DEATH IN FLORENCE: THE MEDICI, SAVONAROLA AND THE BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF THE RENAISSANCE CITY (IX)

 

16. ‘A BOLT FROM THE BLUE’¹

 

INITIALLY, IT SEEMED that little attention had been paid in the Vatican to Savonarola’s impudent reply to Alexander VI, refusing his cordial invitation to visit Rome. The pope had other matters on his mind: after the humiliation inflicted on him by Charles VIII and the French army on their passage through Rome, he now had to re-establish his power in the Holy City, and at the same time plan his next political move on the Italian scene.

After Savonarola had delivered his ‘last sermon’ at the end of July 1495, overseen the first edition of his ‘Compendium of Revelations’ into print and despatched his letter replying to Alexander VI, he had retired to the summer countryside to recover from the mental and physical exhaustion brought on by his ascetic way of life and by his strenuous attempts to guide Florentine politics, all exacerbated by his dysentery. It seems most likely that he stayed at the hospice of Santa Maria del Sasso in the mountains at Casentino some thirty miles east of Florence. Two years previously this had become part of the independent Tuscan Congregation under the rule of Savonarola, and his stay thus coincided with his intention to visit all the institutions that had recently come under his rule. Away from the heat and stress of the city, along with the self-imposed intensity of his life at San Marco, Savonarola had gradually begun to recover his health and strength.

Then, some time during the second week in September, with all the force of ‘a bolt from the blue’, a papal Brief arrived in Florence from Rome. This was dated 8 September, was certainly not composed by Alexander VI, and was probably not even written on his direct orders. However, its composition and method of address betrayed all the skill of a highly accomplished political operator, to say nothing of a man well versed in the ways of the Church. It is now known that this so-called papal Brief was in fact penned by Bartolomeo Floridi, Bishop of Cosenza, a leading member of the papal secreteriat, almost certainly at the prompting of Piero de’ Medici or his followers in Rome^[1].

All the better to serve his purpose, and possibly to cover his tracks, Floridi deviously chose not to send his Brief directly to Savonarola at San Marco, but instead to ‘the prior and Monastery of Santa Croce’.² This was the centre of the main clerical opposition to Savonarola in Florence, the home of the rival Franciscans. Consequently, as doubtless intended, the contents of this so-called papal Brief quickly spread through Florence, especially amongst the Arrabbiati and the Medici supporters, a week or so before the Brief was passed on to San Marco. Even then it did not pass immediately into Savonarola’s hands, as the original receipt indicates that the prior was at the time ‘gratia recuperandae valetudinis absens’ ³ – in other words, he was still away recuperating, probably at Casentino.

The Brief itself was a chilling document. After opening with a few general observations about how dangerous matters, such as ‘schisms within the Church’ and ‘heretical thinking’, can result from ‘adopting a false simplicity’, it then passed on to name ‘a certain Girolamo Savonarola’, who had:

become so deranged by recent upheavals in Italy that he has begun to proclaim that he has been sent by God and even speaks with God … claiming that anyone who does not accept his prophecies cannot hope for salvation … Despite our patience he refuses to repent and absolve his sins by submitting to our will. Consequently, we have decided to put an end to the scandalous secession of the Tuscan Congregation from that of Lombardy, to which we only consented because of the exhortations of certain deceitful friars. We have decided to re-unite these congregations under the rule of the Lombardy Vicar-General Sebastiano Maggi, who will lead an inquiry into the activities of Savonarola as well as into his writings. Until this inquiry is completed, Savonarola is suspended from all preaching … Anyone who does not comply with the requirements of this brief will suffer instant excommunication.

 

Savonarola’s immediate reaction to this document can only be imagined. Now he stood to lose the independence that he had gained at such cost – for which he had compromised the very integrity upon which all his spiritual aims were based, entering into his pact with the dying Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Savonarola may not actually have received the so-called papal Brief until he returned to Florence. His reply to it was certainly written in Florence, and is dated 29 September, probably no more than a day or so after he first read its contents. Savonarola realised that if he was to have any chance of retaining his independence and fulfilling the role that he felt God had given him, he would have to convince Rome of his cause. In this letter he would have to demonstrate, and redeem, the very nature of his faith. Painstakingly he justified himself, point by point, attempting to refute each of the accusations made against him. The difficulty of doing this, yet at the same time not contradicting the authority of the pope and the orthodoxy of Church doctrine, proved a formidable task. As a result, a number of his arguments appear somewhat too clever for their own good. Having extolled the virtues of his pure and simple faith above all else, Savonarola now found himself relying upon his exceptional intellect to argue its case.

His meticulous reply extended over more than ten closely written pages. Later, he would famously maintain that the papal Brief contained ‘no less than eighteen mistakes’;⁴ however, just a few of his arguments will suffice to give the flavour of this letter. Savonarola claimed that contrary to the allegations made in the Brief, he had always been submissive to the Church: he had committed no heresy, because all he had done was call for sinners to repent. When it came to his role as a prophet, his argument was particularly devious:

With regards to prophecy, I have absolutely never made any claim to be a prophet. However, it would not be heresy were I to do so, for I have foretold things that have already come to pass, and the other things I have foretold will be proven true when they come to pass in the future.⁵

 

His most elaborate and pedantic arguments were reserved for his rebuttal of the papal Brief’s claims concerning the separation of the Lombardy and Tuscan Congregations. Savonarola insisted that this separation had not been the result of ‘the exhortations of certain deceitful friars’, as it had come about through the intervention of Cardinal Caraffa, the Cardinal Protector of the Dominican order. (Cardinal Caraffa’s subterfuge, and then slipping the ring from the pope’s finger – which certainly involved deceit, and arguably extortion too – were not mentioned, although Savonarola would certainly have been informed of what had happened.) Furthermore, he went on to argue, although the move for separation may have been instigated by the Dominicans of San Marco, they could hardly be stigmatised as ‘deceitful friars’ when they were known far and wide for their exemplary piety. Not least, Savonarola contended that it was definitely unjust to appoint the Vicar General of the Lombardy Congregation to head an inquiry into his behaviour, for Vicar General Maggi was known to have become his sworn enemy as a result of the separation. Ridolfi summarises Savonarola’s extraordinary conclusion:

Thus the accusations made against him were exposed as nothing but low slander. And for this reason, he indicated that he would take no action in accord with these superior orders until His Holiness, recognising his innocence, absolved him from all blame in this matter.⁶

 

This last ‘indication’ was certainly dangerous. However, Savonarola was playing on the fact that Alexander VI’s unwarranted interference in the affairs of the Dominicans was liable to cause deep ructions within the Church hierarchy. In consequence, immediately after finishing his reply to the pope, he wrote to Cardinal Caraffa, as head of the order, pleading for his support in this matter and claiming:

I am well aware of who is behind all these lies about me, and understand that they are the work of perverse citizens who wish to re-establish tyranny in Florence.⁷

 

Savonarola was confident that his arguments would win the day. So much so, that he now took matters into his own hands. Regardless of his insistence in his letter that he had always been submissive to the wishes of the Church, he defied the order in the papal Brief banning him from preaching by delivering a sermon on Sunday 11 October. This was followed by another the next Sunday. Savonarola’s motives for this action appear to have been to forestall his enemies. He had almost certainly heard from Rome (probably by way of Cardinal Caraffa) that Alexander VI had now covertly chosen to support the Medici cause and was backing a possible coup. The central messages of Savonarola’s sermons were both specious and directly political. First, he claimed that he had written to the pope and that his position had been resolved. He then advised the citizens of Florence that it was necessary to take immediate measures against the Arrabbiati, who were plotting against him, and to defend themselves against an imminent Medici coup. Now, instead of urging Florentines to forgive their enemies, he deliberately incited them to violence: ‘The time for mercy is past, it is time you took up your swords … cut off the head of anyone who opposes the republic.’⁸ Later, he drove home his message with what was unmistakably a direct reference to Piero de’ Medici: he urged the citizens of Florence to behave like the Ancient Romans when faced with the traitors who sought to overthrow the republic and restore Tarquin as their king: ‘Cut off his head, even though he be head of his family, cut off his head!’

Yet by the time he came to preach a third sermon, on Sunday 25 October, his entire attitude had undergone a transformation. This time he bade his congregation farewell, adding cryptically: ‘Pray to God that I will be inspired when the time comes for me to preach once more.’⁹ Savonarola had somehow received advance warning of what was about to take place. In a Brief from Alexander VI dated 16 October (which at the time of the sermon was still on its way from Rome to Florence), the pope had stated unequivocally:

We command you, by virtue of your vow of obedience, to cease preaching forthwith, both in public and in private, until such time as you are able to present yourself before us.¹⁰

 

This time there was no mistaking the author, the authority or the authenticity of the papal Brief (though in accord with protocol, it was once again signed by Floridi, to whom it would have been dictated). Alexander VI was determined to silence Savonarola. Yet why did he not officially excommunicate him?

Alexander VI now found himself facing the possibility of a serious threat to his very papacy itself. It had become clear that Charles VIII was once again considering the possibility of leading the French army into Italy, and this time he would not hesitate to depose Alexander VI at the first opportunity. Savonarola had remained in contact with Charles VIII, and had in fact written to him during the summer, urging him to do just this. Savonarola remained convinced that Charles VIII represented the ‘scourge of God’ and, should he fail to act in his appointed capacity, or behave in a manner not worthy of this role, God would not fail to punish him, as he had pointed out to the king personally when he had prevented him from sacking Florence.

As a result of this new threat, Alexander VI had decided to pursue a different policy in Italy, one that was no longer so reliant upon the Holy League, which was already showing signs of falling apart. His long-term aim would be to try and lure France into an alliance. This would be a difficult task, but it seemed the best hope to enable him to realise his political ambitions – or, indeed, to remain in power. And for this he would need the goodwill of Savonarola. Any attempt to excommunicate the ‘little friar’ would have upset both the people of Florence and Charles VIII, who still looked upon Savonarola as his friend. However, by taking the minor step of forbidding him from preaching, for disobeying the order in the previous papal Brief, Alexander VI knew that he was well within his rights. In fact, such a response would have been expected of him, in order to maintain his authority as pope: neither the people of Florence nor Charles VIII could have expected less. By silencing Savonarola, Alexander VI knew that he would be rendering him virtually ineffective. Savonarola’s power – over the people and his followers within the Church – lay above all else in his oratory.

During the ensuing months, Alexander VI found himself under considerable pressure to rescind his order silencing Savonarola, especially if he wished to gain the favour of Charles VIII. In consequence, when both the Florentine ambassador and Cardinal Caraffa once more pressed him to sign an order permitting Savonarola to start preaching again early in 1496, Alexander VI let it be known verbally that Savonarola could go ahead and preach the coming Lenten sermons. However, he refused to sign any document to this effect: Savonarola’s licence was thus limited, and open to immediate denial.

Carnival time, in the run-up to Lent, was traditionally a period of boisterous celebration in Florence. This was when Lorenzo the Magnificent had laid on his most elaborate and excessive entertainments, such as the bawdy dramas for which he had composed rhymes like ‘The Song of the Peasants’ (‘We’ve all got cucumbers, and big ones too …’). The activities of Carnival stemmed from the pre-Christian pagan festivals of Ancient Rome, and their true meaning had long since been lost in time. According to traditional custom, the citizens put on fancy dress and wore masks, roaming the streets and participating in wild revelries, often involving obscene ditties and lewd antics. Bonfires would be lit, around which men and women would perform bacchanalian dances. Barriers would be erected at the entrances to the different neighbourhoods, and any who wished to pass would be subjected to rude personal questions and coerced into paying ‘customs’ money. Things sometimes went too far during the ritual stone-throwing fights between gangs of boys from rival districts, when participants would frequently suffer ugly wounds, cracked skulls and even, on occasion, be killed. Many respectable citizens felt that these ‘celebrations’ were now getting dangerously out of control, and Savonarola latched onto this sentiment, organising a systematic campaign aimed at stamping out such ‘unchristian’ behaviour.

To do this, he made use of boys between the age of twelve and eighteen. In preparation for the traditional Christian rite of passage that confirmed full membership of the Church, allowing participants to take Holy Communion, the young men of Florence would be required to attend religious classes. Here they would learn their catechism, the questions and answers they would be expected to remember for the confirmation ceremony. Savonarola realised that these classes presented a unique opportunity to organise the youth of Florence into a strong religious force capable of combating the excesses of Carnival. He instructed the friars from San Marco who gave these classes to win over their charges to the simple faith that he preached in his sermons. Ideal candidates for such radicalising zeal, these impressionable adolescent boys soon became enthusiastic converts to Savonarola’s brand of fundamentalism. They were then organised into groups, clad in white for purity, and sent out into the Carnival streets with the aim of preventing any excesses. Altars, complete with crucifix and candles, were set up at the main city crossroads, where the boys sang hymns, encouraging the passers-by to stop and join in with them. Stealing a march on the revellers, they also set up their own street barriers, where instead of ridiculing those who sought to pass and bullying them into giving money, they would humbly seek alms for the poor. And by contrast with the gangs who roamed the streets looking for stone-throwing fights with their neighbourhood rivals, ‘Savonarola’s boys’ knocked on doors collecting items for charity.

Landucci, ever the upright citizen, recorded with pride that ‘some of my sons were amongst those blessed and pure-minded troops of boys’.¹¹ In his diary, he described an incident involving Savonarola’s boys during Carnival and the reaction it provoked:

Some boys took it upon themselves to confiscate the veil-holder of a girl walking down the Via de’ Martegli, and her family created a great uproar about it. This all took place because Savonarola had encouraged the boys to oppose the wearing of unsuitable ornaments by women.¹²

 

Savonarola also encouraged similar high-handed action towards the gamblers that he detested, ‘so that whenever anyone said, “Here come Savonarola’s boys!”, all the gamblers fled, no matter how rough they were’. Likewise, the ‘little friar’ had it in for his favourite abomination, which remained so popular in Florence: ‘The boys were so respected that everyone foreswore evil practices, and most of all the abominable vice. Such a thing was never mentioned by young or old during this holy time.’ The ‘abominable vice’ to which Landucci here refers was sodomy, which was widely practised throughout the city at this time on both men and women – by young men because of the unavailability of young women, who were required to remain virgins until they were married, and by husbands who wished to prevent their wives from producing a ruinous number of children. At Savonarola’s request, one of the first meetings of the Great Council in December 1494 had passed a new law imposing the death-penalty for sodomy. Yet despite Savonarola’s strictures, the city refrained from any mass burning at the stake of sodomites: over the coming three years just one man would be condemned, and he ‘was also said to be an infamous thief and bandit, for which the penalty was also death’.¹³ As Lauro Martines puts it: ‘Even in the face of a strong commitment to the Friar, Florence had too much political wisdom to witch-hunt active homosexuals and sodomised women.’¹⁴ Yet this might be seen as the exception that proved the rule. In so many other spheres, Savonarola’s coercion to religious fundamentalism was growing ever more effective.

Despite these puritanical constraints, Savonarola’s repression was evidently felt by many to be nothing compared to the repression from which the more democratic ‘City of God’ had relieved its citizens. Instead of the subtly pervasive and corrupting repression of Lorenzo the Magnificent and the Medici party enforcers, the people were seemingly liberated by their new-found holiness. As Landucci put it: ‘God be praised that I saw this short period of holiness. I pray that he may give us back that holy and pure life … what a blessed time it was.’ Although there was definitely some reaction against ‘Savonarola’s boys’ when they launched their campaign during the pre-Lenten Carnival of 1496, Landucci’s pious sentiments were undoubtedly echoed by a large number of his fellow citizens.

He paints a vivid picture of what took place on Shrove Tuesday 1496, the day before the beginning of Lent, when in previous years the raucous behaviour had reached its traditional climax:

16 February. The Carnival. A few days earlier Savonarola had preached against such stupid Carnival traditions as gangs of boys throwing stones at each other and building camps out of twigs. Instead, he said that they should be out collecting alms for thepoveri vergognosi [the destitute]… So instead of erecting barriers in the streets, the boys behaved like holy innocents, holding up crucifixes at street corners. As this was the last day of Carnival, after Vespers the bands of boys assembled in their four quarters of the city, each bearing its own special banner … They marched accompanied by drummers and pipers, accompanied by the official mace bearers and servants of the Palazzo della Signoria, singing praises to heaven, all bearing olive branches in their hands. This sight moved many good and respectable citizens to tears … In all, some six thousand boys or more, all between the ages of five and sixteen, are said to have taken part.¹⁵

 

These four processions came together at the Ospedale degli Innocenti^[2]. This joint procession then wound its way through the entire city, singing hymns and collecting items for charity, stopping off at various major locations – including many of the city’s best-known churches, such as Savonarola’s San Marco, before crossing the river to the Oltrarno, returning across the Ponte Vecchio and proceeding to the cathedral. Indicatively absent from this itinerary was the Palazzo Medici, which would certainly have been a stopping-off point for any such city processions during the previous decades – an unsurprising omission, given the circumstances, yet one that would have been of profound and moving significance to all: the times had changed, and those days were over.

The lengthy hymn-singing procession must have taken well over an hour, possibly two, if it stopped at all the places dutifully listed by Landucci in his diary. Likewise, the long route must have been seen by a large percentage of the population of Florence – who either lined the routes or looked down from their windows – many of whom would, under normal circumstances, have spent the day revelling. Although not all the people of Florence were in favour of this new development, no serious incidents such as barricading the streets or stone-throwing were recorded by contemporary sources.

When the procession reached the cathedral:

the church was packed out with men and women, divided with the women on one side and the men on the other, and here the offering was made, with such faith and tears of holy emotion as ever witnessed. Around several hundred florins must have been collected. Many gold florins were put into the collecting bowls, but mostly it was in small copper coins and silver. Some women gave their veil-holders, some their silver spoons, handkerchiefs, towels, and all kinds of other things. It seemed as if everyone wanted to make an offering to Christ and His Mother. I have set down these things because they are true, and I did see them with my own eyes, at the same time experiencing great emotion.

 

Although the last sentence has the feel of a subsequent addition, its message would only seem to confirm the extraordinariness of what Landucci felt he was experiencing on this day. Once more, the most civilised city in Europe was ahead of its time. This was a revolution, no less – the first in the dawn of the modern era. In this aspect, Savonarola can be seen as being the precursor of a tradition that would go on to produce such figures as Luther, Cromwell, Robespierre, even Lenin. And it is not difficult to see in Savonarola embryonic elements of all these figures – just as it is not difficult to see in Landucci’s ecstatic words (‘what a blessed time it was …’ etc.) a presentiment of Wordsworth’s celebrated stanza on the French Revolution:

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,¹⁶

But to be young was very heaven! …

 

Next day, Ash Wednesday 1496, Savonarola delivered his first Lenten sermon in the cathedral before a congregation packed to overflowing:

steps for Savonarola’s boys were set up along the walls, opposite the chancel behind the women … and all the boys on the steps sang sweet praises to God before the sermon began. And then the clergy entered the chancel and began singing the Litanies, to which the boys responded. It was all so beautiful that everyone wept, even the most reserved men amongst them, saying: ‘This is a thing of the Lord.’¹⁷

 

Many have considered Savonarola’s Lenten sermons for 1496 as the finest he delivered. There is less of the extreme apocalyptic imagery of his early sermons, and instead he put forward arguments outlining his aims. In his opening sermon he saw a specific future involving those who had recently done so much to promulgate his ideas:

In you, young men, I place my hope and that of the Lord. You will govern the city of Florence, for you are not prone to the evil ways of your fathers, who did not know how to get rid of their tyrannical rulers or appreciate God’s gift of liberty to his people.¹⁸

 

He also dealt with the unresolved matter of his relations with the Church, resorting once more to skilful intellectual argument:

I have written to Rome explaining that if by accident I have in some way written or preached anything which is heretical … I am prepared to apologise and unreservedly withdraw anything that I have said. I will always submit to the rule of the Church.

 

He even went so far as to argue that the Church was infallible with regard to dogma.

However, although the Church itself was infallible here, this did not mean that churchmen and the faithful were compelled to obey each and every order from clerical superiors, even if such a command came from the pope himself. Savonarola insisted: ‘The pope cannot command me to do something which contradicts the teaching of the Gospels.’ This was to be a continuing theme of his entire Lenten sermons. He insisted, ‘We must obey God rather than man.’ He reserved his particular contempt for ‘the high priests of Rome … you whose lust, love of luxury and pride have been the ruin of the world, violating men and women alike with your lasciviousness, turning children to sodomy and prostitution … you who spend the night with your concubine and in the morning conduct the sacraments’.¹⁹

Crucially, it seems that Savonarola had now realised that if he confined himself to the Tuscan Congregation over which he ruled, he would inevitably be isolated by the Church hierarchy, and then moves would begin to declare his teachings a heresy. Rome would summon Florence’s enemies, the city would be attacked and defeated, whereupon all his reforms would come to nothing. Thus he was left with no alternative but to extend his ambitions and seek to reform the entire Church. As a consequence, his rhetoric hardened. Those who inhabited the city of Rome must be prepared to suffer the fates of hell: ‘You will be clapped in irons, hacked to pieces with swords, burned with fire and eaten up by flames.’ In a later Lenten sermon he would describe his apocalyptic visions comparing the fate of Rome to that of Babylon:

The light will vanish and amidst the darkness the sky will rain fire and brimstone, while flames and great boulders will smite the earth … because Rome has been polluted with an infernal mixture of scripture and all manner of vice.²⁰

 

The Arrabbiati and Savonarola’s enemies within the Church in Florence were gleefully reporting his every word to Rome. His call to defy any pope who contradicted the gospel was bad enough, but his reference to ‘you’ who spend the night with a concubine and next morning conduct Mass was immediately recognisable to all who heard it, whether they were listening in the congregation or received reports of it amongst the hierarchy in Rome: this was an unmistakable allusion to the behaviour of Alexander VI.

With each ensuing sermon, the authorities in Florence became increasingly worried. The Signoria knew that they could not restrain Savonarola for fear of antagonising the Piagnoni, yet they were well aware that the growing anger amongst the Arrabbiati might boil over, and were fearful of what measures Alexander VI might take against the city. There is evidence that the authorities deputed Piero Capponi to speak with Savonarola, warning him of the dangers he was inviting. Surprisingly, this seems to have given Savonarola cause for thought, as can be seen from his last sermon of the series, delivered after Easter on 10 April. He opened with his customary defiance, insisting that he would never obey orders to do anything wrong, whether they came from his religious superiors or even the pope himself. Addressing any such an enemy, he insisted: ‘It is you who are wrong. You are not the Church, you are simply a man and a sinner.’²¹ Yet something that Capponi had passed on to him must have had a chastening effect, for he then alluded to what lay ahead in his struggles. ‘Do you wish to know how all this will end for me? I can tell you that it will end with my death, when I shall be cut to pieces.’ As if attempting to forestall this fate, he now incongruously sought to argue his innocence of any transgression against Alexander VI:

Information has been relayed to His Holiness, both by letter and by word of mouth, that I have been criticising him for sinful behaviour. This is not true. As it is written in the Bible: ‘Thou shalt not curse thy ruler.’ I have never done such a thing, and I have definitely never referred to anyone by name whilst preaching from this pulpit.

 

This was disingenuous to say the least. Savonarola had certainly taken the precaution of never mentioning Alexander VI by name, but all in the congregation had known to whom he was referring.

News of Savonarola’s sermons had angered rulers throughout Italy. They would never have allowed a priest to preach such inflammatory sermons within their own states, and knew that the very airing of such views could only lead to trouble amongst their own citizens. This subversive priest had to be stopped. Just as Savonarola knew that he could only succeed if his message spread out into the world and succeeded in conquering Rome, so the rulers of Italy realised that their leadership was open to question as long as Savonarola continued to preach his fundamentalist religion, with its dangerous political connotations. He had to be silenced, once and for all, and the person who had to do this was the pope. Yet Alexander VI was still aware that if he made any serious attempt to punish Savonarola, he would only outrage the citizens of Florence, who would in turn call upon Charles VIII to hasten his plans to invade Italy and dethrone him. Playing for time, Alexander VI appointed an ecclesiastical committee of senior theologians to investigate Savonarola’s behaviour, and his preaching, for evidence of heresy.

One of the reasons why people had been turning to Savonarola in such numbers was the persisting desperate situation that was now unfolding in Florence. The Pisans continued to resist all attempts by the Florentine mercenary army to retake their city, which meant that by now much trade in Florence had almost ground to a standstill. This situation had only been made worse by the exceptional weather, which had blighted much of Italy for almost a year now. According to Landucci on 4 May 1496, ‘Throughout this time it never stopped raining, and the rainstorms had gone on for about eleven months, there never once being a whole week with no rain.’²² Things got so bad that on 18 May he reported, ‘There came such a great flood that it washed away the young corn planted in the fields, even as far down in the plains as here; while at Rovizzano^[3] it swept through two walls on the roadside.’

With the failure of the coming harvest inevitable, the peasants began streaming in from the countryside for the protection of the city, where entire families were soon camping out on the streets and begging for food. The prevailing air of Christian compassion amongst the citizenry meant that none starved, and Savonarola organised the monks of San Marco to distribute food and suitable clothing collected during Lent. Even so, these vermin-ridden families living on the pavements soon began to present a public health hazard. Worrying gossip spread, and as early as 14 May Landucci had heard that ‘The plague has returned in several districts of Florence.’ Two weeks later, he recorded, ‘Many people began suffering from a certain complaint called “French boils”. This looked like smallpox; but it went on increasing, and no one knew a cure for it.’ This was almost certainly syphilis, rather than the buboes (boils) that are symptomatic of the bubonic plague^[4]. After paying for the upkeep of the mercenary army fighting at Pisa, there was little left in the public coffers, leaving the Signoria powerless to deal with the growing number of refugeees from the countryside or the spread of disease.

Meanwhile in Rome the committee of theologians reported back to Alexander VI that they could find no evidence of heresy amongst Savonarola’s teachings. This unexpected finding was almost certainly due to the presence of Cardinal Caraffa on the committee. If anyone was to discipline a Dominican friar it should be the Vicar General of his order, not the pope. Leaders of other orders expressed similar sentiments. No one wished for any unwelcome precedent that extended the power of the pope at their expense. Besides, all were agreed that Savonarola could hardly be accused of heresy when all that he had preached was backed up by his exceptional biblical scholarship.

Alexander VI then decided upon a different tactic. Some time during the first weeks of August he summoned to audience Fra Ludovico da Ferrara, who was not only the Provost General of the Dominican order^[5], but also happened to come from Savonarola’s home city. Ludovico da Ferrara was instructed to undertake a confidential mission to Savonarola at San Marco, to ask his advice on how to persuade the city of Florence to become the pope’s ally.

Fra Ludovico duly travelled to Florence, where he conferred with Savonarola, revealing to him that if he cooperated with Alexander VI’s plans, the pope promised that – to the great honour of Florence – he would make him a cardinal. Savonarola was unwilling to give any immediate response to Fra Ludovico, and merely told him, ‘Come to my next sermon and you’ll hear my reply.’²³

Savonarola had been invited by the Signoria to deliver a sermon the following Saturday 20 August in the recently completed hall of the Great Council^[6]. This sermon was not expected to confine itself to religious matters, and was a semi-official means by which the Signoria and senior members of the administration were informed of his ideas on political matters and foreign policy. Unlike his passionate sermons in the cathedral, here Savonarola spoke in more sober terms, addressing a number of questions that he knew were uppermost in the minds of several senior officials. He explained why he had taken it upon himself to stay in correspondence with Charles VIII: this was to remind the king of his duty to fulfil his role as the ‘scourge of God’. At the same time he denied the accusation that he opposed Alexander VI’s Holy League. He had remained against Florence joining the League only because the city had given its word to Charles VIII that it would remain his ally. After dealing with various other matters, such as aid for those living in the streets, he turned to the rumour that was now sweeping Florence that he was about to be made a cardinal. At this point his manner changed abruptly. Once again, it was as if he was delivering a sermon with all the ire and conviction of an Old Testament prophet. He denied vehemently that he had any wish to receive a cardinal’s crimson hat:

If I coveted such a thing would I be standing before you in this threadbare habit? … On the contrary, the only gift I seek is the one God gives to his saints – death, a crimson hat of blood, that is all I wish for.²⁴

 

In his Lenten sermons Savonarola had foretold his own death (‘I shall be cut to pieces’); now he more explicitly revealed his longing to become a martyr. He appeared to regard such an end as inevitable, and it is worth bearing this in mind during the ensuing events, for it must have informed his every decision.

Meanwhile the heavy rains continued, wreaking their effect across the countryside, leaving a desolate scene: ‘In many places the corn had not yet been harvested. The entire season is late and neither the corn, nor the grapes, nor the figs have yet ripened.’²⁵ Food stocks were now dangerously low in Florence, and the city faced the prospect of a possible famine.

At the same time, the war against Pisa continued to go badly. The besieged Pisans were being supported by ships from Venice and Milan. These would soon be aided by a number of troops sent by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, who had been called in by Ludovico ‘il Moro’ Sforza of Milan^[7]. Florence could ill afford to pay the wages of its mercenaries, and some simply decamped to the other side, where they felt they would be better paid.

Piero Capponi had been placed in charge of the Florentine forces and did his best to rally the unenthusiastic mercenaries nominally under his command. When the Pisan forces broke out and sought to cut the Florentine line of supply to the port of Livorno, on the coast fifteen miles to the south, Capponi moved to repulse them. A brave man, he led his men from the front, encouraging the mercenaries into effective action. However, in the course of leading an attack on the castle at Solana, in the hills above Livorno, he was struck by a shot from an arquebus (an early form of musket). His wound proved fatal, and he died on the field of battle.

News of Capponi’s death caused great grief amongst the people of Florence, for he was still regarded as a hero for publicly standing up to Charles VIII. Capponi’s body was transported back to his home city on a barge up the Arno, and on 27 September he was given a public funeral, which attracted large crowds^[8].

Just over a month later, Landucci recorded how news arrived from the Florentine allies in Livorno:

that twelve ships bearing cargoes of corn had arrived there, but this turned out to be a false report. Instead this was the fleet of the King of France, and the Livornese went out and routed the camp of the Emperor Maximilian I, slaying about forty men and capturing their artillery²⁶

 

The siege of Pisa was hardly ended by this ‘rout’, but at least the Florentines knew that they could now rely upon French aid, and that their dwindling supplies of corn would soon be replenished.

All such hopes were dashed when news came through that Charles VIII’s son and heir, the dauphin, whose birth in September had been greeted with such great joy by the king, had died just twenty-five days later on 2 October. Charles VIII was overcome with grief, and put off his planned invasion of Italy. Savonarola had of course warned Charles VIII that God would chastise him if he did not act as ‘God’s scourge’ and invade Italy once more. Now another of his prophecies had come true, but no one in Florence rejoiced at this fulfilment of his word: Florence was left alone, facing enemies on all sides, and some of its citizens were beginning to tire of these ‘prophecies’.

Savonarola’s enemies amongst the Arrabbiati and the Medici supporters immediately seized upon this opportunity to try and stir up feeling against the ‘little friar’. Had he not written just a year ago in his ‘Compendium of Revelations’ that the Virgin Mary had told him how ‘The City of Florence shall become more glorious, more powerful and more wealthy than it has ever been. All the territory that it has lost shall be restored, and its borders will be extended further than ever before.’ What of this prophecy? Florentine commerce was all but at a standstill, and the city could not even retake Pisa.

Savonarola replied to such criticisms in the sermon that he preached in the cathedral on 28 October. Far from being repentant about the lack of fulfilment of these prophecies, instead he berated his congregation. Florence was not worthy of such fortune until the city was purified. The citizens of Florence were being punished for their lack of repentance. There was still too much evil in the ‘City of God’. The congregation listened, fearfully, but for how much longer would they be willing to place their faith in the Holy Spirit?

Alexander VI was overjoyed when he heard that the French reinvasion had been cancelled, and immediately ordered the papal troops to march north and take Florence. These troops were joined by a contingent from Siena. As this combined force moved towards Florence, the Florentine mercenaries abandoned the siege of Pisa and marched to cut them off. The two forces met at Cascina, in the Po valley east of Pisa. The Florentine mercenaries soon put the papal troops to flight, and then ran amok, raping and pillaging their way through a number of hillside villages before returning to besiege the city of Pisa. Yet this only brought temporary relief for the Florentines. The Venetian fleet now began a concerted blockade of Livorno, causing a French fleet bringing grain from Marseilles to turn back. At the same time the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I disembarked with further troops at Pisa.

Ranged up against Florence were the combined forces of Venice, Milan and the imperial troops of Maximilian I, with Alexander VI and Naples remaining in the background as declared aggressors. At the same time Piero de’ Medici and his brother Cardinal Giovanni were making plans to raise a mercenary army to march on Florence. Ironically, it was the arrival of Maximilian I in Pisa that soon led to a division amongst the allies, when it became clear that he had in mind retaining Pisa for himself. This antagonised both the Venetians and the Milanese, who both had similar secret plans of their own; while Piero de’ Medici was adamant that Pisa should remain a Florentine possession.

Even so, Florence now effectively had no allies, and internally the situation was no better. The administration had run up a huge public debt in continuing to finance its mercenary army; and regardless of the Savonarolan reforms, the government was becoming increasingly unpopular, especially amongst the moneyed classes, who were required to continue propping up the increasingly desperate military situation. Despite the victory at Cascina, the prospects looked grim.

 

NOTES

1. ‘a bolt from …’: see Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.202

2. ‘the prior and Monastery …’: and further citations from this Brief, see Savonarola, Le Lettere (ed. Ridolfi), pp.231–3

3. ‘gratia recuperandae …’: see Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.204, citing his source as Codice Magliabechiano, XXXV, 190. This receipt was not dated.

4. ‘no less than …’: from a sermon preached on 18 February 1498. See Savonarola, Prediche sopra I’Esodo, 2 vols, ed. Pier Giorgio Ricci (Rome, 1955–6), Vol. I, p.47

5. ‘With regards to prophecy …’ et seq.: see Savonarola, Le Lettere, pp.61–73

6. ‘Thus the accusations …’: see Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.207

7. ‘I am well aware …’: cited in Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.404

8. ‘The time for mercy …’ et seq.: from sermons delivered on 11 and 18 October 1495, cited in Savonarola, Prediche spora i Salmi, Vol. II, p.191 et seq., p.218 et seq.

9. ‘Pray to God …’: ibid., Vol. II, p.241

10. ‘We command you …’: for the full text of this papal Brief, see Nuovi Documenti e Studi intorno a Girolamo Savonarola, ed. Alessandro Gherhardi (Florence, 1887), pp.390–1

11. ‘some of my sons …’: Landucci, Diario, p.125

12. ‘Some boys took …’ et seq.: ibid, pp.123–4

13. ‘was also said …’: cited in Martines, Savonarola, p.285.

14. ‘Even in the face …’: ibid.

15. ‘16 February …’: et seq. Landucci, Diario, pp.124–5

16. ‘Bliss was it …’: William Wordsworth, The Prelude (London, 1926), Book XI, lines 108–9, p.401

17. ‘steps for Savonarola’s boys …’: Landucci, Diario, pp.125–6

18. ‘In you, young men …’ et seq.: sermon delivered on 17 February 1496, see Savonarola, Prediche sopra Amos a Zaccaria, ed. P. Ghigglieri, 3 vols (Rome, 1971–2)

19. ‘the high priests of Rome …’: et seq.: ibid., sermon 24 February

20. ‘The light will vanish …’: ibid., sermon 23 March

21. ‘It is you who are …’ et seq.: ibid., sermon 10 April

22. ‘Throughout this time …’ et seq.: Landucci, Diario, pp.131–3

23. ‘Come to my next …’: cited in Seward, Savonarola, p.158

24. ‘If I coveted …’: sermon delivered on 20 August 1496. See Savonarola, Prediche sopra Ruth e Michea

25. ‘In many places …’: Landucci, Diario, p.138

26. ‘that twelve ships …’: ibid., p.139

 

Pope Alexander VI

 

17. THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES

 

AS FEARED, FLORENCE underwent a winter of famine. The picture that Landucci painted of life in the city at this time makes for grim reading. On 25 January 1497 he recorded:

The price of corn was 3 lire 14 soldi a bushel^[9]. And at this time a woman died amidst the crowd in the Piazza del Grano (The Corn Market), where government stores of bread and corn were being sold. We also heard that a poor peasant came into Florence to beg for bread, leaving his three small children starving at home. When he returned to find that they were dying, and he had no food for them, he took a rope and hanged himself.¹

 

On 6 February, despite an official decree lowering the price of corn by ‘12 or 15 soldia bushel’ just a week or so beforehand, Landucci recorded how the distribution of free grain to the destitute resulted in an even worse incident:

Several women were suffocated in the crowd in the Piazza del Grano, and some of them were brought out half-dead, which may seem incredible, but it is true, because I saw it myself.

 

Many incredible things were now taking place in Florence. Next day saw the culmination of that year’s carnival weeks, when Carnival itself was ‘celebrated’ in Savonarola’s new style. Again ‘Savonarola’s boys’ had spent the preceding weeks setting up altars at street corners, parading through the streets dressed in white, singing hymns and knocking on doors seeking items for charity. These collections had by now taken on a more insistent tone, and the items that Savonarola’s boys sought were more specifically characterised as ‘vanities’.² Activities extended far beyond taking girls’ ornate veil holders, and included the collecting of all manner of luxuries and ornaments that might be regarded as distracting their owners from the fundamentalist Christian way of life preached by Savonarola. This certainly included the items that women used for adorning themselves – such as jewellery, scented ‘dead hair’ (wigs), mirrors, perfume (‘lascivious odours’) and colourfully dyed cloth for making dresses. Needless to say, items associated with gambling were also much sought out – including dice, packs of cards, gaming tables and even chess sets. Indeed, anything that brought pleasure was fair game for Savonarola’s boys on their collecting rounds: secular Latin books (which were said to contain all manner of lewd stories), Boccaccio’s scurrilous tales and Petrarch’s famous love poems, even works by the Ancient Greek philosophers (‘pagan heresies’), and books by poets ranging from Ovid to Poliziano. Just as sought-after were musical instruments of all kinds, as well as statues and paintings that did not depict religious scenes – such as popular figurine copies of Donatello’s suggestive hermaphroditic statues, as well as paintings of the naked female form. Even paintings of religious subjects were not immune, in particular those ‘which are painted in such a shameful fashion as to make the Virgin Mary look like a prostitute’.³

It has been claimed that during this period Botticelli piously surrendered a number of his secular paintings from his studio; and though many historians continue to dispute this, it would certainly seem to have been characteristic of the artist’s troubled frame of mind at this time.

Botticelli – now in his early fifties – was one of the few survivors from the charmed intellectual circle that had gathered around Lorenzo at the Palazzo Medici. By this stage he had taken to painting a series of stark crucifixions. In these Christ’s face hangs down, below his long matted dark hair, infused with a look of pain and resignation, showing all the signs of being realised with deep empathy by Botticelli. Although he believed in Savonarola, there was no doubt that, in his poverty and anguish, Florence had become a deeply painful place for him.

Meanwhile another survivor, the diminutive stuttering Ficino, had become an embittered old man. In the heyday of Lorenzo’s time at the Palazzo Medici, Ficino had written celebrating the Ancient Greek tradition of platonic relationships between beautiful young men and their older mentors as the most exalted form of love. But now in the wake of Savonarola’s condemnation of homosexuality, Ficino found himself lambasted as a sodomite. The man who had once been a revered philosopher, admired as a canon of Florence Cathedral, was now reduced to a scandalous figure. After Savonarola had scorned his attempt to introduce his beloved Plato into the Christian fold, Ficino had retired to the countryside at Careggi, but had recently been driven back into the city by the famine. Here he was shunned by his former friends. The Medici supporters distrusted him because of his former association with Savonarola, and yet figures like Botticelli would have nothing to do with him either, because Savonarola now regarded him as a heretic.

The bonfires in each neighbourhood around which people had traditionally danced in abandoned fashion during the pre-Savonarolan Carnival were now all amalgamated into one massive bonfire in the Piazza della Signoria, which was intended to accommodate all the vanities that Savonarola’s boys had collected. An eight-sided wooden pyramid had been constructed, with seven tiers, one for each of the seven deadly sins. The vanities were placed on these tiers, and the inside of the pyramid was filled with sacks of straw, piles of kindling wood, and even small bags of dynamite (intended to spread the flames throughout the pyramid, as well as cause incendiary firework effects such as bangs and showers of sparks). In the end, this ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ rose to sixty feet, and the circumference at its base was 240 feet. At its peak was placed a wooden effigy made to look like the traditional image of the Devil, complete with hairy cloven-hoofed goats’ legs, pointed ears, horns and a little pointed beard^[10]. Such was this wondrous collection of vanities that it is said a Venetian merchant who was passing through Florence offered 22,000 ducats if he could be allowed to take them with him rather than let them be wastefully burned. This was a colossal sum, especially in a time of famine – during these years one could have bought a modest palazzo for one-tenth of this amount. Nonetheless the merchant’s offer was indignantly refused, and he soon left the city fearing for his own safety when he saw that the face on the figure atop the bonfire had been adapted to resemble his own.

On the day of Carnival, 7 February 1497, the ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ was finally lit. Watching this destructive conflagration were the gonfaloniere and senior officials of the administration gazing down from the balcony of the Palazzo della Signoria, while the assembled choirs of Savonarola’s boys dressed in white chanted hymns, as well as songs mocking worldly luxuries, which had been especially composed for the occasion. As the bonfire crackled into life, trumpets sounded from the palazzo, and the Vacca tolled. The large assembled crowd applauded the flames before joining the choir of Savonarola’s boys in their hymn-singing. It seemed as if Florence was now truly the ‘City of God’.

Next day, Savonarola preached the first of that year’s Lenten sermons. These were on texts taken from Ezekiel, one of the more virulent of the Old Testament prophets, who is today perhaps best known for his pronouncement:

Thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will stretch out mine hand against [mine enemies] … And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.⁵

 

This was hardly the sentiment likely to be adopted by one who would rest on his laurels now that he had succeeded in establishing the ‘City of God’ in Florence. Indeed, Savonarola had by this stage become fully aware that only one course lay open to him if he was to succeed, or even survive: he must challenge and overcome the full might of Rome, thereby banishing corruption from the very heart of the Church, so that it could be purified from within. Anything less, and he would be destroyed: the martyr’s death that he had hinted might lie in wait for him would inevitably come about – unless he rallied the faithful against the evil of Rome. And this he proceeded to do in no uncertain fashion, gradually growing in both boldness and vehemence with each passing sermon. By 4 March he had roused himself to such a pitch that he was declaring:

Friars have a proverb amongst themselves: ‘He comes from Rome, do not trust him.’ O hark unto my words, you wicked Church! At the Court of Rome men are losing their souls all the time, they are all lost. Wretched people! I do not claim that this is true of everyone there, but only a few remain good. If you meet people who enjoy being in Rome, you know they are cooked. He’s cooked, all right. You understand me?⁶

 

When Savonarola passed from the plural to the singular, his packed congregation would have recognised that he was referring to none other than the pope. As if sensing that perhaps he had gone too far, Savonarola immediately distanced himself, claiming: ‘I am not speaking of anyone in particular.’

Yet, carried on the tide of his own emotion, he was soon throwing all caution to the winds once more:

O harlot Church, once you were ashamed of your pride and lust, but now you acknowledge this without the least show of remorse. In former times, priests would refer to their sons as ‘nephews’, but now they quite openly call them ‘sons’ on every occasion.

 

There could be no mistaking the object of these remarks. What had previously been gossip amongst the more educated classes had now become common knowledge. All now knew that Alexander VI was the first pope openly to acknowledge his bastard offspring, dispensing with such euphemisms as ‘nephew’ or ‘niece’ – even going so far as to move his sons and daughter into the papal apartments at the Vatican. More pertinently still, the sixty-six-year-old Alexander VI’s most recent mistress Giulia Farnese, a married Roman woman of good family who had begun her liaison with the pope when she was still a teenager, had recently given birth to his son – news of which would certainly have reached Savonarola at San Marco by way of the Dominican grapevine, and would have been known to the better-informed members of his congregation.

Likewise, news of Savonarola’s sermons was eagerly relayed to Rome by his enemies, especially amongst the Franciscans and the Augustinians. This made life particularly difficult for the Florentine special envoy, Alessandro Bracci, when he arrived in Rome and presented himself before Alexander VI on 13 March. Political relations between Rome and Florence were at their lowest ebb over Pisa and the Holy League, and Bracci had been strictly instructed by the Florentine administration on the position that he was to adopt concerning the city’s foreign policy. Bracci opened his speech to the pope with the customary diplomatic niceties, expressing Florence’s deep respect and support for His Holiness, whilst at the same time taking care to avoid any specific commitments. He then proceeded with some trepidation to the more specific matters that he had been instructed to inform Alexander VI about. These included a demand for the return of Pisa, along with a reminder that Florence had the support of Charles VIII, to whom the city was committed by an unbreakable alliance, which thus unfortunately precluded any possibility of Florence joining Alexander VI’s Holy League.

Alexander VI made it plain that he was unimpressed by this flim-flam, especially when it came from the man representing the city that allowed Savonarola to continue preaching such blasphemous and defamatory sermons against him. Dispensing with all but the most perfunctory of diplomatic pleasantries, Alexander VI addressed the unfortunate Bracci:

My Lord secretary, you may be as fat as we are, but if you will pardon me saying so, your message is distinctly lean and skinny^[11]. If you have nothing further to say, you might as well return home … We cannot understand how you have taken up such a stubborn and obstinate attitude. Presumably it has something to do with the faith you place in the prophecies of that soothsayer of yours. If we could be allowed to address your people directly, we are convinced that our true arguments would soon disillusion you and cure you of the blindness and error into which you have been led by this friar. However, what causes us even greater pain – and at the same time gives us just reason for our antagonism towards you – is that your Signoria and citizens give their support to him. And all this is done without any just cause whatsoever, as he vilifies us and makes mincemeat of our dignity – us the very occupiers of this most Holy See.⁷

 

The pope could be secure in his angry reaction, for unbeknown to Bracci, to Florence, and even to Savonarola, the political situation in Italy had undergone a dramatic shift in Alexander VI’s favour. He had entered into secret negotiations with Charles VIII. News now reached Florence, and was then carried by fast messenger down the road to Rome, that Alexander VI had succeeded in turning the tables on Florence: in France on 25 February Charles VIII had finally been persuaded to sign a treaty with the Holy League. This may have been unfortunate for Bracci in Rome, but for Savonarola in Florence it was nothing less than a political disaster. His ‘scourge of God’ had disappeared. Alexander VI and the Holy League may have been in some disarray, but one thing was clear: there was absolutely no prospect of anyone coming to the aid of Florence if one, or more, of her encircling enemies chose to invade her territory. And this state of affairs was unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. As a result of this news, disillusion with Savonarola’s role as a prophet became more widespread throughout Florence. The Arrabbiati and the Bigi had adopted the slogan ‘We are for the natural world’ (as distinct from the supernatural world – that is, prophecies), and this now began to gain wider currency amongst the population.

When Savonarola heard of this, he was so stung that he determined to answer his critics in his next sermon. As if obsessed, he returned again and again to what they were saying about the ‘natural world’. Similarly, according to the contemporary diarist Parenti he also attacked Charles VIII, ‘condemning him as stupid and idle’,⁸adding that just as he had truly predicted ‘the death of his son, now he predicted his death’.⁹ Although Savonarola took care not to mention Charles VIII by name (a point confirmed by the printed text itself), Parenti was in no doubt to whom he was referring in this sermon.

If we view Savonarola’s predictions from a modern rational scientific point of view, it is undeniable that here he was going out on a limb. Unlike the tyrants whose deaths he had previously prophesied, with such spectacular effect and such spectacular accuracy, Charles VIII was just twenty-six years old and in good health. The indications are that in this case Savonarola’s self-belief got the better of him: he had become so encouraged by the success of his previous prophecies that he felt any convictions he held with sufficient strength and faith were now infallible. At the same time, he had evidently become so enraged by the success of his enemies that his emotions overrode any intellectual caution or prudence: he realised that his entire future was at stake. He was beginning to lose influence; and if this drift continued, his power in the city was liable to evaporate. His position was anomalous: he was a foreigner, and he held no elected role in the administration. His power depended upon his influence over the frequently changing members of the Signoria and on his ability to impose his will upon the populace through his sermons. ‘Savonarola’s boys’ could not otherwise have been so effective in bringing about the huge propaganda coup represented by the ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’, which by now had all of Italy talking.

In Savonarola’s eyes, Charles VIII had once and for all failed to fulfil the role that God had given him: the ‘scourge of God’ therefore had himself to be scourged. God had no alternative but to destroy Charles VIII for disobeying his commandment. Thus Savonarola certainly felt justified in prophesying this event. In modern psychological parlance this may be regarded as wish fulfilment or self-delusion; yet in the psycho-religious atmosphere prevalent in Florence at the time, as well as in Savonarola’s mind, this prophecy was not disingenuous.

Savonarola continued preaching his 1497 Lenten sermons on the prophet Ezekiel, and the citizens of Florence continued to starve as a result of the famine. On 19 March Landucci recorded, ‘More than one child has been found dead of hunger in Florence.’¹⁰ Just eight days later, he wrote:

Throughout this time, men, women, and children were collapsing from exhaustion and hunger, some them dying of it. At the hospital many were dying as a result of weakness from starvation.

 

Amidst such an atmosphere of doom and disaster, Savonarola’s Lenten sermons in the cathedral attracted crowds as large as ever. Landucci records that ‘fifteen thousand people attended his sermon every weekday’, a figure that would probably have accounted for half the able-bodied population at the time. However, weakened by Charles VIII’s pact with the pope, Savonarola now found his critics more vociferously confident. Landucci mentions in his entry for Good Friday:

A friar preached in Santo Spirito^[12], who spoke against Fra Girolamo, and all through Lent he had been saying that the Frate was deceiving us and that he was not a prophet.

 

The population of Florence was splitting into two aggressively divided camps. A despatch sent by the Ferrarese ambassador during March revealed:

The city is more divided than ever before, and all are apprehensive that there will soon be an outbreak of civil violence. If this does happen it will be very dangerous for the city. Savonarola is doing his best to forestall this, but his enemies have become widespread and determined, particularly after news of the blessed truce [between France and the Holy League].¹¹

 

The political situation within Florence had been subtly shifting against Savonarola for some months now. In January, Francesco Valori had been elected gonfaloniere. Valori was a member of a well-respected family, who had been a staunch political ally and trusted friend of Lorenzo the Magnificent, to such an extent that he had even married into the Medici family. In 1491 he had been selected by Lorenzo as one of the five-man delegation sent to have a quiet word with Savonarola, intimating that perhaps the new prior of San Marco should tone down his sermons. However, just three years later Valori had been filled with consternation when Piero de’ Medici had taken it upon himself, without even consulting the Signoria, to set out on a personal mission to Charles VIII. When news reached Florence of what Piero de’ Medici had surrendered at his meeting with the French king, Francesco Valori had been outraged, and after the flight of Piero from the city he had felt no qualms about becoming an enthusiastic supporter of the Piagnoni, as well as lending his support to Savonarola and his social reforms. By 1497 his election as gonfaloniere was long overdue: his popularity was widespread, he was known as a powerful but sympathetic character and had many qualities of leadership. Alas, he was not a man of great intelligence, and the few times when he came up with an original idea it was prone to become an obsesssion. In the words of Guicciardini, who would have known him, Valori ‘imposed his views regardless of what other people thought, bullying and abusing anyone who disagreed’.¹² One of his first ideas, at the start of his two-month term as gonfaloniere, was to extend the democratic scope of the Great Council by lowering the age of election to its membership from thirty to twenty-four. At first sight this seemed a highly commendable idea, and Valori was surprised and disappointed when Savonarola advised him against such an unprecedented move. He refused to listen to Savonarola’s canny political advice and went ahead with his plan regardless.

Savonarola may have been fundamentalist, but he had long since learned that when it came to secular matters, pragmatism usually succeeded rather than idealism. Just as Savonarola had foreseen, Valori’s idealistic move proved a disaster. This drastic lowering of the voting age caused an influx into the Great Council of headstrong, hedonistic young men of the merchant class, many of whom had come of age during the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent. They retained the self-confident arrogance of the privileged youth of this era, and detested all that Savonarola stood for. The liberalBianchi and the pro-Medici Bigi gained control of the Great Council, and at the election for the next gonfaloniere, to take over in March and April, the winning candidate was Bernardo del Nero, the grand old man of the Medici faction. Now seventy-five years old, but still physically able, he was the leader of the Bigi, the party that remained fanatically opposed to Savonarola and all he stood for. Despite this, Bernardo del Nero in fact owed his life to Savonarola; in 1494, after the flight of Piero de’ Medici, del Nero and his family had only been rescued from the fury of the mob as a result of Savonarola’s passionate sermon forbidding any revenge against Medici supporters. Del Nero had not forgotten this, and as a result had always treated Savonarola himself with an air of respect, despite the fact that he abhorred the move towards a wider democracy and the puritan fundamentalism that had accompanied this. He had done his best to restrain the more hotheaded Bigi faction, which was all for the violent overthrow of the government. On the other hand, there would no longer be the usual quiet consultations between the gonfaloniere and the prior of San Marco over the best direction for public policy. Savonarola’s influence over the government of Florence would remain in abeyance, at least for the next two months while del Nero was gonfaloniere. How much popular support the new gonfaloniere could muster during March and April remained to be seen.

Within just three weeks of Bernardo del Nero taking up office, rumours of all kinds began circulating amongst the citizens. On 21 March Landucci recorded:

We suspected a plot by Piero de’ Medici, who was said to be intending to enter Firenzuola^[13], where he would give flour and corn to the people, making them cry Palle; but none of this turned out to be true.¹³

 

The city gates were closed as a precaution, but there was no sign of Piero or any Medici forces outside the walls, or even reports of sightings of such forces passing through the countryside on their way to the city. Meanwhile inside Florence the situation continued to deteriorate. As Landucci recorded on 9 April: ‘The price of corn went up to 4 lire 10 soldi.’¹⁴ Four days later, he reported: ‘The price of corn went up to 5 lire.’ With twenty soldi to the lire, this meant an increase of more than 10 per cent in just four days. However, Landucci adds on the same day (12 April): ‘I sold a small quantity that I had over, at 4 lire 14 soldi. I regard myself on this account as ungrateful.’ Those who could do so were evidently hoarding supplies, yet even the ones who reckoned they had sufficient to pass on small quantities to friends or neighbours, at prices below the going rates, felt some guilt at making a profit with such over-inflated prices. The citizens of Florence were becoming conflicted in all manner of ways: personal, political and spiritual.

Then on 25 April, Landucci recorded: ‘We heard that Piero de’ Medici was at Siena with a large number of troops, so that we had to set night guards at the gate and the walls.’ Siena was just forty miles south of Florence, the capital city of the independent territory between Tuscany and Rome, and long regarded as a traditional enemy of Florence. Piero de’ Medici, aided by the power, money and influence of his younger brother Cardinal Giovanni, had at last managed to put together an invasion force, which was evidently marching north from Rome and presumably picking up reinforcements on the way. Although Landucci’s ensuing diary entries were unembellished with details, their very simplicity and haste give an indication of the trepidation that must have swept through Florence:

27th April. We heard that Piero de’ Medici was at Staggia^[14]. 28th April. We heard that he was at Castellina. In fact, before 24 hours had passed he had reached Fonti di San Gaggio, with 2,000 men on foot and on horseback^[15]. Consequently, before the dinner hour the Gonfaloniere and all the leading citizens armed themselves and assembled at the Porto di San Piero Gattolino^[16].¹⁵

Yet things did not turn out quite as Piero de’ Medici had expected. Bernardo del Nero had ordered that the Porto di San Piero be locked and guarded, and had also organised the city’s few pieces of light artillery along the ramparts. In his capacity as gonfaloniere, del Nero was bound by oath to defend the city, and was determined to go through the motions, even if only to avoid any charge of treason. However, elements within the Bigi had sent a message to Piero, assuring him that his very presence would provoke a popular uprising within Florence. This would be followed by an invitation to enter the city, whereupon the gates would then be thrown open and he would be greeted by welcoming crowds as he rode back to the Palazzo Medici and resumed power.

But no popular uprising took place. Precisely why nothing happened remains uncertain. There would undoubtedly have been much ‘encouragement’ to take to the streets, with rallying calls of ‘Palle! Palle!’ by groups of Bigi organisers riding through their districts. Yet when the moment of truth arrived, even those who most opposed Savonarola appear to have been not quite so keen on a Medici return to power as they had led others to believe. Besides, by now certain relief supplies had begun reaching Florence from the port of Livorno, and the citizens were no longer willing to be bribed into submission by the offer of free corn from Piero de’ Medici. Although there can be no doubt that the population was still deeply divided, it soon became clear that the city was not prepared to welcome Piero. Bernardo del Nero and his ‘armed chief citizens’ (who would have contained many staunch Bigi supporters) watched uncertainly from the walls while the streets of the city remained silent. The gates stayed closed, and Landucci recorded how, later that day:

at about 21 in the evening (5 p.m.) [Piero de’ Medici] turned back and went away, seeing that he had no supporters in Florence. It was considered a most foolish thing for him to have put himself in such danger, for if we had wished, we could have captured him; if the alarm bell had rung outside, he would have been surrounded. As it was, he returned to Siena, not without fear.

 

Landucci’s speculative optimism is certainly open to doubt, yet at the same time there is no doubting the proud Piero’s loss of face, and news of his public humiliation quickly spread throughout Italy. The son of Lorenzo the Magnificent had become a laughing stock. On his return to Rome, Piero was a broken man and sought to obliterate the memory of his disgrace by launching into a bout of dissipation. This would later be recounted in some detail by his close friend Lamberto dell’Antella:

He here abandoned himself to a licentious and most scandalous life. He would rise from his bed late in the afternoon for dinner, sending down to the kitchen to see if they had prepared any particular dish which took his fancy. If not, he would leave for the San Severino, where every day a sumptuous banquet was served, and he here spent most of his time. When he had finished his meal, it was his custom to retire to a private room with a courtesan until it was time for his evening meal. Or sometimes he would stay there even later, and then head straight out for the streets of Rome with a bunch of dim-witted loose-living companions. After carousing the night away he would return to his wife around dawn. In this way, he dissipated his time and energy in gluttony, gambling, lewdness and all kinds of unnatural vices.¹⁶

 

By now Piero de’ Medici was living off the last of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s collection of jewels and plate, which his brother Cardinal Giovanni had managed to rescue before fleeing from Florence. Piero’s dissipation led to a serious deterioration in his already headstrong and arrogant personality:

He expected all with whom he came into contact to be subservient to him and obey his every bullying whim. He showed no gratitude or mercy for any who served him. No matter how faithful or devoted his companions, he was liable to turn on them at will in the most savage fashion.

 

He even turned against his close friend Francesco del Nero, ordering Lamberto dell’Antella ‘to arrange for his assassination’ – probably as an act of revenge against his relative, Gonfaloniere Bernardo del Nero, for not opening the gates of the city to him. Soon Piero would go so far as to turn against his own brother:

He was liable to treat the Cardinal with such extreme insolence, even when they were in public together, that his brother all but refused to see him. Even so, as soon as the Cardinal received any new income from his many benefices, Piero immediately turned up to claim a share. Within two or three days this would all have been squandered or gambled away.

 

So while the increasingly indolent and chubby Cardinal Giovanni often woke at sunrise, taking breakfast in bed and reading till the afternoon, his more athletic older brother seldom took to his bed until after sunrise, and well the worse for wear. Their father too had been capable of similar bouts (of both sorts), but his pride and ambition had enabled him to overcome such behaviour. For this reason, he had recognised early his own faults in both Piero and Giovanni, and had taken great pains to warn them against such lapses. Lorenzo the Magnificent had possessed qualities of greatness, and as we know he had been perspicacious enough to realise that at least one of his two sons might also possess such qualities (‘One is foolish, one is clever’). He had an inkling that as long as they remained close, together they might prove a formidable force, in both Florence and the Church. Yet now Piero and Giovanni were becoming increasingly alienated.

Despite this, Cardinal Giovanni continued to scheme for his brother’s return to power in Florence. To this end, he cultivated the friendship of the powerful Augustinian Mariano da Genazzano, who remained Savonarola’s sworn enemy and continued to use all his considerable influence with Alexander VI, constantly urging him to take action against Savonarola. By now neither the pope nor anyone close to the Vatican needed much encouragement in this matter. As the permanent Florentine ambassador Ricciardo Becchi had reported: ‘The outrage against Savonarola is increasing amongst all parties in Rome, to such an extent that it is no longer possible to speak in his defence.’¹⁷

 

NOTES

1. The price of corn …’ et seq.: Landucci, Diario, pp.143–4

2. ‘vanities’, ‘dead hair’, etc.: such terms recurred frequently in Savonarola’s Lenten sermons, which in 1497 were on Ezekiel (see note to p.262 below)

3. ‘which are painted …’: see Savonarola, Prediche sopra Amos, sermon XIII, delivered on 6 March 1496

4. ‘monstrous image’: see Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.505

5. ‘Thus saith the Lord …’: Ezekiel, Ch. 25, vv.16–17

6. ‘Friars have a proverb …’ et seq.: Savonarola, Prediche sopra Ezechiele, ed. Roberto Ridolfi, 2 vols (Rome, 1955), Vol. II, p.59

7. ‘My Lord secretary …’: see Gherardi, Nuovi documenti …, p.151 et seq.

8. ‘condemning him as …’: Parenti, cited in Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.277

9. ‘the death of his son …’: see Savonarola, Prediche sopra Ezechiele, Vol. I, p.286

10. ‘More than one …’ et seq.: Landucci, Diario, p. 145

11. ‘The city is more …’: cited in Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.278, who gives as his original source Antonio Capelli, Fra Girolamo Savonarola e notizie intorno al suo tempo, in Atti della Deputatzione di Storia Patri per le provincie Modensi e Parmensi, Vol. IV (1868), pp.301–406

12. ‘imposed his views …’: see Seward, Savonarola, citing Guicciardini, Storie Fiorentine, p.152

13. ‘We suspected a plot …’: et seq.: Landucci, Diario, p.145.

14. ‘The price of corn …’ et seq.: Landucci, Diario, p.146.

15. ‘27th April. We heard that …’: et seq.: ibid., p.147

16. ‘He here abandoned …’: et seq: see Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. II, pp.9–11, where Villari paraphrases the evidence given by Lamberto dell’Antella in Documenti I, which can be found at the back of Vol. II

17. ‘The outrage against …’: cited in Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, naming as his source Gherardi, Nuovi Documenti, pp.84–6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Two years later Floridi would be arrested by Alexander VI on a charge of forging papal Briefs. As a result, he would be stripped of office and flung into the papal dungeons of Castel Sant’ Angelo on a starvation diet of bread and water, which would soon bring about his death.

[2] The movingly named early-Renaissance building (literally ‘Hospital for the Innocents’) was in fact the city orphanage, where unwanted babies and abandoned children were taken in and taught a trade.

 

[3] A weavers’ village two miles east of the city walls up the Arno valley. Landucci’s ‘corn’ is, of course, wheat and other types of grain, rather than maize.

 

[4] The plague that recurred in many Italian and European cities several times during this period was not as virulent as the Black Death (or bubonic plague) that had swept through Europe around 150 years previously, killing as much as one-third of the entire population. These later plague outbreaks in Florence (and other cities) usually proved fatal for those who caught the disease, but seldom spread much beyond several cases in the immediate vicinity. After some months the disease was liable to vanish as suddenly and mysteriously as it had arrived. All this suggests that these later plagues may have been the less common septicaemic (blood infection) or pneumonic (attacking the lungs) variant of the disease. Significantly, as Landucci seems to indicate, the plague at that time in Florence, and the ‘French boils’, were widely regarded as two distinct diseases.

 

[5] The titular head of the order. Cardinal Caraffa, as Vicar General, was the executive head in charge of the everyday running of the order.

 

[6] In some aspects, however, the hall would remain incomplete for some time, at least partly owing to economic reasons. Not until eight years later would Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo be commissioned to cover the two great side walls with murals depicting historic Florentine victories.

[7] Maximilian I, who ruled over territories in Austria, Germany and Burgundy, was opposed to France. He was also keen to be seen supporting Alexander VI, and had joined the Holy League. His ambition was to be officially crowned as emperor by the pope, a tradition dating back to Charlemagne’s time, which had fallen into abeyance.

[8] The lasting affection of Florence for Capponi can be seen in the fact that he still has a street named after him, north of the city centre near the former site of the Porta San Gallo.

[9] There were twenty soldi to one lire. In normal times a bushel of corn cost less than one lire. It is difficult to compare prices exactly, but informed estimates suggest that an unskilled labourer during these difficult times would only earn enough each day to feed his family (of around eight people) on a loaf of bread and a few vegetables. As well as distribution of free grain by the commune (that is, the city authorities), monasteries such as San Marco passed out bread to the starving as best they could.

[10] This ‘monstrous image’⁴ was also intended as the personification of the previous Carnival, where such effigies had often topped the bonfires around which people danced. Originally this would have been the figure of Pan, the Ancient Greek god associated with sexual licence, fertility and spring. The resemblance between the traditional image of the Devil and the Ancient Greek god Pan was not coincidental. The gods of one religion were habitually either incorporated into the religion that succeeded it (such as Athena, the Ancient Greek virgin goddess, becoming the Virgin Mary) or were co-opted to become its bogey figures (such as Pan becoming the Devil). Pico della Mirandola had recognised this trait, and made it part of his universal philosophy. Savonarola had gone to great pains to ‘cure’ him of such thinking, which undermined the uniqueness of Christianity.

 

[11] Evidently not all classes in Florence were suffering from the scarcity of food and high price of corn.

[12] This friar is generally identified as Fra Leonardo da Fivizzano; Santo Spirito was on the Oltrarno and a centre of the Augustinians, who had been Savonarola’s enemies since he had humiliated Fra Mariano da Genazzano, the man who was now superior of their order in Rome.

 

[13] A northern gate in the city walls.

[14] Staggia was a small town thirty miles south of Florence.

[15] Castellina was a village in the mountains six miles north-east of Staggia. Fonti di San Gaggio was just south of the city walls of Oltrarno. These varied locations evidently came from rumours heard by those who were fleeing the immediate countryside for the comparative safety of the city walls.

[16] This was the main gate in the southern city walls of Oltrarno, now known as the Porta Romana, at the southern end of the Boboli Gardens (which of course did not exist at that time).