The name of Alexander VI has attained an evil eminence of infamy on account of his own crimes and vices and those of his children, Caesar Borgia and Lucretia. One proof that the public conscience of Italy, instead of being stupified by the orgy of wickedness at Rome was rather becoming aroused by it, is found in the appearance, just at this time, of a number of preachers of repentance. These men, usually friars, started "revivals" marked by the customary phenomena of sudden conversion, hysteria, and extreme austerity. The greatest of them all was the Dominican Jerome Savonarola [Sidenote: Savonarola] who, though of mediocre intellectual gifts, by the passionate fervor of his convictions, attained the position of a prophet at Florence. He began preaching here in 1482, and so stirred his audiences that many wept and some were petrified with horror. His credit was greatly raised by his prediction of the invasion of Charles VIII of France in 1494. He succeeded in driving out the Medici and in introducing a new constitution of a democratic nature, which he believed was directly sanctioned by God. He attacked the morals of the clergy and of the people and, besides renovating his own order, suppressed not only public immorality but all forms of frivolity. The people burned their cards, false hair, indecent pictures, and the like; many women left their husbands and entered the cloister; gamblers were tortured and blasphemers had their tongues pierced. A police was instituted with power of searching houses.
It was only the pope's fear of Charles VIII that prevented his dealing with this dangerous reformer, who now began to attack the vices of the curia. In 1495, however, the friar was summoned to Rome, and {18} refused to go; he was then forbidden to preach, and disobeyed. In Lent 1496 he proclaimed the duty of resisting the pope when in error. In November a new brief proposed changes in the constitution of his order which would bring him more directly under the power of Rome. Savonarola replied that he did not fear the excommunication of the sinful church, which, when launched against him May 12, 1497, only made him more defiant. Claiming to be commissioned directly from God, he appealed to the powers to summon a general council against the pope.
At this juncture one of his opponents, a Franciscan, Francis da Puglia, proposed to him the ordeal by fire, stating that though he expected to be burnt he was willing to take the risk for the sake of the faith. The challenge refused by Savonarola was taken up by his friend Fra Domenico da Peseta, and although forbidden by Alexander, the ordeal was sanctioned by the Signory and a day set. A dispute as to whether Domenico should be allowed to take the host or the crucifix into the flames prevented the experiment from taking place, and the mob, furious at the loss of its promised spectacle, refused further support to the discredited leader. For some years, members of his own order, who resented the severity of his reform, had cherished a grievance against him, and now they had their chance. Seized by the Signory, he was tortured and forced to confess that he was not a prophet, and on May 22, 1498, was condemned, with two companions, to be hung. After the speedy execution of the sentence, which the sufferers met calmly, their bodies were burnt. All effects of Savonarola's career, political, moral, and religious, shortly disappeared.
Alexander was followed by a Rovere who took the name of Julius II. [Sidenote: Julius II 1503-13] Notwithstanding his advanced age this pontiff proved one of the most vigorous and able {19} statesman of the time and devoted himself to the aggrandizement, by war and diplomacy, of the Papal States. He did not scruple to use his spiritual thunders against his political enemies, as when he excommunicated the Venetians. [Sidenote: 1509] He found himself at odds with both the Emperor Maximilian and Louis XII of France, who summoned a schismatic council at Pisa. [Sidenote: 1511] Supported by some of the cardinals this body revived the legislation of Constance and Basle, but fell into disrepute when, by a master stroke of policy, Julius convoked a council at Rome. [Sidenote: 1512-16] This synod, the Fifth Lateran, lasted for four years, and endeavored to deal with a crusade and with reform. All its efforts at reform proved abortive because they were either choked, while in course of discussion, by the Curia, or, when passed, were rendered ineffective by the dispensing power.
[Sidenote: Leo X 1513-21]
While the synod was still sitting Julius died and a new pope was chosen. This was the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, the Medici Leo X. Having taken the tonsure at the age of seven, and received the red hat six years later, he donned the tiara at the early age of thirty-eight. His words, as reported by the Venetian ambassador at Rome, "Let us enjoy the papacy, since God has given it to us," exactly express his program. To make life one long carnival, to hunt game and to witness comedies and the antics of buffoons, to hear marvellous tales of the new world and voluptuous verses of the humanists and of the great Ariosto, to enjoy music and to consume the most delicate viands and the most delicious wines—this was what he lived for. Free and generous with money, he prodigally wasted the revenues of three pontificates. Spending no less than 6000 ducats a month on cards and gratuities, he was soon forced to borrow to the limit of his credit. Little recked he that Germany was being {20} reft from the church by a poor friar. His irresolute policy was incapable of pursuing any public end consistently, save that he employed the best Latinists of the time to give elegance to his state papers. His method of governing was the purely personal one, to pay his friends and flatterers at the expense of the common good. One of his most characteristic letters expresses his intention of rewarding with high office a certain gentleman who had given him a dinner of lampreys.
SECTION 3. CAUSES OF THE REFORMATION
[Sidenote: Corruption of the church not a main cause of the Reformation]
In the eyes of the early Protestants the Reformation was a return to primitive Christianity and its principal cause was the corruption of the church. That there was great depravity in the church as elsewhere cannot be doubted, but there are several reasons for thinking that it could not have been an important cause for the loss of so many of her sons. In the first place there is no good ground for believing that the moral condition of the priesthood was worse in 1500 than it had been for a long time; indeed, there is good evidence to the contrary, that things were tending to improve, if not at Rome yet in many parts of Christendom. If objectionable practices of the priests had been a sufficient cause for the secession of whole nations, the Reformation would have come long before it actually did. Again, there is good reason to doubt that the mere abuse of an institution has ever led to its complete overthrow; as long as the institution is regarded as necessary, it is rather mended than ended. Thirdly, many of the acts that seem corrupt to us, gave little offence to contemporaries, for they were universal. If the church sold offices and justice, so did the civil governments. If the clergy lived impure lives, so did the laity. Probably the standard of the {21} church (save in special circumstances) was no worse than that of civil life, and in some respects it was rather more decent. Finally, there is some reason to suspect of exaggeration the charges preferred by the innovators. Like all reformers they made the most of their enemy's faults. Invective like theirs is common to every generation and to all spheres of life. It is true that the denunciation of the priesthood comes not only from Protestants and satirists, but from popes and councils and canonized saints, and that it bulks large in medieval literature. Nevertheless, it is both a priori probable and to some extent historically verifiable that the evil was more noisy, not more potent, than the good. But though the corruptions of the church were not a main cause of the Protestant secession, they furnished good excuses for attack; the Reformers were scandalized by the divergence of the practice and the pretensions of the official representatives of Christianity, and their attack was envenomed and the break made easier thereby. It is therefore necessary to say a few words about those abuses at which public opinion then took most offence.
[Sidenote: Abuses: Financial]