture Savonarola and his principal aids, Domenico and Salvestro, with a pledge that no harm should be done to them. Resistance ceased; the two former were found in the library, but Salvestro had hidden himself, and was not captured till the next day. The prisoners were ironed hand and foot and carried through the streets, where their guards could not protect them from kicks and buffets by the raging mob.[243]
The next day there was comparative quiet. The revolution in which the aristocracy had allied itself with the dangerous classes was complete. The Piagnoni were thoroughly cowed. Opprobrious epithets were freely lavished on Savonarola by the victors, and any one daring to utter a word in his defence would have been slain on the spot. To render the triumph permanent, however, it was necessary first to discredit him utterly with the people and then to despatch him. No time was lost in preparing to give a judicial appearance to the foregone conclusion. During the day a tribunal of seventeen members selected from among his special enemies, such as Doffo Spini, was nominated, which set promptly to work on April 10, although its formal commission, including power to use torture, was not made out until the 11th. Papal authority to disregard the clerical immunity of the prisoners was applied for, but the proceedings were not delayed by waiting for the answer, which, of course, was favorable, and two papal commissioners were adjoined to the tribunal. Savonarola and his companions, still ironed hand and foot, were carried to the Bargello. The official account states that he was first interrogated kindly, but as he would not confess he was threatened with torture, and this proving ineffectual he was subjected to three and a half tratti di fune. This was a customary form of torture, known as the strappado, which consisted in tying the prisoner’s hands behind his back, then hoisting him by a rope fastened to his wrists, letting him drop from a height and arresting him with a jerk before his feet reached the floor. Sometimes heavy weights were attached to the feet to render the operation more severe. Officially it is stated that this first application was sufficient to lead him to confess freely, but the general belief at the time was that it was repeated with extreme severity.[244]
Be this as it may, Savonarola’s nervous organization was too sensitive for him to endure agony which he knew would be indefinitely prolonged by those determined to effect a predestined result. He entreated to be released from the torture and promised to reveal everything. His examination lasted until April 18, but even in his complying frame of mind the resultant confession required to be manipulated before it could be made public. For this infamous piece of work a fitting instrument was at hand. Ser Ceccone was an old partisan of the Medici whose life had been saved by Savonarola’s secretly giving him refuge in San Marco, and who now repaid the benefit by sacrificing his benefactor. As a notary he was familiar with such work, and under his skilful hands the incoherent answers of Savonarola were moulded into a narrative which is the most abject of self-accusations and most compromising to all his friends.[245]
He is made to represent himself as being from the first a conscious impostor, whose sole object was to gain power by deceiving the people. If his project of convoking a council had resulted in his being chosen pope he would not have refused the position, but if not he would at all events have become the foremost man in the world. For his own purposes he had arrayed the citizens against each other and caused a rupture between the city and the Holy See, striving to erect a government on the Venetian model, with Francesco Valori as perpetual doge. The animus of the trial is clearly revealed in the scant attention paid to his spiritual aberrations, which were the sole offences for which he could be convicted, and the immense detail devoted to his political activity, and to his relations with all obnoxious citizens whom it was desired to involve in his ruin. Had there been any pretence of observing ordinary judicial forms, the completeness with which he was represented as abasing himself would have overreached its purpose. In forcing him to confess that he was no prophet, and that he had always secretly believed the papal excommunication to be valid, he was relieved from the charge of persistent heresy, and he could legally be only sentenced to penance; but, as there was no intention of being restricted to legal rules, the first object was to discredit him with the people, after which he could be judicially murdered with impunity.[246]
The object was thoroughly attained. On April 19, in the great hall of the council, the confession was publicly read in the presence of all who might see fit to attend. The effect produced is well described by the honest Luca Landucci, who had been an earnest and devout, though timid, follower of Frà Girolamo, and who now grieved bitterly at the disappearance of his illusions, and at the shattering of the gorgeous day-dreams in which the disciples had nursed themselves. Deep was his anguish as he listened to the confession of one “whom we believed to be a prophet and who now confessed that he was no prophet, and that what he preached was not revealed to him by God. I was stupefied and my very soul was filled with grief to see the destruction of such an edifice, which crumbled because it was founded on a lie. I had expected to see Florence a new Jerusalem, whence should issue the laws and the splendor and the example of the holy life; to see the renovation of the Church, the conversion of the infidel, and the rejoicing of the good. I found the reverse of all this, and I swallowed the dose”—a natural enough metaphor, seeing that Landucci was an apothecary.[247]
Yet even with this the Signoria was not satisfied. On April 21 a new trial was ordered; Savonarola was tortured again, and further avowals of his political action were wrung from him,[248] while a general arrest was made of those who were compromised by his confessions, and those of Domenico and Salvestro, creating a terror so widespread that large numbers of his followers fled from the city. On the 27th the prisoners were taken to the Bargello and so tortured that during the whole of the afternoon their shrieks were heard by the passers-by, but nothing was wrung from them to incriminate Savonarola. The officials in power had but a short time for action, as their term of office ended with the month, although by arbitrary and illegal devices they secured successors of their own party. Their last official act, on the 30th, was the exile of ten of the accused citizens, and the imposition on twenty-three of various fines, amounting in all to twelve thousand florins.[249]
The new government which came in power May 1 at once discharged the imprisoned citizens, but kept Savonarola and his companions. These, as Dominicans, were not justiciable by the civil power, but the Signoria immediately applied to Alexander for authority to condemn and execute them. He refused, and ordered them to be delivered to him for judgment, as he had already done when the news reached him of Savonarola’s capture. To this the republic demurred, doubtless for the reason privately alleged to the ambassador, that Savonarola was privy to too many state secrets to be intrusted to the Roman curia; but it suggested that the pope might send commissioners to Florence to conduct the proceedings in his name. To this he assented. In a brief of May 11 the Bishop of Vaison, the suffragan of the Archbishop of Florence, is instructed to degrade the culprits from holy orders, at the requisition of the commissioners who had been empowered to conduct the examination and trial to final sentence. In the selection of these commissioners the Inquisition does not appear. Even had it not fallen too low in popular estimation to be intrusted with an affair of so much moment, in Tuscany it was Franciscan, and to have given special authority to the existing inquisitor, Frà Francesco da Montalcino, would have been injudicious in view of the part taken by the Franciscans in the downfall of Savonarola. Alexander showed his customary shrewdness in selecting for the miserable work the Dominican general, Giovacchino Torriani, who bore the reputation of a kind-hearted and humane man. He was but a stalking-horse, however, for the real actor was his associate, Francesco Romolino, a clerk of Lerida, whose zeal in the infamous business was rewarded with the cardinalate and archbishopric of Palermo. After all, their duties were only ministerial and not judicial, for the matter had been prejudged at Rome. Romolino openly boasted, “We shall have a fine bonfire, for I bring the sentence with me,”[250]