This strange proposition was rejected by Savonarola; but his friend and disciple, Friar Domenico Buonvicino, eagerly accepted it. Francis of Apulia declared that he would risk his life against Savonarola only. Meanwhile, a crowd of monks, of the Dominican and Franciscan orders, rivalled each other in their offers to prove by the ordeal of fire, on one side the truth, on the other the falsehood, of the new doctrine. Enthusiasm spread beyond the two convents; many priests and seculars, and even women and children, more especially on the side of Savonarola, earnestly requested to be admitted to the proof. The pope warmly testified his gratitude to the Franciscans for their devotion. The signoria of Florence consented that two monks only should devote themselves for their respective orders, and directed the pile to be prepared. The whole population of the town and country, to which a signal miracle was promised, received the announcement with transports of joy.
On the 7th of April, 1498, a scaffold, dreadful to look on, was erected in the public square of Florence: two piles of large pieces of wood, mixed with fagots and broom, which should quickly take fire, extended each eighty feet long, four feet thick, and five feet high; they were separated by a narrow space of two feet, to serve as a passage by which the two priests were to enter, and pass the whole length of the piles during the fire. Every window was full; every roof was covered with spectators; almost the whole population of the republic was collected round the place. The portico called the Loggia de’ Lanzi, divided in two by a partition, was assigned to the two orders of monks. The Dominicans arrived at their station chanting canticles, and bearing the holy sacrament. The Franciscans immediately declared that they would not permit the host to be carried amidst flames. They insisted that the friar Buonvicino should enter the fire, as their own champion was prepared to do, without this divine safeguard. The Dominicans answered, that they would not separate themselves from their God at the moment when they implored his aid. The dispute upon this point grew warm. Several hours passed away. The multitude, which had waited long, and begun to feel hunger and thirst, lost patience; a deluge of rain suddenly fell upon the city, and descended in torrents from the roofs of the houses—all present were drenched. The piles were so wet that they could no longer be lighted; and the crowd, disappointed of a miracle so impatiently looked for, separated, with the notion of having been unworthily trifled with. Savonarola lost all his credit; he was henceforth rather looked on as an impostor. Next day his convent was besieged by the Arabiati, eager to profit by the inconstancy of the multitude; he was arrested, with his two friends, Domenico Buonvicino and Silvestro Marruffi, and led to prison. The Piagnoni, his partisans, were exposed to every outrage from the populace—two of them were killed; their rivals and old enemies exciting the general ferment for their destruction. Even in the signoria the majority was against them, and yielded to the pressing demands of the pope. The three imprisoned monks were subjected to a criminal prosecution. Alexander VI despatched judges from Rome, with orders to condemn the accused to death. Conformably with the laws of the church, the trial opened with the torture. Savonarola was too weak and nervous to support it: he avowed in his agony all that was imputed to him; and, with his two disciples, was condemned to death. The three monks were burned alive, on the 23rd of May, 1498, in the same square where, six weeks before, a pile had been raised to prepare them a triumph.
THE FRENCH IN MILAN
[1498-1499 A.D.]
The expedition of Charles VIII against Naples had directed towards Italy the attention of all the western powers. The transalpine nations had learned that they were strong enough to act as masters, and if they pleased as robbers, in this the richest and most civilised country of the earth. All the powers on the confines henceforth aspired to subject some part of Italy to their dominion. They coveted their share of tribute from a land so fruitful of impost, from those cities in which industry employed such numbers, and accumulated so much capital. Cupidity put arms in their hands, and smothered every generous feeling. The commanders were rapacious; the soldiers thought only of pillage. They regarded the Italians as a race abandoned to their extortions, and vied with each other in the barbarous methods which they invented for extorting money from the vanquished, until at last they completely destroyed the prosperity which had provoked their envy.
Charles VIII died at Amboise, on the 7th of April, 1498, the day destined at Florence for the trial by fire of the doctrine of Savonarola. Louis XII, who succeeded that monarch, claimed, as grandson of Valentina Visconti, to be the legitimate heir to the duchy of Milan, although, according to the law acknowledged by all Italy, and confirmed by the imperial investure granted to the father of Valentina, females were excluded from all share in the succession. This monarch, at his coronation, took with the title of king of France those of duke of Milan and king of Naples and Jerusalem. It was to the duchy of Milan that he seemed particularly attached, apparently as having been the object of his ambition before he came to the throne. He preserved during his whole reign, as if he were simply duke of Milan, a feudal respect for the emperor as lord paramount, which was as fatal to France as to Italy.
After having thus announced to the world his pretensions to the duchy of Milan, Louis hastened to secure his possession of it by arms. He easily separated his antagonist, Lodovico Sforza, from all his allies. The emperor Maximilian had married the niece of Lodovico, to whom he had granted the investure of his duchy; but Maximilian forgot, with extreme levity, his promises and alliances. A new ambition, a supposed offence, even a whim, sufficed to make him abandon his most matured projects. The Swiss had just then excited his resentment; and to attack them the more effectually, he signed with Louis XII a truce, in which Lodovico Sforza was not included, and was therefore abandoned to his enemy. The Venetians were interested still more than the emperor in defending Lodovico, but were incensed against him; they accused him of having deceived them, as well in the war against Charles VIII as in that for the defence of Pisa. They suspected him of having suggested to Maximilian the claims which he had just made on all their conquests in Lombardy, as having previously appertained to the empire. They were obliged, moreover, to reserve all their resources to resist the most formidable of their enemies. Bajazet II had just declared war against them. Bands of robbers continually descended from the mountains of Turkish Albania to lay waste Venetian Dalmatia. The Turkish pashas offered their support to every traitor who attempted to take from the Venetians any of their stations in the Levant. Corfu very nearly fell into the hands of the Turks; at length hostilities openly began. The Turks attacked Zara; all the Venetian merchants established at Constantinople were put into irons, and Scander Pasha, sanjak of Bosnia, passed the Isonzo on the 29th of September, 1499, with seven thousand Turkish cavalry. He ravaged all the rich country which extends from that river to the Tagliamento, at the extremity of the Adriatic, and spread terror up to the lagunes which surround Venice. Invaded by an enemy so formidable, against whom they were destined to support, for seven years, a relentless war, the Venetians would not expose themselves to the danger of maintaining another war against the French. On the 15th of April, 1499, they signed, at Blois, with Louis, a treaty, by which they contracted an alliance against Lodovico Sforza and abandoned the conquest of the Milanese to the king of France, reserving to themselves Cremona and the Ghiara d’Adda.
[1499-1500 A.D.]
Lodovico Sforza found no allies in any other part of Italy. Since the execution of Savonarola at Florence, the faction of the Arabiati had succeeded that of the Piagnoni in the administration, without changing its policy. The republic continued to guard against the intrigues of the Medici, who entered into an alliance with every enemy of their country, in order to bring it back under their yoke. Florence continued her efforts to subdue Pisa; but, fearing to excite the jealousy of the kings of France and Spain, did not assemble for that purpose either a numerous army or a great train of artillery. She contented herself with ravaging the Pisan territory every year, in order to reduce that city by famine. Even these expeditions were suspended when those powerful monarchs found it convenient to make a show of peace. The cities of Siena, Lucca, and Genoa, actuated by their jealousy of Florence, sent succour to Pisa. Pope Alexander VI, who had been always the enemy of Charles VIII, now entered into an alliance with Louis XII; but on condition that Cesare Borgia, son of Alexander, should be made duke of Valentinois in France and of Romagna in Italy—the French king assisting him against the petty princes, feudatories of the holy see, who were masters of that province. The king of Naples, Frederick, who had succeeded his nephew Ferdinand on the 7th of September, 1496, was well aware that he should, in his turn, be attacked by France; but although he merited, by his talents and virtues, the confidence of his subjects, he had great difficulty in re-establishing some order in his kingdom, which was ruined by war, and had neither an army nor an exchequer to succour his natural ally, the duke of Milan.
A powerful French army, commanded by the sires De Ligny and D’Aubigny, passed the Alps in the month of August, 1499. On the 13th of that month they attacked and took by assault the two petty fortresses of Arazzo and Annone, on the borders of the Tanaro; putting the garrisons, and almost all the inhabitants, to the sword. This ferocious proceeding spread terror among the troops of Lodovico Sforza. His army, the command of which he had given to Galeazzo San Severino, dispersed; and the duke, not venturing to remain at Milan, sought for himself, his children, and his treasure refuge in Germany, with the emperor Maximilian. Louis XII, who arrived afterwards in Italy, made his entry into the forsaken capital of Lodovico on the 2nd of October. The trembling people, wishing to conciliate their new master, saluted him with the title of duke of Milan, and expressed their joy in receiving him as their sovereign. The rest of Lombardy also submitted without resistance; and Genoa, which had placed itself under the protection of the duke of Milan, passed over to that of the king of France.