The commissioners reached Florence May 19, and lost no time in accomplishing their object. The only result of the papal intervention was to subject the victims to a surplusage of agony and shame. For form’s sake, the papal judges could not accept the proceedings already had, but must inflict on Savonarola a third trial. Brought before Romolino on the 20th, he retracted his confession as extorted by torture, and asserted that he was an envoy of God. Under the inquisitorial formulas this retraction of confession rendered him a relapsed heretic, who could be burned without further ceremony, but his judges wanted to obtain information desired by Alexander, and again the sufferer was repeatedly subjected to the strappado, when he withdrew his retraction. Special inquiries were directed to ascertain whether the Cardinal of Naples had been privy to the design of convoking a general council, and under the stress of reiterated torture Savonarola was brought to admit this on the 21st, but on the 22d he withdrew the assertion, and the whole confession, although manipulated by the skilful hand of Ser Ceccone, was so nearly a repetition of the previous one that it was never given to the public. This mattered little, however, for the whole proceedings were a barefaced mockery of justice. From some oversight Domenico da Pescia’s name had not been included in the papal commission. He was an individual of no personal importance, but some zealous Florentine warned Romolino that there might be danger in sparing him, when the commissioner carelessly replied “A frataccio more or less makes no difference,” and his name was added to the sentence. He was an impenitent heretic, for with heroic firmness he had borne the most excruciating torture without retracting his faith in his beloved prophet.[251]
The accused were at least spared the torment of suspense. On the 22d judgment was pronounced. They were condemned as heretics and schismatics, rebels from the Church, sowers of tares and revealers of confessions, and were sentenced to be abandoned to the secular arm. To justify relaxation, it was requisite that the culprit should be a relapsed or a defiant heretic, and Savonarola was not regarded as coming under either category. He had always declared his readiness to retract anything which Rome might define as erroneous. He had confessed all that had been required of him, nor was his retraction when removed from torture treated as a relapse, for he and his companions were admitted to communion before execution, without undergoing the ceremony of abjuration, which shows that they were not considered as heretics, nor cut off from the Church. In fact, as though to complete the irregularity of the whole transaction, Savonarola himself was allowed to act as the celebrant, and to perform the sacred mysteries on the morning of the execution. All this went for nothing, however, when a Borgia was eager for revenge. On the previous evening a great pile had been built in the piazza. The next morning, May 23, the ceremony of degradation from holy orders was performed in public, after which the convicts were handed over to the secular magistrates. Was it hypocrisy or remorse that led Romolino at this moment to give to his victims, in the name of Alexander, plenary indulgence of their sins, thus restoring them to a state of primal innocence? Irregular as the whole affair had been, it was rendered still more so by the Signoria, which modified the customary penalty to hanging before the burning, and the three martyrs endured their fate in silence.[252]
The utmost care was taken that the bodies should be utterly consumed, after which every fragment of ashes was scrupulously gathered up and thrown into the Arno, in order to prevent the preservation of relics. Yet, at the risk of their lives, some earnest disciples secretly managed to secure a few floating coals, as well as some fragments of garments, which were treasured and venerated even to recent times. Though many of the believers, like honest Landucci, were disillusioned, many were persistent in the faith, and for a long while lived in the daily expectation of Savonarola’s advent, like a new Messiah, to work out the renovation of Christianity and the conversion of the infidel—the realization of the splendid promises with which he had beguiled himself and them. So profound and lasting was the impression made by his terrible fate that for more than two centuries, until 1703, the place of execution was secretly strewed with flowers on the night of the anniversary, May 23.[253]
The papal commissioners reaped a harvest by summoning to Rome the followers of Savonarola, and then speculating on their fears by selling them exemptions. Florence itself was not long in realizing the strength of the reaction against the puritanic methods which Savonarola had enforced. The streets again became filled with reckless desperadoes, quarrels and murders were frequent, gambling was unchecked, and license reigned supreme. Nardi tells us that it seemed as if decency and virtue had been prohibited by law, and the common remark was, that since the coming of Mahomet no such scandal had been inflicted upon the Church of God. As Landucci says, it seemed as if hell had broken loose. As though in very wantonness to show the Church what were the allies whom it had sought in the effort to crush unwelcome reform, on the following Christmas eve a horse was brought into the Duomo, and deliberately tortured to death, goats were let loose in San Marco, and in all the churches assafœtida was placed in the censers; nor does it seem that any punishment was visited upon the perpetrators of these public sacrileges. The Church had used the sceptics to gain her ends, and could not complain of the manner in which they repaid her for her assistance in the unholy alliance.[254]
Savonarola had built his house upon the sand, and was swept away by the waters. Yet, in spite of his execution as a heretic, the Church has tacitly confessed its own crime by admitting that he was no heretic, but rather a saint, and the most convenient evasion of responsibility was devoutly to refer the whole matter, as Luke Wadding does, to the mysterious judgment of God. Even Torriani and Romolino, after burning him, when they ordered, May 27, under pain of excommunication, all his writings to be delivered up to them for examination, were unable to discover any heretical opinions, and were obliged to return them without erasures. Perhaps it might have been as well to do this before condemning him. Paul III. declared that he would hold as a heretic any one who should assail the memory of Frà Girolamo; and Paul IV. had his works rigorously examined by a special congregation, which declared that they contained no heresy. Fifteen of his sermons, denunciatory of ecclesiastical abuses, and his treatise De Veritate Prophetica, were placed upon the index as unfitted for general reading, donec corrigantur, but not as heretical. Benedict XIV., in his great work, De Servorum Dei Beatificatione, includes Savonarola’s name in a list of the saints and men illustrious for sanctity. Images of him graced with the nimbus of sanctity were allowed to be publicly sold, and St. Filippo Neri kept one of these constantly by him. St. Francesco di Paola held him to be a saint. St. Catarina Ricci used to invoke him as a saint, and considered his suffrage peculiarly efficacious; when she was canonized, her action with regard to this was brought before the consistory, and was thoroughly discussed. Prospero Lambertini, afterwards Benedict XIV., was the Promotor fidei, and investigated the matter carefully, coming to the conclusion that this in no degree detracted from the merits of St. Catarina. Benedict XIII. also examined the case thoroughly, and, dreading a renewal of the old controversy as to the justice of Savonarola’s sentence, ordered the discussion to cease and the proceedings to continue without reference to it, which was a virtual decision in favor of the martyr’s saintliness. In S. Maria Novella and S. Marco he is pictured as a saint, and in the frescos of the Vatican Raphael included him among the doctors of the Church. The Dominicans long cherished his memory, and were greatly disposed to regard him as a genuine prophet and uncanonized saint. When Clement VIII., in 1598, hoped to acquire Ferrara, he is said to have made a vow that if successful he would canonize Savonarola, and the hopes of the Dominicans grew so sanguine that they composed a litany for him in advance. In fact, in many of the Dominican convents of Italy during the sixteenth century, on the anniversary of his execution an office was sung to him as to a martyr. His marvellous career thus furnishes the exact antithesis of that of his Ferrarese compatriot, Armanno Pongilupo—the one was venerated as a saint and then burned as a heretic, the other was burned as a heretic and then venerated as a saint.[255]
CHAPTER V.
POLITICAL HERESY UTILIZED BY THE STATE.
IT was inevitable that secular potentates should follow the example of the Church in the employment of a weapon so efficient as the charge of heresy, when they chanced to be in the position of controlling the ecclesiastical organization.
A typical illustration of this is seen when, during the anarchy which prevailed in Rome after the death of Innocent VII. in 1406, Basilio Ordelaffi incurred the enmity of the Colonnas and the Savelli, and they found that the easiest way to deal with him was through the Inquisition. Under their impulsion it seized him and two of his adherents, Matteo and Merenda. Through means procured by his daughter, Ordelaffi escaped from prison and was condemned in contumaciam. The others confessed—doubtless under torture—the heresies attributed to them, were handed over to the secular arm, and were duly burned. Their houses were torn down, and on their sites in time were erected two others, one of which afterwards became the dwelling of Michael Angelo and the other of Salvator Rosa.[256]
Secular potentates, however, had not waited till the fifteenth century to appreciate the facilities afforded by heresy and the Inquisition for the accomplishment of their objects. Already a hundred years earlier the methods of the Inquisition had suggested to Philippe le Bel the great crime of the Middle Ages—the destruction of the Order of the Temple.
When, in 1119, Hugues de Payen and Geoffroi de Saint-Adhémar with seven companions devoted themselves to the pious task of keeping the roads to Jerusalem clear of robbers, that pilgrims might traverse them in safety, and when Raymond du Puy about the same time organized the Poor Brethren of the Hospital of St. John, they opened a new career which was irresistibly attractive to the warlike ardor and religious enthusiasm of the age. The strange combination of monasticism and chivalry corresponded so exactly to the ideal of Christian knighthood that the Military Orders thus founded speedily were reckoned among the leading institutions of Europe. At the Council of Troyes, in 1128, a Rule, drawn up it is said by St. Bernard, was assigned to Hugues and his associates, who were known as the Poor Soldiers of the Temple. They were assigned a white habit, as a symbol of innocence, to which Eugenius III. added a red cross, and their standard, Bauséant, half black and half white, with its legend, “Non nobis Domine,” soon became the rallying-point of the Christian chivalry. The Rule, based upon that of the strict Cistercian Order, was exceedingly severe. The members were bound by the three monastic vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity, and these were enforced in the statutes of the Order with the utmost rigor. The applicant for admission was required to ask permission to become the serf and slave of the “House” forever, and was warned that he henceforth surrendered his own will irrevocably. He was promised bread and water and the poor vestments of the House; and if after death gold or silver were found among his effects his body was thrust into unconsecrated ground, or, if buried, it was exhumed. Chastity was prescribed in the same unsparing fashion, and even the kiss of a mother was forbidden.[257]