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

 

 

22. THE SIEGE OF SAN MARCO

 

NEXT DAY, 8 April 1498, was Palm Sunday. At first the streets were ominously quiet. In the afternoon, as people left their houses, it soon became clear that the entire atmosphere of the city had been transformed. It began with minor incidents. As citizens of the better classes decked in their Sunday finery strolling through the Old Market encountered passing pro-Savonarola adherents (identifiable by their plain dress) and other evident Piagnoni, they began reacting aggressively towards them, calling them names, spitting at them, later even jostling them and pulling at their clothes. In the main streets and squares makeshift posters began appearing on the walls denouncing leading citizens who were known supporters of Savonarola, such as Mazzinghi, Valori and Soderini. Groups of bully-boyCompagnacci chased after any Piagnoni they encountered, beating up those they managed to catch.

Later Savonarola’s close disciple Fra Mariano Ughi was due to deliver the Palm Sunday sermon in Florence Cathedral, and well before Evensong the benches had begun to fill. Those who remained loyal to Savonarola saw this as an opportunity to rally together and show their continuing support. At the appointed hour Fra Mariano left San Marco and proceeded down the Via del Cocomero, surrounded by the usual company of monastic followers-cum-protectors, who now habitually accompanied any friar from San Marco on his way to deliver a sermon outside the safe confines of his own monastery church. Yet no sooner had Fra Mariano and his group emerged than they were greeted by a hail of stones hurled by street urchins who had been hired by the Compagnacci.

By the time Fra Mariano had managed to make his way to the cathedral, ‘the benches were already full’.¹ Yet not all of those present were supporters of Savonarola: amongst them were groups of Compagnacci hell-bent on disruption, who:

began to strike the backs of the seats where the women were sitting, using coarse language and saying: Adante con Dio, piagnonacci (Get out of here, you snivelling psalm-singers). As a result, many amongst the congregation rose to their feet, and there began a great tumult in the church, with anyone who could make it to a door being lucky. When some of the other men protested, the Compagnacci tried to cuff them contemptuously and begin a dispute. Some even used their weapons against several of the partisans of the Frate as they were fleeing towards the Via del Cocomero. A number of these were struck and wounded, so that in a few hours the whole city was up in arms.²

 

Chaotic scenes developed outside the cathedral, with the Compagnacci encouraging their supporters with cries of ‘Let’s get the Friar! On to San Marco! On to San Marco!’³

Meanwhile other supporters of Savonarola had gone to San Marco to attend Vespers, but Landucci described how the piazza in front of the church was soon filled with a ranting anti-Savonarola mob:

making it impossible for many men and women who were in San Marco to come out. I chanced to be there; and if I had not managed to get out through the cloister, and go away towards the Porta di San Gallo, I might have been killed. Everyone was arming himself, in fact; and a proclamation from the Palagio [Palazzo della Signoria] offered 1000 ducats to anyone who should capture Fra Girolamo and deliver him up to the authorities. All Florence was in commotion …⁴

 

The friars had quickly locked and bolted the front doors of the church. They then ensured that the terrified women caught up in the church, together with others amongst the congregation who had no stomach for violence, managed to follow the prudent Landucci and make their escape by the back way out of the monastery.

Many of the friars began making preparations to defend San Marco, which seemed to be under imminent threat of attack by the baying mob, which continued to swell outside, and had been so incited by the Compagnacci that by this stage they were evidently beyond control. Together with the friars gathered inside the monastery were some thirty of so Piagnoni and leading secular Savonarola supporters. Amongst them was Francesco Valori, who had initially counselled the friars against any violence, telling them that in keeping with their monastic vows it was better they should leave the city, returning to take over San Marco when the Signoria had restored order and things were back to normal. But the friars had refused to contemplate deserting their home and made it clear that they were determined to defend the house of God. In fact, a few of the friars had for some time now been making preparations for just such an eventuality. An old unoccupied cell beneath the cloister had been converted into a secret armoury by two junior friars named Fra Silvestro and (ironically) Fra Francesco de’ Medici, and here they had already assembled a formidable array of weapons. These included:

Twelve breastplates and a similar number of helmets; eighteen halberds, five or six crossbows, various shields, four or five arquebuses, a barrel of gunpowder and a crate of leaden bullets, as well as a couple of small primitive mortars^[1].⁵ 

 

These weapons had been smuggled into the monastery by the leading PiagnoniFrancesco Davanzati and his henchman Baldo Inghirami, who now took it upon themselves to draw up plans for the defence of the monastery, handing out arms, posting guards at strategic points along the walls and lookouts at high windows. Sixteen of the friars had volunteered their willingness to take up arms under the command of Inghirami, who was to direct the defence of the monastery. Once the strong doors separating the church from the inner monastery had been locked, the high walls with narrow windows that encompassed the monastery itself gave it a formidable defence.

Amazingly, all these preparations had been made without the knowledge of Savonarola, who would certainly have forbidden such activity. Indeed, he remained until a late stage largely ignorant of what was taking place within his own monastery – though he quickly became aware of what was happening outside, as the yelling mob surrounded San Marco and began throwing stones, together with other missiles and refuse, over the walls. And as prior it must have been his order to begin sounding the great San Marco bell, known as La Piagnona (in part because of its wailing toll, as well as the more obvious reason that it summoned the Piagnoni to church services). On this occasion, the tolling of the bell was intended to sound the alarm, signalling for the civil militia to be sent to restore order. But the Signoria appeared to be in no mood to allow such necessary action to be taken, and instead sent their official mace-bearing heralds to proclaim outside San Marco that all within were to lay down their arms. At the same time, Savonarola was ordered into exile, the proclamation specifically stating that he had to be beyond the borders of Florentine territory within twelve hours. This latter, more realistic, stipulation was presumably intended to reinforce the authenticity of the Signoria’s order, as well as its feasibility, in the hope that Savonarola might take this opportunity to escape with his life. However, the proclamation had precisely the opposite effect. The friars inside San Marco who heard it refused to believe that it was anything other than a trick by theCompagnacci to get them to open the doors, so that their armed men could burst in and attack them.

When it became evident that the proclamation had produced no effect, the Signoria began to argue amongst themselves over what action they should take in order to maintain their authority, with some suggesting that an order be issued for the removal of all arms from the immediate region of San Marco, simply to avoid bloodshed. During the discussion of this, and alternative measures, tempers flared to such an extent that at one stage two of the Signoria made to draw their arms as they confronted one another. But the anti-Savonarolan majority soon prevailed over the voices of the moderates, who were mainly concerned to avoid a riot, as civil division was now spreading throughout the city. With similar intention, the pro-Savonarolan Domenico Mazzinghi, who held a senior post in the administration, expressly went to the Palazzo della Signoria and reminded the members of the ruling body, and others gathered in the palace, of their sovereign duty to maintain order. But according to one of those present, he was ‘rebuffed with every villainy in the world, and had it not been for several noblemen, I think he would have been killed’.⁶

Meanwhile in San Marco, Savonarola was determined to prevent any serious violence. Donning his official sacred vestments and taking up a crucifix, he declared that he intended to leave San Marco and surrender himself in the piazza outside, justifying his actions: ‘Let me go forth, since this storm has only arisen because of me.’⁷ But the friars and their secular supporters who were with him refused to let him do this, begging: ‘Do not leave us! You will only be torn limb from limb; and what would become of us once you are gone?’

As darkness descended, Francesco Valori made good his escape from the besieged monastery, with the intention of gathering together as many loyal Piagnoni as he could muster, so that they could come and defend San Marco. Landucci described how Valori:

got out of San Marco secretly, into the garden at the back and along the walls, but here he was seized by two villainous men and taken to his house. Later in the evening he was fetched by the mace-bearers of the Signori, who promised that his life would be spared, and marched him off to thePalagio. But on the way … a man came up behind him and struck him on the head with a bill-hook two or three times, so that he died on the spot. And when they ransacked his house, they wounded his wife so that she died, and they also wounded the children and their nurses, stripping the house of everything.⁸

 

By now the mob had begun to break into the houses of several leading Piagnonisupporters, pillaging them, and other murders took place^[2]. Landucci went on:

At the same time, there was fighting around San Marco, where the crowd was constantly increasing; and they brought three stone-throwing machines into the Via Larga and the Via del Cocomero. By now several people had been wounded and killed. It was said that between fifteen and twenty people were killed in all, and about a hundred were wounded.

 

At about six in the night [i.e. 2 a.m.] they set fire to the doors of the church and the cloister of San Marco, and bursting into the church began to fight.

The friars were determined to hold out, confident that Valori would soon return to save the day, having rounded up a crowd of armed and enthusiastic Piagnoni supporters from all over the city. Accounts vary, but it seems that more than a dozen armed friars, along with their supporters, now gave battle to hold back the incited rabble invading the church:

It was an extraordinary sight to see these men with helmets on their heads, breastplates donned over their Dominican robes, brandishing halberds as they charged through the cloister yelling ‘Long live Christ!’ and calling their comrades to arms.⁹

 

Brandishing drawn swords, friars chased back the invaders. Meanwhile the besiegers had got hold of ladders and began trying to scale the walls into the monastery. They were repulsed by monks hurling down tiles stripped from the roof of the building. Yet by all accounts the hero of the day was a German friar by the name of Fra Enrico, a tall muscular fellow who, according to at least one account, literally flung himself into the fray and seized an arquebus from one of the invaders, before using it to repulse the attackers. A more likely version has him stationing himself in the pulpit with one of the arquebuses from the monastery arsenal, and firing down into the fray that was erupting in the nave of the church. Here he would have had the time and the means to reload with ammunition and reprime his weapon with gunpowder. Amidst the explosions from his own and other arquebuses, the resultant clouds of acrid smoke, the general confusion, yells and shrieks of the battling crowd below, Fra Enrico is said to have killed several invaders, using the pulpit to steady his aim and select his target. It was as if the apocalyptic visions that Savonarola had described from this selfsame pulpit were now materialising in the very place once occupied by his rapt congregation.

All sources concur that heavy fighting persisted in and around San Marco for a number of hours that night. Despite being unable to restrain several of his friars from taking violent action, Savonarola is said at one stage to have taken up a position in the choir of the church, which was illuminated by burning torches. Here, surrounded by the majority of his faithful brethren, he led prayers, until the approaching mayhem became too threatening, whereupon a number of the friars seized the burning torches and advanced on the crowd. According to some contemporary sources, this sight caused consternation amongst many of the invaders, who superstitiously believed that a band of angels had descended from heaven to defend San Marco. But the panic and flight of the invaders from the church were not comprehensive, nor did they last for long. When the mayhem re-erupted and once more the situation became too dangerous, Savonarola led his acolytes in procession out of the church and into the monastery, where they reassembled in the Greek Library. Here, against the background of the crowd outside rioting and shouting, marked by occasional explosions from arquebuses, Savonarola addressed his assembled faithful:

Every word that I have said came to me from God, and as He is my witness in heaven I do not lie … I am departing from you with deep sorrow and anguish, so that I can surrender myself into the hands of my enemies. I do not know whether they intend to kill me. However, you can be certain that if I die I shall be able the better to aid you from heaven than I have been able to do here on earth.¹⁰

 

Even at this late hour it was suggested to Savonarola that he could still escape by way of the garden, using the same route as Valori. According to some sources, Savonarola considered this. Yet it was now that the Judas amongst his disciples chose to act. Within the community of San Marco, one monk had traitorously vowed his secret allegiance to the Arrabbiati: this was Fra Malatesta Sacramoro, who now approached Savonarola and suggested: ‘Should not the shepherd lay down his life for the sake of his flock?’¹¹

Fra Malatesta evidently had a good insight into the way Savonarola’s mind worked, for the ‘little friar’ at once ceased all hesitation, silenced any debate and declared his irreversible decision to give himself up to the authorities. After receiving communion he took his leave of his fellow friars, kissing each one of them. Many of his closest followers begged to be allowed to go with him, but in the end Savonarola allowed only one friar to accompany him: Fra Domenico da Pescia, whose unswerving faith at the prospect of the ordeal by fire had so impressed him.

By now the Signoria had at last despatched a contingent of armed troops under the command of Giovanni della Vecchia, who had imposed an element of order amongst the rioters, as well as managing to force his way through to the cloister inside the monastery. Savonarola sent two of his friars into the cloister to parley his surrender to della Vecchia’s men-at-arms. The friars informed the men: ‘We agree to hand over the Frate if you promise to take him safely to the Palagio.’¹² Having received this assurance, Savonarola and Fra Domenico proceeded out into the cloister, where della Vecchia’s men had just been joined by the official mace-bearers from the Signoria, who immediately took charge of the two friars.

It was now probably around 3 a.m. or maybe even later^[3]. The mace-bearers barely had time to manacle Savonarola and Fra Domenico before the angry mob surged around them, attempting to break through the men-at-arms and lay hands on the prisoners. As they were led away between the soldiers into the Piazza San Marco, the crowd, illuminated in the darkness by flickering torches, jeered, yelled insults and spat into their faces. At one stage someone attempted to burst through the line of soldiers and thrust his flaming brand into Savonarola’s face, yelling sarcastically, ‘Behold the true light!’¹³ Just as the two prisoners were being ushered through the side door of the Palazzo della Signoria someone managed to land a kick on Savonarola’s backside, shouting, ‘Look, that’s where his prophecies come from!’

Once inside, Savonarola and Fra Domenico were led before Gonfaloniere Popoleschi, supported by his Signoria and numerous dignitaries. Popoleschi could not refrain from gloating over the victory that he had engineered with his fellow Arrabbiati. His voice heavy with sarcasm, he asked the two hapless and humiliated prisoners whether they still persisted in believing that their words came from God. Both replied that they did indeed. Whereupon they were led off to separate places of imprisonment within the palazzo. Savonarola was marched up the stone stairway to the top of the tall turreted tower, where he was locked in the tiny stone cell known as the Alberghettino (little inn), whose narrow window looked down over the Piazza della Signoria. Ironically, this was the very cell where Cosimo de’ Medici had been imprisoned in 1433, when the Albizzi family had temporarily succeeded in ousting the Medici from power. The canny Cosimo de’ Medici had used his network of contacts and managed to save his life by bribing his way out of the Alberghettino; meanwhile his friend Pope Eugene IV and other Italian heads of state had protested on his behalf, to ensure that his death-sentence was rescinded and he was allowed to travel with his family into exile, where he had access to sufficient funds to help contrive the Medici’s return to rule. But Savonarola had no such network, no such means, no access to such sympathetic powers. The pope and heads of state throughout Italy all rejoiced at his downfall, and the population of Florence had turned overwhelmingly against him. Only the remaining downtrodden Piagnoni still supported him, sullenly and in secret.

 

 

NOTES

1. ‘the benches were already …’: cited in Martines, Savonarola, p.232, giving Cerretani as his source

2. ‘began to strike the backs …’: Landucci, Diario, p.170

3. ‘Let’s get the Friar …’: many contemporary sources record variations of these cries: see, for instance, Landucci, Diario, p.170; Burlamacchi, Savonarola, p.156

4. ‘making it impossible …’ et seq.: Landucci, Diario, p.170

5. ‘Twelve breastplates …’: see Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. II, p.ccxxxiii

6. ‘rebuffed with every villainy …’: cited in Martines, Savonarola, p.234, giving as his source Parenti, Savonarola (Schnitzer), p.265

7. ‘Let me go forth …’ et seq.: cited in Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. II, pp.166–7, using as his sources the original documents printed at the end of Vol. II, in this case Documento XXVIII, especially those sections relating to Fra Silvestre on p.ccxx et seq. and Alessandro Pucci on p.cclxxiij [sic] et seq. These are largely confirmed by Burlamacchi and other contemporaries.

8. ‘got out of San Marco secretly …’ et seq.: Landucci, Diario, pp.170–1

9. ‘It was an extraordinary sight …’ et seq.: see Villari, La Storia …Savonarola, Vol. II, p.166. Here, and in the following description, Villari has conflated a number of contemporary reports, relying heavily upon that of Fra Benedetto, who was one of the armed monks.

10. ‘Every word that I have …’: Fra Benedetto Luschino, Cedrus Libani, ed. P. V. Marchese, Archivo Storico Italiano, App. VII (Florence, 1849), pp.82–6

11. ‘Should not the shepherd …’: cited in Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. II, p.175, giving his contemporary sources as Burlamacchi, Violi and Fra Benedetto (who was present at the time)

12. ‘We agree to hand over …’: cited in Seward, Savonarola, p.245, giving as his source Burlamacchi, Savonarola (Lucca, 1764), p.144

13. ‘Behold the true …’ et seq.: ibid.

 

 

 

 

23. TRIAL AND TORTURE

 

LANDUCCI DESCRIBED THE atmosphere in Florence after day duly dawned on Monday 9 April 1498:

People laid down their weapons, but everyone continued talking about what had happened. It was as if hell had opened beneath our feet: everyone kept saying ladro e traditore (wretch and traitor), no one dared to say a word in support of Savonarola, or they would have been killed, and everyone jeered at the citizens, calling them Piagnoni and hypocrites.¹

 

The Compagnacci roamed the streets in triumph, displaying the weapons that had been discovered in San Marco, claiming them as evidence that Savonarola had intended to lead an armed insurrection against the government. He was not only a charlatan, but also a traitor. Middle-class Piagnoni sympathisers fled for the countryside; others, secretly taking their families and any portable valuables, simply went into exile in fear of their lives.

Savonarola was brought down from the Alberghettino late on Monday morning, when he was probably subjected to some informal questioning by the Signoria. Having been taken into custody, he would now be subject to the due process of law. This would involve him being interrogated and tortured before a judicial commission set up to discover whichever laws he might have broken, and whether his claims to be a prophet and to have spoken with God were true.

Next day things began in earnest:

At the ninth hour in the evening [i.e. 5 p.m.] Savonarola was carried to the Bargelloby two men on their crossed hands because his feet and hands were clapped in irons. Fra Domenico was brought there in a similar fashion. On arrival they were both seized: Fra Girolamo was put to the rack three times^[4] and Fra Domenico four times; and Fra Girolamo said: ‘Take me down and I will write you my whole life.’ As you can imagine, when right-minded men who had faith in him heard that he had been tortured many were reduced to tears.²

 

By now the two accused had been joined by a third friar. Savonarola’s closest adviser, the ailing Fra Silvestro Maruffi, whom Savonarola had valued so much on account of his visions, had initially hidden himself when San Marco was overrun, but his presence had been betrayed by the turncoat Fra Malatesta, with the result that he too had been taken into the custody of the Signoria.

The man appointed to be Savonarola’s chief interrogator on the judicial commission was the notary Francesco de Ser Barone, usually known by his nickname ‘Ser Ceccone’. An unsavoury character, Ser Ceccone had been a close supporter of Piero de’ Medici, responsible for carrying out a number of his underhand deeds. Ironically, when Piero and his brother Cardinal Giovanni had fled the city, Ser Ceccone had sought sanctuary in San Marco, emerging only after Savonarola had guaranteed his safety by issuing from the pulpit the strongest warning against the taking of reprisals by either side. From then on Ser Ceccone had adopted the guise of a firm Piagnoni supporter, but had in fact been an informer, passing on his information directly to Doffo Spini at the Compagnacci dinners, which he continued to attend, whilst at the same time regularly attending all of Savonarola’s sermons at the cathedral.

Anomalously, as a mere notary he was not legally permitted to conduct any official investigation, but the Signoria had decided to overlook such niceties. Ser Ceccone could be relied upon to deliver a verdict that would ensure Savonarola’s conviction.

The judicial commisssion appointed by the Signoria consisted of seventeen citizens, fervently anti-Savonarola to a man. They included Doffo Spini, as well as a number of leading Compagnacci; another member was the diarist Piero Parenti, whose feelings were clear from his chronicle of day-to-day events; also present was Giovanni Manetti, the man who had been responsible for stirring up the crowd against Savonarola as they waited for the ordeal by fire. Manetti was recorded as asking for permission to conduct a public inspection of Savonarola’s genitals: rumours were circulating concerning an astrologer’s prediction that a hermaphrodite prophet would arrive in Italy, and Manetti wished to set his mind at rest that Savonarola was not the man fulfilling this role. Manetti was duly permitted his request, which was completed to the satisfaction of his fellow commissioners; such humiliation of the prior of San Marco was to be just the beginning^[5].

Meanwhile the Signoria had set about dismantling any possible official opposition to their actions. Elections for the Great Council were called, with no Piagnoni supporters permitted to stand as candidates, and any even suspected of Piagnone sympathies were soon weeded out of the administration.

Savonarola’s interrogation would continue over the ensuing week until 17 April. (An indication of the seriousness and urgency of these proceedings can be judged from the fact that they were not even adjourned for Good Friday, 13 April, or Easter Sunday two days later, the holiest events in the Christian calendar.) The interrogation proceeded by means of the habitual Florentine method used in criminal investigations. Savonarola would first have been invited to confess to the charge of treason. If his subsequent confession was not considered adequate, he would have been reminded that further evidence could be extracted by means of the strappado. If, even after this warning, his confession still did not satisfy the commissioners, then his hands would be tied behind his back and he would be subjected to one drop after another of the strappado until he did ‘confess’.

The effect of all this on Savonarola, his body rendered frail from constant fasting, self-denial and frequent self-flagellation, can barely be imagined. The ingenious advantage of the strappado was that it was not fatal if judiciously administered. Moreover, the method did not numb the body, rendering it equally painful each time it was administered. Such interrogation was legal in Florence, as indeed ‘trial by ordeal’ of one sort or another remained an integral part of the judicial process throughout most of Europe, much as it had done during the medieval era. However, in this case, Savonarola’s entire trial was in fact illegal. Priests did not fall under the jurisdiction of the civil authorities and could only be tried by the Church courts.

This hardly mattered where Savonarola was concerned. By 12 April, within forty-eight hours of Savonarola having been carried in irons into the Bargello, news had reached Alexander VI of what had happened. That very day His Holiness conveyed his feelings to the Signoria in Florence:

It gave us the greatest pleasure when your ambassador informed us of the timely measures you have taken in order to crush the mad vindictiveness of that son of iniquity Fra Hieronymo Savonarola, who has not only inspired such heresies amongst the people with his deluded and empty prophecies, but has also disobeyed both your commands and our orders by force of arms. At last he is safely imprisoned, which causes us to give praise to our beloved Saviour, whose divine light sheds such truth upon our earthly state that He could not possibly have permitted your faithful city to have remained any longer in darkness.³

 

The Signoria was explicitly given permisssion to examine Savonarola under torture; however, Alexander VI made it quite plain that he should then be despatched to Rome, where he would be tried before the appropriate ecclesiastical tribunal. This would have involved more traditional methods of interrogation, such as the rack, branding irons and other devices of the Inquisition, which traditionally tried its victims on charges of heresy. Ironically, the Inquisition remained the preserve of Savonarola’s own order, the Dominicans. Such gruesome methods, in the hands of expert practitioners, were guaranteed to extract the last morsels of information from the hapless victim^[6].

The Signoria were heartened by Alexander VI’s Brief, which not only allowed them to torture Savonarola with impunity, but also lifted from the city the threat of general excommunication. It even went so far as to give dispensation for those who had been guilty of attacking and desecrating Church property during the siege at San Marco. However, the Signoria were reluctant to comply with Alexander VI’s crucial request: Savonarola would not be despatched to Rome. This was more than just a matter of the city of Florence asserting its independence. Over the years during which Savonarola had been consulted by the Signoria, he had inevitably gained an intimate knowledge of the workings of the city government, its secret policies, as well as its methods of gathering intelligence. These would certainly have included sympathetic informants providing confidential intelligence from Rome, possibly even spies within the Vatican itself. Alexander VI would make sure that he extracted as much of this vital information as he could from Savonarola, which he would then use to pursue his own political ends: informants would be eliminated, Florentine strategy anticipated and thwarted, the city’s weaknesses exploited. For the good of the republic, Savonarola had to be kept in Florence, even if this displeased His Holiness – which it certainly did. This was one of the reasons why Savonarola’s trial was conducted with the maximum secrecy. None beyond the seventeen members of the inquisitorial commission, the surgeon and members of the Signoria were permitted to attend. Savonarola was not even allowed a defence counsel, on the grounds that as a priest he would not have been permitted one in the ecclesiastical court before which he should have been tried. The logic of this argument was to be typical of the conduct of Savonarola’s case.

On 13 April, probably the very day that Alexander VI’s Brief arrived in Florence, important news reached the city from another source. It was learned that on 7 April (that is, the very day on which the ordeal by fire was to have taken place), Charles VIII had cracked his head on the stone lintel of a doorway, rendering him unconscious, and despite all the efforts of his physicians the twenty-seven-year-old King had died within a matter of hours. The prophecy that Savonarola had solemnly pronounced just over a year previously had now been fulfilled. This news seems to have given many in Florence cause for thought, especially when it filtered down to those amongst the silent, sullen Piagnoni who remained Savonarola’s secret supporters. Yet it would have no effect upon Savonarola’s fate. The wheels had by now been set in motion: it would take more than the ‘miraculous’ fulfilment of his prophecy to stop them.

Sources differ as to how many ‘drops’ of the strappado Savonarola suffered. As we have seen, the gossip reaching Landucci claimed that he suffered three times. At the other extreme, Botticelli’s brother, the ardent Piagnone Simone Filipepi, claimed that Savonarola suffered fourteen drops in one day, which would definitely have rendered him incapable of confession of any sort and would almost certainly have proved fatal. Others go so far as to claim that burning coals were pressed to the soles of Savonarola’s bare feet as he hung suspended after the drop, though many dispute this as a hagiographic overelaboration of his suffering. With feelings so polarised, and the events taking place in secret, the truth is difficult to assess. At any rate, the modern judgement is that Savonarola’s frail body probably took at the most four drops before he broke and told his torturers: ‘Take me down and I will write you my whole life.’ But this was far from being enough. What the Signoria required was a number of specific admissions that would have proved Savonarola guilty of treason, thus allowing them to execute him. Ser Ceccone duly began interrogating Savonarola and taking down his answers.

The evidence suggests that Ser Ceccone’s record of these events was deliberately slanted to achieve the intended result. No original transcript exists, and all we have are the unsubstantiated printed texts that were released later in the year. Admittedly, in his broken state Savonarola would have confessed to many things, but it is highly unlikely that he did so as recorded in the printed version of Ser Ceccone’s transcript. Even so, the printed text is still worth examining for the simple reason that it was probably a biased version of the events that took place, as distinct from being a complete fabrication. Internal evidence supports this assessment: the problem lies in discerning where the truth tails off and falsehood takes over, and here the text provides us with a number of plausible clues. The picture it paints is hardly that of a skilled interrogation, yet it is this very muddle that hints at a basic underlying reality.

First of all, Savonarola was asked to confess that his prophecies were not the result of divine revelations, and that his claim that God spoke to him was false. According to Ser Ceccone’s record, Savonarola denied that he was a prophet. This was a serious confession, which he must have known would have profound consequences amongst his Piagnoni supporters – yet there is good reason to believe that he did make it. Admittedly, Savonarola had on a number of earlier occasions denied that he was a prophet – though equally incontestably, he had on many later occasions accepted the mantle of a prophet, both in name and in the manner in which he preached. His contemporary apologists such as Burlamacchi, Fra Benedetto Luschino and Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola (the biographer and nephew of the philosopher) accepted that Savonarola made this confession, yet at the same time defended his thinking on this point. And there is no doubt that they were close enough to Savonarola to have been conversant with his method of thought. Savonarola would have been well aware that prophets such as Amos and Zachariah had on occasion denied that they were prophets, as indeed had John the Baptist. According to the Gospel of St John, even Jesus himself had given an evasive answer on this question^[7].

However, there is no denying that Savonarola did believe he was a prophet, and did indeed see many of his prophecies fulfilled. Some of them were ambiguous and open to wide interpretation (such as the arrival of the ‘scourge of God’), while others predicted highly probable events (the deaths of the tyrants, for instance); yet his wish-fulfilment-cum-prophecy concerning the death of Charles VIII, which was neither ambiguous nor probable, not only came true, but had no effect on the interrogators who had forced him to confess that he was not a prophet.

Savonarola’s confession was followed by a justification of his motives, which appears totally antithetical to his personality:

Regarding my aim, I say, truly, that it lay in the glory of the world, in having credit and reputation; and to attain this end, I sought to keep myself in credit and good standing in the city of Florence, for the said city seemed to me a good instrument for increasing this glory, and also for giving me name and reputation abroad.⁴

 

Even so, such cooked-up motives hardly constituted treason. Under further brutal interrogation, Savonarola went on to admit that he had always agreed with the formation of the new republic, from its very inception after the flight of Piero de’ Medici. However, the reasons he gave for this appear equally implausible, showing no evidence of the belief in social justice that had so inspired his sermons in favour of the new republic and the establishment of the more democratic Great Council. Instead, he had supported such things:

because it seemed to me to go best with my aims. I sought to shape it accordingly … I intended that those who called themselves my friends should rule more than the others, and this is why I favoured them as best I could.

 

Such a forced admission was edging him closer to dangerous ground. Yet once again, seeking political influence could hardly be labelled a capital offence, especially in Florence. Still Ser Ceccone pressed on, accusing Savonarola of fixing elections for the Signoria and the Great Council. But even in his broken state, Savonarola refused to confess to this. And according to the record, when he was asked if he had an alliance with Piero de’ Medici he replied, ‘I strongly opposed him.’⁵ This also has the ring of truth, further revealing the haphazard nature of Ser Ceccone’s doctored text: such a patriotic claim was unlikely to have been included in any complete fabrication intended to convict Savonarola of treason. When Ser Ceccone demanded to know if Savonarola had written to Charles VIII, he willingly admitted having done so. He had done this for the benefit of Florence, as was evident. Consequently, he also admitted that he had called for a Council of the Church, with the aim of ridding it of corruption – again, hardly a treasonable motive, at least where Florence was concerned. And besides, the attitude towards the behaviour of Alexander VI was all but universal. Yet when Savonarola was asked if he sought to become pope himself, he replied: ‘No, I did not wish to become pope – for if I had succeeded in my purpose I would have deemed myself above any cardinal or pope.’⁶ In other words, he had in mind higher spiritual aims, rather than Church office, although when pressed (probably after further torture), he allegedly went back on his earlier claim and did admit that if he had been elected, he would not have refused the office of pope.

It seems probable that Ser Ceccone was adhering to a list of questions that had previously been drawn up by the Signoria and the others in attendance, and that he was simply proceeding in consecutive order, with no real adversarial strategy in mind, other than discovering evidence of Savonarola’s treason. Yet no matter how inept such a method may have been, it was still capable of springing surprises to catch the fatigued and all-but-broken accused off-guard. How did Savonarola receive his excellent intelligence concerning what was going on in the city and beyond? Did he demand that his friars break the secret of the confessional by passing on to him certain vital information thus gleaned? Savonarola denied such charges.

Occasionally Savonarola was outwitted. When Ser Ceccone asked him whether he had been in favour of the ordeal by fire, Savonarola denied this; but he did consequently admit to allowing it to go ahead ‘for the sake of his reputation’.⁷ And here, for once, this may have been the truth. Savonarola had been manoeuvred into a situation where he felt bound to accept the challenge of the Franciscans. This may be the single occasion in Ser Ceccone’s report where Savonarola’s claim that he acted on account of his reputation was true. All the other claims – ‘I intended to rule …’,⁸‘my aim was … the glory of the world’, ‘to increase … my name and reputation abroad … my pride … my hypocrisy’, and so forth – which are repeated to the extent that they become a constant refrain, are unmistakably insertions by Ser Ceccone or others. This was not the language used by Savonarola: their very repetition after so many of Savonarola’s answers, as well as their uncharacteristic sentiments, is simply unbelievable.

Finally, on 18 April, after a week of interrogation (or processi – that is, trials, as they were officially designated), Ser Ceccone retired to ‘formalise and set in order’⁹ his transcription. When later that day this was read out to Savonarola, he objected to its obvious falsifications, promising Ser Ceccone: ‘If you publish this, you will die within six months^[8]’.¹⁰ Early next day, Savonarola was ordered to put his name to this document. Initially he refused, but after the threat of further strappado and other ‘encouragement’ he eventually signed.

Later that same day, Landucci recorded: ‘The protocol of Fra Girolamo, written in his own hand, was read out to the Council in the Great Hall.’¹¹ Although the deposition was doubtless announced as such, it cannot have been in Savonarola’s own hand. Only his signature would have been authentic. The printed version in Vallori’s biography, Document XXVI, extends over twenty-seven closely printed pages up to this point; the ‘protocol’ would have been a shorter summary. After undergoing the strappado, Savonarola’s ability to write would have been severely impaired, to say the least, to the extent that even if he had only written the protocol, it would still have taken him an unconscionable amount of time and effort to do so. With Alexander VI demanding Savonarola’s presence in Rome, and Florence remaining in a state of disarrary, the Signoria would have been in too much of a hurry to allow for such a time-wasting procedure. It is necessary to emphasise these points owing to the utter lack of material evidence, in order to build up the case for what necessarily remain suppositions concerning the original document. Savonarola was fighting for his life, whilst amongst themselves the authorities of the new republic abandoned all pretence at the justice whose restoration had been the justification for the overthrow of the Medici.

Landucci went on to record the devastating effect that Savonarola’s protocol had on him:

This very man whom we had regarded as a true prophet had now confessed that he was not a prophet at all, and that he had not received from God the things which he had preached. He confessed that many of the things which had taken place during the years when he had preached had not happened because he had prophesied them. I was present when this protocol was read out, and I was astonished, being utterly dumfounded with surprise. My heart was grieved to witness such a marvel collapse in ruins because it had been founded upon a lie. Florence had lived in the expectation of a new Jerusalem, where the laws would be just and the city would be such an example of righteous life that it would be a splendour upon this earth, and lead to the renovation of the Church, the conversion of unbelievers and the consolation of the righteous.

 

Landucci would not have been alone amongst the Piagnoni supporters who believed Savonarola to be a prophet, and he was certainly not the only one to be similarly devastated by the public reading of the protocol. The Piagnoni dream of a new Jerusalem where social justice prevailed was shattered: Florence was to be no ‘City of God’ after all.

However, the Signoria quickly came to the conclusion that Savonarola’s confession, even in its present corrupted state, was simply not enough. All this was hardly treason: he had confessed to no capital offence, and Alexander VI would soon be insisting once more that he be conveyed to Rome. Consequently, it was decided that Savonarola should undergo a second ‘trial’, which commenced under the same conditions of secrecy just two days after the public reading of the protocol from the first trial. Once again, the leading interrogator and recorder of evidence was Ser Ceccone, but this time – according to his printed report – the trial took place ‘without torture or any harm to the body’.¹² This was contradicted by rumours reaching Landucci, who just two days into the second trial recorded, ‘The Frate was tortured.’¹³ He also noted on the same day that several leadingPiagnoni supporters were arrested, including former gonfaloniere Domenico Mazzinghi.

The following day, 24 April, the trial approached its final stage, and Savonarola was asked to sign his ‘confession’. This time he appears to have written at least part of the document himself; however, there were also lines written and added by Ser Ceccone. This we know because Savonarola wrote, or was forced to write, that ‘in some places there are notes in the margin written by Ser Francesco di Ser Barone [Ser Ceccone]’.¹⁴ This gave Ser Ceccone carte blanche to add, at a later time, whatever he (or the Signoria and the others attending the trial) so wished. Evidence of such post-facto insertions can be seen in the astonishing admisssion allegedly made by Savonarola that, although as prior of San Marco he ‘consecrated the bread and wine every day for mass, and gave holy communion’,¹⁵ he ‘never went to confession’. He revealed:

my reason for not going to confesssion was that I did not wish to disclose my secret intentions to anyone, and because I could not have been absolved from these sins as I did not intend to give up my intentions. Yet I did not care about this, on account of the great end I had in mind. When a man has lost his faith and his soul, he can do whatever he wants and pursue every great thing. I hereby indeed confess to being a great sinner, and I want very much to do this correctly and for this I am willing to do a great penance.

 

It is extremely difficult to believe that Savonarola lost his faith in God whilst in pursuance of ‘the great end’ he had in mind – especially when this end was to establish Florence as the ‘City of God’. A master of logic like Savonarola, who had debated with a philosopher such as Pico della Mirandola, was hardly likely to contradict himself in such a manner. Indeed, despite Ser Ceccone’s ham-fisted methods, it is surprising that the Signoria or the dignitaries present, amongst whom were men of some intelligence, permitted such a blunder to pass. Presumably by this stage they were beyond caring, having the speedy despatch of their own ‘great end’ in mind.

Some parts of the printed document of Savonarola’s second trial do have a certain ring of truth. As we have seen, Savonarola had over the years developed considerable political acumen, and the printed version of his second trial would seem to confirm this. In it, he indicated that he well understood the only way for democracy to work in the Florentine republic:

My intention, as I have said in reply to other questions, was that the citizens who I had decided were good, should hold all positions of power, or at least govern with a majority of four to three, and that the others, who are known as the Arrabbiati – although in order to preserve my honour I did not call them by this name – should be kept out of government as much as possible.¹⁶

 

So far so good: but he knew that any workable democracy – especially under the conditions prevailing in Florence at the time – required an opposition of some sort, for even his supporters were not above political suspicion:

It was not my intention totally to exclude and drive out [all opposition], for I was very much in favour of having an obstacle against the leaders of our faction, having suspected that these same leading citizens would in the end become so predominant and hold such power that they would fashion a narrower form of government of their own and wreck the Great Council.¹⁷

 

Savonarola’s belief in the workings of the Great Council took into account the frailties of human nature. If such passages were not authentic, then it remains difficult to see any reason for Ser Ceccone or the Signoria to have made them up. And once again, such ideas were hardly a capital offence.

At the same time, Savonarola’s closest allies were also being subjected to interrogation. The fervently loyal Fra Domenico da Pescia, whose belief in his master had even extended to his willingness to undergo ordeal by fire, was to suffer horribly at the hands of the authorities. His inquisitors tried to persuade him that Savonarola had in fact confessed to all manner of sins, from being a false prophet to heresy, but Fra Domenico continued to insist, ‘In the certainty of my mind, I have always believed, and in the absence of any proof to the contrary, still firmly believe in the prophecies of Savonarola’.¹⁸ As well as being subjected to the strappado, Fra Domenico was also forced to endure the stanghetta^[9].

After further agonies, Fra Domenica informed his inquisitors:

I have tried to be as precise to you as I would be at the hour of my death, and indeed I may well die if you torture me any further, for I am utterly broken, my arms have been destroyed, especially my left one, which your tortures have now dislocated for a second time.

 

Yet still they continued, and still he could not bring himself to lie, declaring, ‘I have always thought him an altogether upright and extraordinary man.’¹⁹ As with Savonarola’s trials, there is a question here over documentary sources. At the back of Villari’s biography, as Document XXVII, he includes the two different ‘original’ versions of the transcript that have come down to us. These are printed side by side for comparison. According to Villari, the version in the left column is ‘the true document written in his own hand’,²⁰ whilst the other is ‘the false document’. In the light of Fra Domenico’s claim that ‘my arms have been destroyed’ (ho guaste le braccia), it is difficult to see how he could actually have written this ‘true’ document. More likely, he dictated it, read it through and appended some sort of signature. Villari himself gives an eloquent defence of his conclusions:

When they read Fra Domenico’s confession, the authorities felt obliged to insert various alterations [in order to] efface the tone of heroism which was notable in every word … When I put together the two copies of these depositions, which I myself discovered, I found that the one which was altered by the Signoria was better assembled, more grammatical and had a better style than the true and genuine confession. This real version contains evidence of a sincere and natural eloquence that does not come from art, but is the spontaneous expression of an open soul. It is not possible to read this examination without being profoundly moved, it is as if we are transported into the very torture chamber itself, witnessing the pitiless wrenching of the limbs, hearing the grating of the bones, aware of the frail exhausted voice, so sublime and pure, of this heroic monk who welcomes death with the angelic smile of a martyr.²¹

 

Such sentiments may appear rather overblown in our secular age, yet something similar must certainly have taken place. Fra Domenico’s belief was indestructible; and, miraculously, he survived his tortures.

By contrast, the third member of the trio of monks arrested at San Marco, the sickly otherworldly Fra Silvestro Maruffi, whose visions had so inspired Savonarola, proved all too human. Having unsuccessfully tried to hide in San Marco, he now faced his inquisitors filled with terror. Once again Ser Ceccone conducted the proceedings. Fra Silvestro soon denounced Savonarola, as well as all the claims he had made, before giving a complete list of all the citizens who regularly visited Savonarola at San Marco. Even so, when questioned about Savonarola’s interference in affairs of state, he could offer no evidence. He also unwittingly contradicted the ‘admission’ that Savonarola had made in his signed legal document that he ‘never went to confession’. Fra Silvestro explained how:

on twenty or twenty-five occasions, when he was about to deliver a sermon, he would come to my cell and tell me, ‘I do not know what to preach. Pray to God for me, because I fear that he has abandoned me because of my sins.’ And he would then say that he wished to unburden himself of his sins, and would make confession to me. Afterwards he would go away and preach a beautiful sermon. The last time that he did this was when he preached in San Marco on the Saturday before the last Sunday of Lent. Finally I say that he has deceived us.²²

 

Again, the abrupt break in style and tone suggests that this last sentence was inserted by Ser Ceccone. Yet even Fra Silvestro’s abject confession was not sufficient to condemn Savonarola to death.

The friars of San Marco proved to be of similar frailty to Fra Silvestro. As a result of their violent resistance during the siege of San Marco they had been excommunicated by Alexander VI. In an attempt to redeem themselves and have this sentence annulled, on 21 April they composed a collective letter to the pope, which was signed by almost all the friars in the community. This letter has been vilified as an abject surrender to the pope, as well as a grovelling betrayal of their beloved prior, and indeed it is both of these. However, it is possible to read this document as a letter addressed to the pope, in his office as ruler of the Church and as the occupant of St Peter’s throne, rather than to Alexander VI himself, whom Savonarola had so passionately castigated. The distinction is subtle, but real in this case: they were not prostrating themselves before the degenerate monster who sat on St Peter’s throne, but before God’s representative on Earth. This distinction becomes clear and significant when the letter describes how the friars themselves felt with regard to Savonarola:

Not only ourselves, but men of much greater wisdom, were persuaded by Fra Girolamo’s cunning. The sheer power and quality of his preaching, his exemplary life, the holiness of his behaviour, what appeared to us as his devotion, and the effect it had in purging the city of its immorality, usury and all manner of vices, as well as the events which appeared to confirm his prophecies in a way beyond any human power or imagining, and were so numerous and of such a nature that if he had not retracted his claims, and confessed that his words were not the words of God, we would never have been able to renounce our belief in him. For so great was our faith in him that all of us were ready to go through fire in order to support his doctrine.²³

 

This revelatory admission would seem to be an accurate and succinct summary of the entire Savonarola ‘phenomenon’ and its effect upon those who came into contact with him. It certainly accords with the way many modern commentators view what took place in Florence during these years: a collective delusion, which was almost certainly shared by Savonarola himself. The impressionable friars, many of whom were young, educated, of good families, and were genuinely appalled at the humanism that had been adopted by so many of the city’s intellectuals, as well as by what they saw as the lax morals that accompanied this renaissance of classical values, had quickly fallen under the spell cast by the charismatic ‘little friar’. His influence had proved both intellectually radical and powerfully inspirational, whilst its prophetic religious manner included a heady mix of fundamentalism and passion bordering on fanatic hysteria.

The bewildered young friars of San Marco believed in Savonarola; amidst a world of profound change, they longed for the certainty of which he preached. This was the truth, and it would be realised if only the people could be induced to adopt the virtue and purity necessary for Florence to become the ‘City of God’. The evidence given in the letter by the monks of San Marco is the most concise and clear insight we have into the faith that Savonarola infused in his believers – which, as we have seen, ranged through all classes. At some point this may even have touched Lorenzo the Magnificent himself – after all, it was he who had invited Savonarola back to Florence, and he who had called for the prior of San Marco to visit him on his deathbed. Others, from Pico della Mirandola, through the monks of San Marco, to the lowest Piagnoni, eventually embraced his ideas. This was the faith that had inspired Fra Domenico under torture, to the verge of martyrdom.

The Arrabbiati now decided to take matters into their own hands. They knew that many Piagnoni, more obdurate than Landucci, had not been convinced by the public reading of Savonarola’s confession, and that for as long as Savonarola lived they would have a figurehead to rally around. He needed to be discredited, once and for all, and it was clear that forged evidence would never do this. Only genuine and utterly convincing evidence would now suffice. So on 27 April the Arrabbiati launched a round-up of people known, or suspected, of remaining Piagnoni sympathisers. Their intentions were twofold: first, they wished to uncover convincing incriminating evidence of a plot which would ensure that Savonarola was executed for treason; and second, they wished to launch a lightning reign of terror, which would permanently destroy the Piagnoni movement. Landucci recorded the events of that day: ‘All the citizens arrested for this cause were scourged, so that from 15 in the morning [11 a.m.] till the evening there were unending howls of agony coming from the Bargello.’²⁴ Yet despite all the cries of terror and abject confessions, still no convincing evidence against Savonarola emerged, and on 1 May, ‘All citizens were sent back home; and only the three poor Frati remained.’

By this stage the Arrabbiati were becoming desperate, and on 5 May the new gonfaloniere and the Signoria, now exclusively composed of Arrabbiati, called a Pratica to decided what to do. Alexander VI was still insisting that all three friars should be transported to Rome to be tried by the Church courts, as was their due. It was suggested that the only way to prevent this was for the friars to be tried yet again in Florence, in the hope that this time genuine incriminating evidence would be obtained from at least one of them. Summoning all his authority as the former gonfaloniere, Popoleschi protested against this:

both on account of the way in which the previous examinations were conducted, and for the sake of peace and public order in the city. If we proceed to examine them in the same way as before this will only give rise to a scandal, as we have already been informed by the diplomatic representatives of every state in Italy.²⁵

 

The ‘examinations’ may have been held in the privacy of the Bargello, but word of the way in which they had been conducted had by now spread throughout Italy, where it provoked widespread public revulsion. That a civilised republic like Florence could behave in such a manner towards men of the cloth was nothing less than a disgrace to the entire country. On top of this, the French ambassador Giovanni Guasconi, who was known to be a close friend of the new king Louis XII, had made plain his sympathy for Savonarola and the Piagnoni. The support of Florence’s ally was at stake.

In the end, the Pratica decide to send a despatch to ambassador Bonsi in Rome. He was instructed to inform Alexander VI that the Signoria wished to make an example of Savonarola and his two friars in Florence, where the execution would be witnessed by his remaining supporters, who would realise once and for all that their cause was now futile. On the other hand, if Alexander VI insisted upon further examination of the friars concerning religious matters, he was welcome to despatch a Papal Commission to Florence for this purpose.

 

NOTES

1. ‘People laid down …’ et seq.: Landucci, Diario, pp.171–2

2. ‘At the ninth hour …’: Landucci, Diario, p.172

3. ‘It gave us the greatest pleasure …’: Gherardi, Nuovi documenti, p.231

4. ‘Regarding my aim …’ et seq.: cited in Martines, Savonarola, p.250. One of the corrupted versions of Ser Ceccone’s transcript was printed as I processi di Girolamo Savonarola (Florence, 1498). This was republished in Florence in 2001 under the editorship of Ida G. Rao et al.

5. ‘I strongly …’: cited in Seward, Savonarola, p.250

6. ‘No, I did not …’: cited in Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. II, pp.195–6, giving as his source Document XXVI of the end of the same volume, which contains what purported to be an entire printed version of Savonarola’s interrogations, now and later.

7. ‘for the sake …’: see Seward, Savonarola, p.251, paraphrasing the original text

8. ‘I intended to …’ et seq.: see above, and other sources such as Martines, etc.

9. ‘formalise and set …’: cited in Savonarola, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, p-374

10. ‘If you publish …’ et seq.: cited in Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. 1, p.374, giving as his source Burlamacchi, Savonarola (1937 edn), p.171. See n.47 in Vol.2, p.645 for Ridolfi’s comments.

11. ‘The protocol of …’ et seq.: Landucci, Diario, p.173

12. ‘without torture or …’: I processi … (ed. Rao), p.25

13. ‘The frate was …’: Landucci, Diario, p.174

14. ‘in some places there …’: cited in Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.378, giving as his orginal source his own edition of the trials: I processi del Savonarola, ed. R. Ridolfi, in La Bibliofilia Vol. XLVI (1944), p.30

15. ‘consecrated the bread …’ et seq.: I processi … (ed. Rao), p.25

16. ‘My intention, as I have said …’: ibid., p.27

17. ‘It was not my intention …’: ibid., pp.28–9

18. ‘In the certainty …’ et seq.: cited in Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. II, p.207. The complete deposition of Fra Domenico’s trial can be found at the end of Vol. II as Document XXVII.

19. ‘I have always thought …’: cited in Seward, Savonarola, p.252

20. ‘the true document …’: Villari in La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. II, p.cxcix. Villari gives the sources of these documents in note 1 for each of them.

21. ‘When they read …’: ibid., pp.205–6

22. ‘on twenty or twenty-five …’: ibid., p.210, giving as his source the deposition of Fra Silvestro’s trial which is printed at the back of this volume as Document XXVIII

23. ‘Not only ourselves …’: ibid., p.213. The Latin original of this letter can be found in F.-T. Perrens, Jérome Savonarole d’après les documents originaux et avec des pièces justificatives en grande partie inédites (Paris, 1856), Document XVII

24. ‘All the citizens arrested …’ et seq.: Landucci, Diario, p.174

25. ‘both on account of the way …’: cited in Villari, Savonarola (trans. L. Villari), Vol. II, p.399–400, giving as his original source Florentine Archives, Register, Sheet 86 t. This also appears in Lupi, Nuovi Documenti.

 

 

24. JUDGEMENT

 

TO THE SURPRISE of the Signoria, Alexander VI agreed to their proposal. In fact, he now wished to see Savonarola eliminated as quickly as possible. This would not only destroy a dangerous source of public defiance to his authority, but would put an end to Savonarola’s call for a Council of the Church, with the aim of deposing him. As ever, Alexander VI also had a further, more devious motive. The execution of Savonarola in Florence was liable to result in public disturbances, making the city ungovernable. This would provide an ideal opportunity for the reimposition of Medici rule. In a stroke, the city would be returned to stability, and would be ruled by an ally in the form of Piero de’ Medici, who would regard him with gratitude.

Alexander VI selected his two-man Papal Commission with some care. His first choice was the aged theologian Giovacchino Torriani, general of the Dominican order, who would lend the commission indisputable dignity and authority. Although just five years previously, in 1493, Torriani had in fact supported Savonarola’s wish to form a breakaway Tuscan Congregation, more recent events in Florence had deeply disturbed him. However, the leading figure in the delegation was undoubtedly Alexander VI’s second choice: his thirty-six-year-old protégé, Bishop Francesco Remolino^[10], an ambitious forceful character, whose legal expertise as a judge in Rome had proved his great worth to the pope in eliminating several of his enemies. Like the pope, Remolino was of Spanish descent and had become a close friend of the pope’s notorious son, Cesare Borgia. His loyalty had already seen him rewarded with no fewer than four bishoprics.

Meanwhile Savonarola languished in gaol. Much mythology has grown up around this period, and it features heavily in various forms in the contemporary biographies, which at this point tend heavily towards hagiography. Even so, certain facts seem evident. Savonarola’s cell was bare and he was forced to sleep on the stone floor. During the day it was dim, at night pitch-black, and he was allowed few visitors. His gaoler, a man of evil repute, was very much in favour of the Arrabbiati and treated his prisoner accordingly. However, close contact with the ‘little friar’ and observation of his saintly fortitude are said to have convinced this uncouth fellow of Savonarola’s cause. In response, Savonarola is said to have written for him a small tract entitled ‘A Rule for Leading the Good Life’. Given Savonarola’s pitiful physical and spiritual state, this seems unlikely, yet just such a tract would be published later in the year. The hagiographies also speak of Savonarola writing pious scraps for his gaoler to deliver to his daughter, and even of miraculously curing him of syphilis.

However, there is a second, more profound tract that shows many signs of having been written by Savonarola himself, and as such could not have been written at any other time in his life. Given his bodily condition, this was probably dictated to one of the loyal friars who were permitted to visit him. Entitled ‘An Exposition and Meditation on the Psalm ‘Miserere’, it begins:

Unfortunate am I, abandoned by all, I who have offended heaven and earth, where am I to go? With whom can I seek refuge? Who will have pity on me? I dare not raise my eyes to heaven because I have sinned against heaven. On earth I can find no refuge, because here I have created a scandalous state of affairs … Thus to Thee, most merciful God, I return filled with melancholy and grief, for Thou alone art my hope, Thou alone my refuge.¹

 

Savonarola then quoted the celebrated opening lines of Psalm 51, ‘Miserere mei, Deus: secundum magnam misericordiam tuam’² (‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness’). Later, he compared himself with Christ’s favourite disciple, St Peter, whom Christ had told on the night before his crucifixion: ‘Verily I say unto thee, That this day, even in this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.’³ And so it had come about. Yet St Peter had only denied Christ when he was asked whether he knew him:

But these questions were just words; what would he have done if the Jews had come and threatened to beat him … He would have denied once more if he had seen them getting out whips … If St Peter, to whom Thou granted so many gifts and so many favours, failed so miserably in his test, what was I capable of, O Lord? What could I do?⁴

 

This would appear to prove that Savonarola did indeed break down under torture and made certain untrue confessions concerning his faith. Possibly he agreed that he gave up going to confession (which we know was untrue); maybe he even went so far as to agree that his words did not come from God (despite his conviction that they did); possibly he even denied that he saw visions (his description in the ‘Compendium of Revelations’ of how he had these visions is utterly in accord with the modern psychological findings). However, it is still difficult to believe, as Ser Ceccone’s document claimed, that he confessed his ‘aim was … the glory of the world’ and that he ‘lost his faith and his soul’. It is worth considering a seemingly pedantic distinction here. St Peter denied that he knew Christ; he certainly did not deny his faith. Savonarola may well have denied that he knew God’s words; yet, like St Peter, he seems not to have denied his faith. The similarity would appear to have been intentionally exact – a comparison that would have been all too evident to an exceptional theologian such as Savonarola. He may have been cowed into signing a document that denied his faith, but he had not actually done so.

It is difficult to doubt the authenticity of the words in this last document attributed to Savonarola, now usually known simply as ‘Exposition’. Over the coming years they would profoundly move the many who eventually read them. Indeed, Savonarola’s ‘Exposition’ would have an ‘extraordinary fortune’⁵: over the course of the following two years no fewer than fourteen editions of this tract would be published – in Latin, ‘vulgar Italian’, and even ‘vulgar German’. Here was an almost saintly expression of spiritual despair: a document of rare profundity and passion, which was appreciated by scholars, clergy and laymen throughout Italy, Germany and beyond. Here was a document whose popularity would prove a dangerous focus, as dissatisfaction with the corrupt behaviour of the Church and its clergy on all levels grew ever more widespread^[11].

Judging from the intensity and bleakness of emotion expressed by Savonarola in ‘Exposition’, by this stage he felt certain that he would soon be executed. In which case he was aware that this would probably involve him being burned at the stake as a heretic. Events were soon to confirm this likelihood. On 19 May 1498 the Papal Commission reached Florence, and by now the public mood was evident, for as the commission members rode through the city, the crowd of onlookers lining the streets shouted, ‘Death to the friar!’⁷ Remolino replied, ‘Indeed he will die.’ The Arrabbiatiwere overjoyed at the attitude of the ambitious young bishop from Rome, and in gratitude despatched to his residence a beautiful young prostitute dressed as a pageboy. The grateful Remolino assured his hosts that there could be no doubt about the outcome of the coming trial: ‘We shall have a good bonfire. I have reached the verdict already in my heart.’

Savonarola’s trial before the Papal Commissioners began the next day, with Bishop Remolino as the sole interrogator and just five Florentine dignitaries present as observers for the secular government. During the course of the preliminary questioning it became clear that Savonarola had recovered some of his composure during the month since his previous trial, which he had put to such good use composing his ‘Exposition’. This work may reveal an author amidst the most profound spiritual turmoil, yet he depicts the travails of this crisis with the clarity of a man who has regained his previous intellectual perspicacity. When Remolino began questioning Savonarola about his previous confessions, he ‘observed how [Savonarola] would pretend to answer a question, first by telling some of the truth and then obscuring it, but always without lying’.⁸

His interrogator’s patience soon snapped in the face of such apparent deviousness:

Remolino ordered that he be stripped of his robes so that he could be given the rope [strappado]. In absolute terror, he fell to his knees and said: ‘Now hear me. God, Thou hast caught me. I confess that I have denied Christ, I have told lies. O you Florentine Lords, be my witness here: I have denied Him from fear of being tortured. If I have to suffer, I wish to suffer for the truth: what I said, I heard from God. O God, Thou art making me do penance for having denied Thee under fear of torture. I deserve it.⁹

 

The transcript continued: ‘It was now that Savonarola was undressed, whereupon he sank to his knees once more, showing his left arm, saying that it was completely useless.’ Evidently it had been permanently dislocated during his previous subjection to the strappado, and must have remained dangling uselessly at his side during the previous month. As Savonarola had his hands bound behind his back, in preparation for them to be yanked into the air, he was clearly raving with terror, repeating: ‘I have denied you, I have denied you, God, for fear of torture.’ While he was being hauled into the air, he kept repeating frantically, ‘Jesus help me. This time you have caught me.’

Savonarola was by now reduced to the limits of endurance. One can but imagine the actual incoherence, raving and screaming which must have punctuated the more coherent words that appeared in the transcript. As Ridolfi observed, this included ‘such things as Ser Ceccone would never have recorded in his collection of lies’.¹⁰There is no denying that this document of Savonarola’s third trial has a chilling ring of truth, evoking all manner of terror, its narrative and tone uninterrupted by any out-of-context insertions.

Remolino was an expert judicial examiner, having refined his technique in the interrogation chambers of Rome, where there were far fewer restraints upon procedure than in republican Florence. By this stage Savonarola was all but out of his mind, pleading ‘Don’t tear me apart!’ and ‘Jesus help me!’

Sadistically playing with his victim, Remolino asked, ‘Why do you call upon Jesus?’

Savonarola managed to reply, ‘So I seem like a good man.’

But when Remolino persisted with the question, Savonarola could only reply, ‘Because I am mad.’ Soon he was begging, ‘Do not torture me any further. I will tell you the truth, I will tell you the truth.’

Amidst the goading questions, Remolino suddenly asked, ‘Why did you deny what you had already confessed?’

Savonarola could only reply, ‘Because I am a fool.’

What was Remolino doing here? Savonarola had already revealed quite plainly why he had confessed to Ceccone. He had denied that he spoke with God, and that he saw visions of the future, only through his terror of torture. Yet this time he had told Remolino that he wished to suffer for the truth, that what he had said he had indeed heard from God. It was as if Remolino was determined to force Savonarola to admit that his earlier confession to Ceccone was true. For all his ruthless ambition, Remolino was still a man of God. Did he wish to make utterly sure that he was not an instrument in the interrogation (and possible martyrdom) of a prophet? This is certainly one of the interpretations that can be put on the bare outline that has come down to us through the various versions of this transcript – an interpretation that is reinforced by the later questions, where Remolino subtly sought to discredit the orthodoxy, and thus the validity, of Savonarola’s faith.

When Savonarola was finally lowered to the ground, he once again confessed, ‘When I am faced with torture, I lose all mastery over myself.’ He then added, with some relief, ‘When I am in a room with men who treat me properly, then I can express myself with reason.’

Yet it was now that Remolino’s masterly cunning came into play. He knew that Savonarola was in such a state that he was beyond reason. Sensing this, he began firing at him an inconsequential series of loaded questions, in the hope of forcing Savonarola inadvertently to condemn himself. At one point Remolino asked him, ‘Have you ever preached that Jesus Christ was just a man?’

Savonarola replied, ‘Only a fool would ever think such a thing.’ Had he given the wrong answer to this, or even a muddled reply, he could have been charged with heresy^[12].

Other dangerous questions followed. Remolino asked, ‘Do you believe in magic charms?’

Savanorola was just able to reply, ‘I have always derided such nonsense.’ And somehow he managed to hold his ground.

On the second day of questioning, when Savonarola was seemingly capable of giving more coherent replies, Remolino turned in more detail to a matter that he had touched upon during the first day – a matter whose facts were of most interest to his master Alexander VI. Under the threat of further administration of the strappado, Remolino probed Savonarola with questions about the Council of the Church, which he had unsuccessfully attempted to summon in order to depose the pope. But Remolino soon realised that Savonarola could only tell him what he already knew. All the Italian leaders remained against Florence, and none had dared to commit to any move against Alexander VI. Remolino demanded to know which cardinals had been in favour of the council, but once again Savonarola’s answers accorded with Alexander VI’s intelligence. All had been wary of any such move. Yet Alexander VI evidently retained his suspicions, for Remolino pressed Savonarola again and again about Cardinal Caraffa of Naples, who had played such a crucial role in obtaining for Savonarola the establishment of an independent Tuscan Congregation. However, even after further application of the strappado, Savonarola continued to insist, ‘I did not make any contact with the Cardinal of Naples concerning the Council.’

Remolino reluctantly concluded that he would be able to collect no further information on this matter and soon ended the day’s interrogation, indicating that he would deliver his verdict the following day.

Even while Savonarola was still being examined by the Papal Commission, the Signoria summoned a Pratica to discuss Savonarola’s sentence. Despite the overwhelming Arrabbiati majority at this Pratica, the venerable legal expert Agnolo Niccolini, formerly a supporter of Piero de’ Medici, gave his opinion that it would be a crime to execute Savonarola, ‘for history rarely produces such a man as this’.¹¹Niccolini went on:

This man would not only succeed in restoring faith to the world, should it ever die out, but he would disseminate the vast learning with which he is so richly endowed. For this reason, I advise that he be kept in prison, if you so choose; but spare his life, and grant him the use of writing materials, so that the world may not be deprived of his great works to the glory of God.

 

But the majority were all for Savonarola’s execution:

because no one can rely upon any future Signoria, as they change every two months. The Friar would almost certainly be released at some stage and once again cause disturbance to the city. A dead man cannot continue to fight for his cause.

 

In truth, the authorities remained seriously afraid of Savonarola and his remaining followers. Savonarola’s modern biographer Desmond Seward has produced intriguing evidence of such fears from the contemporary journal written by Sandro Botticelli’s brother Simone Filipepi. This records how, some eighteen months later, Doffo Spini, the notorious leader of the Compagnacci, happened to call late one winter’s night at Botticelli’s studio. As they sat before the fire, Botticelli began questioning Spini about Savonarola’s trials, which he knew Spini had attended. Spini confided to him, ‘Sandro, do you want me to tell you the truth? We never found anything that he had done wrong, neither mortal sin, nor venial.’¹² According to Spini, if they had spared Savonarola and his two fellow friars, and allowed them to return to San Marco, ‘the people would have turned on us, stuffing all of us into sacks and tearing us to pieces. The whole thing had gone too far – we had to do it just to save our own skins.’

On 22 May, Remolino conducted a further brief examination of Savonarola, without even bothering to include his fellow commissioner Torriani. After this, an official message was despatched to Savonarola ordering him to appear the following day, ‘when his trial would be concluded and he would receive his sentence’.¹³ Savonarola could only reply to the papal messenger, ‘I am in prison; if I am able, I will come.’ Prior to Remolino sending his report to Alexander VI, the Papal Commissioners then met the Florentine authorities to ratify the fate of Savonarola, along with that of Fra Domenico and Fra Francesco, neither of whom the commissioners had even bothered to question. In an attempt to display a modicum of Christian compassion, which all present must surely have recognised as breathtaking hypocrisy, Bishop Remolino suggested that the life of the obdurate but saintly Fra Domenico should be spared. But one of the Florentines reminded Remolino, ‘If this friar is allowed to live, all Savonarola’s doctrines will be preserved.’¹⁴Whereupon Remolino reverted to his true character and replied, ‘One little friar more or less hardly matters; let him die too.’

Bishop Remolino then retired to compile his report to Alexander VI. This incorporated Savonarola’s confessions from Ser Ceccone’s transcript without any regard for consistency, including all its farcically inaccurate details, obvious forgeries, insertions, lies and exaggerations. ‘He confesses to inciting citizens to revolt, to deliberately causing shortages of food which caused many of the poor to starve to death, and to murdering important citizens …’,¹⁵ and so forth. Not surprisingly, Remolino reported in the strongest possible terms Savonarola’s confession concerning his attempt to summon a Council of the Church, and how:

He sent letters and communications to many Christian princes, urging them to defy your Holiness and to create a schism in the Church. Such was the depth of iniquity and evil in this dissimulating monster that all his outward appearance of goodness was nothing more than a charade.

 

At this, Remolino’s imagination appeared to fail him, and he chose instead to protect the sensibilities of his Borgia master from the truth of Savonarola’s wickedness: ‘Of such a horrendous nature were his vile crimes that I cannot even bring myself to write them down, let alone pollute my mind with the thought of them.’

The three monks were finally condemned ‘as heretics and schismatics and for having preached new things etc’.¹⁶ On the morrow all three of them were to be ‘degraded’ (that is, stripped of their priesthood), whereupon they would be handed over to the appropriate secular authorities for due punishment.

It soon became plain to all that this punishment had already been decided. Landucci wrote of Savonarola’s fate (which was to be shared with his two fellow friars):

22 May. It was decided that he should be condemned to death, and that he should be burnt alive. That evening a scaffold was put up at the end of a walkway which reached into the middle of the Piazza della Signoria … and here was erected a solid piece of wood many braccia high, with a large circular platform around its base. A piece of wood was nailed horizontally near the top of the vertical piece of wood making it look like a cross. But people noticed this, and said: ‘They are going to crucify him.’ And when word of this reached the ears of the authorities, orders were given to saw off part of the wood, so that it would not resemble a cross.¹⁷

This was the very spot where, six weeks previously, the ordeal by fire had been due to take place.

 

NOTES

1. ‘Unfortunate am I …’: cited in Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, pp.385–6

2. ‘Miserere mei …’: Psalm 51, v.1

3. ‘Verily I say …’: Mark, Ch. 14, v.30

4. ‘But these questions …’: cited in Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, pp.385–6

5. ‘extraordinary fortune’ et seq.: Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. II, p. 650 n.8

6. ‘An exposicyon after …’: see British Library, catalogue no. c.52, f.16.(2.)

7. ‘Death to the friar!’ et seq.: these words appear in varying forms in the main biographies, such as Villari and Ridolfi, citing as their original source Burlamacchi, Savonarola, p.154

8. ‘observed how [Savonarola] would …’: see Seward, Savonarola, p.251

9. ‘Remolino ordered that …’ et seq.: see Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. II, p. clxxxvij et seq. Amongst the documents printed at the back of Vol. II is the complete transcript of Savonarola’s third trial, which runs from p.clxxxiv to p.cxcviij. Slightly differing versions of this transcript appear in I processi … (ed. Ridolfi) pp.3–41, and the modern version in I processi … (ed. Rao), of which I have also made use

10. ‘such things as Ser Ceccone …’: Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.391

11. ‘for history rarely produces …’ et seq.: see Burlamacchi, Savonarola, pp.151–2. Indicatively there is no remaining original document of this meeting in the Florentine archives.

12. ‘Sandro, do you want …’: see Doc. 13 (b) in Lightbown, Botticelli, Vol. I, pp.169–70: original source Estratto della Cronaca di Simone Filipepei, which is in the Archivo Segreto Vaticano, Politicorum, XLVII, fol. 338 et seq.

13. ‘when his trial …’ et seq.: I processi … (ed. Rao), p.43

14. ‘If this friar …’ et seq.: cited in Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. II, p.234, giving as his original source Burlamacchi, Savonarola, p.154

15. ‘He confesses to inciting citizens …’ et seq.: this report was signed by both Torriani and Remolino, but is generally accepted as being written, at least for the most part, by Remolino. Versions of this entire report to Alexander VI, which differ in medieval Latin spelling and details of text, can be found in A. G. Rudelbach, Savonarola und seine Zeit (Hamburg, 1835), pp.494–7, and Fra Karl Meier, Girolamo Savonarola aus grossen Theils handschriftlichen Quellen (Berlin, 1836), pp.389–91. My citations are selected from the beginning of the latter.

16. ‘as heretics and schismatics …’: cited in Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.293, giving as his original source the document appended to the end of the third trial: see Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. II, p.cxcviij

17. ‘22 May. It was decided …’: Landucci, Diario, p.176

 

 

25. HANGED AND BURNED

 

SAVONAROLA WAS KNEELING in his cell, lost in prayer, when the officials from the Signoria, led by Ser Ceccone, burst through the door on 22 May 1498 to inform him that he had been condemned to death. The condemned man offered no reply and simply returned to his devotions – without even asking what form his execution was to take.

The two who had been condemned to die with him reacted very differently. Both had been aware that they faced death, yet only the saintly Fra Domenico had already taken anticipatory steps. He had written a letter to the Dominican monks at the monastery of Fiesole, of which he was prior, bidding his community a heartfelt farewell. Yet despite his utter reliance upon faith, he also knew when and how to take practical action. In his letter, he instructed his monks to:

Collect up from my cell all the writings of Fra Girolamo that are to be found there, have them bound into a book, and place a copy of this in our library. Also place another copy in the refectory, chained to the table, where it can be read aloud at mealtimes, and so that the lay brethren who serve can also read it amongst themselves.¹

 

This letter must have been smuggled out by one of the few allowed to visit the condemned men in their cells, for surprisingly it reached its intended recipients. Even though Fra Domenico’s life had not been spared, ‘Savonarola’s doctrine [would be] preserved’, just as the Pratica had feared and wished to prevent.

Fra Silvestro, on the other hand, was overcome with terror when the verdict was read out to him. Inconsolably, he begged to be allowed to put his case before the citizens of Florence, who he felt sure would grant him mercy on account of his reputation for living a life of blameless spirituality.

The three condemned monks, in their separate cells, were now each joined by a member of the Compagni de’ Neri, the black-robed, black-cowled brotherhood who traditionally spent the final hours with those who had been condemned to death. Jacopo Niccolini was the brother who had been assigned to Savonarola by the Signoria, because of his well-known lack of sympathy with the Piagnoni. Despite this, Niccolini seems to have been deeply impressed by Savonarola from the moment they met, finding his composure under such circumstances nothing less than a spiritual inspiration. When Savonarola asked Niccolini if he could use his influence to secure a final meeting between the three condemned monks, so that he could pass on to them words of advice to help them face their ordeal, Niccolini readily agreed. Surprisingly, he even managed to persuade the Signoria to allow such a meeting to take place, under suitable supervision. Ironically, the three were brought together in the hall of the Great Council, which Savonarola had done so much to establish as the democratic heart of the government of the Florentine republic.

The three monks had not set eyes on each other since the night of the siege of San Marco on 8 April. During the ensuing six weeks they had each been separately interrogated and tortured – an ordeal that had broken Savonarola temporarily, Fra Silvestro permanently, but had not succeeded on Fra Domenico. Even so, they had each been informed by their interrogators that the other two had confessed to heresy, charlatanism, false prophecy and misleading the people. Savonarola was said to have confessed that he was not a prophet, had never seen any visions and had not spoken with the voice of God. His companions had certainly not been informed that he had later recanted these confessions, claiming that they had only been induced by the prospect of unbearable torture.

The three of them cannot have known what to believe of each other. Understanding that their meeting would necessarily be brief, Savonarola immediately took charge of the proceedings. Turning to the faithful Fra Domenico, he said:

I hear that you have requested to be cast into the fire alive. This is wrong, for it is not for us to choose the manner of our death. We must accept willingly the fate which God has assigned for us.²

 

He then turned to the pitiful Fra Silvestro, telling him sternly:

In your case, I know that you wish to proclaim your innocence before the people. But I order you to put away all thought of this idea, and instead to follow the example of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who refrained from protesting his innocence, even when he was on the cross. We must do likewise, because his is the example which we must follow.

 

The two friars then knelt before their superior, Savonarola, and he gave them his blessing. Savonarola was assisted back to his cell – being in leg irons, with his body in such a broken state, he was barely able to walk on his own.

Describing Savonarola in his cell during the time that followed, Ridolfi wrote, ‘The account of his last hours is like a page from the lives of the Church Fathers^[13].’³ The pro-Savonarolan Burlamacchi recounts an incident that became part of the Savonarola legend^[14]. Villari paraphrases this:

It was already well into the early hours by the time he returned to his prison cell. By this stage he was so beset with drowsiness and exhaustion that in a gesture of affection and gratitude he rested his head on Niccolini’s lap, lapsing almost immediately into a light sleep, and such was the serenity of his spirit that he seemed to smile as if seeing pleasant visions in his dreams.⁴

 

When Savonarola awoke, he appears to have been surprised that he had fallen asleep. In a gesture of gratitude towards his compassionate companion, he is said to have vouchsafed him a prophecy that there would come a time in the future when Florence would find itself overwhelmed with a disastrous calamity. ‘Remember this carefully,’ he told Niccolini. ‘These things will come to pass when there is a pope by the name of Clement.’ Just such events would occur in 1529, when Florence would be subjected to the prolonged privations of a ten-month siege, before capitulating; all this would take place during the reign of Pope Clement VII. Even one of Savonarola’s most informed and sympathetic biographers, Pasquale Villari, is driven to suggest that the details of this prophecy ‘do not seem credible’,⁵ adding: ‘We must assume that unless the name Clement was inserted at a later date by devout believers in the friar, this can only be regarded as a fortuitous coincidence.’

At daybreak on 23 May the three condemned men were led from their cells and assembled together once more. Their wrists were manacled, but they were no longer in leg irons, enabling them to stumble down the steps inside the Palazzo della Signoria and out into the piazza. According to Guicciardini:

A multitude of people came to witness Savonarola’s degradation and execution, every bit as as large as the one that had congregated in the same place on the day set for the ordeal by fire, hoping to witness the miracle they had been promised.⁶

 

On the raised stone terrace outside the palazzo were formally assembled three separate tribunals, each of which would play its part in the ensuing protracted solemn rituals – according to one contemporary ‘the ceremonies lasted for the space of two long hours’,⁷beginning at eight and continuing until around ten in the morning.

The first tribunal was led by Benedetto Pagagnotti, Bishop of Vasona, a former friar of San Marco and ironically once a firm believer in Savonarola. Pagagnotti had been commissioned by Alexander VI to read out the papal Brief formally degrading the three friars, publicly stripping them of the priesthood. This Brief had in fact been dispatched to Pagagnotti before the two Papal Commissioners had even left Rome – an unmistakable indication of precisely what Alexander VI had in mind for Savonarola and his two fellow friars. Pagagnotti was so discomfited when he faced Savonarola that he felt unable to look him in the face and stumbled over the words of the formal declaration, declaring at one point: ‘I separate you from the Church militant and from the Church triumphant.’^{[15] 8}  Ever the theologian, Savonarola corrected him at this point: ‘Only from the Church militant; the other is not within your jurisdiction.’ Pagagnotti hurriedly corrected himself. Landucci recorded how ‘They were robed in all their vestments, and each of these was taken off them one by one, with the appropriate words for the degradation.’⁹

The second tribunal was led by Bishop Remolino, who then performed a ceremony exposing still further the duplicity of Alexander VI. Prior to the Papal Commissioners arriving at their judgement, and probably even prior to them setting out from Rome, His Holiness had issued Remolino with a Brief bestowing upon the three friars the pope’s plenary indulgence. This granted them a formal pardon for all sins committed in this world, absolving them from punishment in purgatory in the next world. With this act of supreme papal hypocrisy completed, Remolino then formally handed over the three defrocked friars to the secular authorities within whose jurisdiction they now fell. This was the third tribunal, consisting of the Signoria, ‘who immediately made the decision that they should be hanged and burnt … then their faces and hands were shaved, as is customary in this ceremony.’^[16]

The three condemned men, barefoot and clad only in their thin white undershifts, were then led from the terrace in front of the palazzo by two black-robed Compagni de’ Neri, who accompanied them along the lengthy raised walkway that extended out into the piazza. At the end of this walkway was the circular platform with the gibbet, beneath which were heaped bundles of faggots and kindling wood in preparation for the bonfire. From the sea of faces beneath them on either side of the walkway arose angry jeers, and some mockingly called out, ‘Savonarola, now is the time to perform a miracle.’¹⁰ Evidence suggests that others, especially amongst the Piagnoni, were silently praying that he would do just this and would survive his execution.

The first to be led to the scaffold was Fra Silvestro. The hangman hurriedly ushered the condemned man up the steps to the top of the ladder leaning against the gibbet, placed the rope around his neck and then shoved him off the ladder so that he swung freely from the gibbet. The rope was too short, the noose not drawn tightly enough around his neck, and the iron chains wound around the condemned man’s waist to weigh him down were insufficiently heavy, so that the hanging man remained choking. Landucci, who witnessed these events, described Fra Silvestro’s fate: ‘there not being much of a drop, he suffered for some time, repeating “Jesu” again and again while he was hanging there, for the rope was not drawn tight enough to kill him’.¹¹ All this was intentional, so that the other two could be hanged beside him, and all three would still be alive when the fire was lit beneath them. Part of their punishment was that they would be able to feel the pain of the flames burning their flesh before they died.

The second to be hanged was Fra Domenico, who is said to have literally scampered up the ladder with a joyous expression on his face, ready to meet his maker. According to Landucci, he ‘also kept saying “Jesu”’ as he endured his similarly lengthy strangulation. Finally:

the third was Savonarola, named as a heretic, who did not speak aloud, but to himself, and thus he was hanged. This all took place without final words being declaimed by any one of them. This was considered extraordinary, especially by good and thoughtful people, who were greatly disappointed, for everyone had been expecting some signs, and desired the glory of God, the beginning of the righteous life, the renovation of the Church, and the conversion of unbelievers. Yet not one of the condemned made any justification of their acts. As a result, many lost their faith.

 

Despite this disappointment, Guicciardini’s description makes it plain that some people still had misgivings. He recorded that Savonarola’s death:

which he suffered with unyielding fortitude without uttering a word either claiming his innocence or confessing his guilt. None of this altered anyone’s opinion – either for or against him, or the strength of their feelings on this matter. Many viewed him as a charlatan; whilst on the other hand many were of the opinion that his public confession was simply a forgery … or that it had been falsely extracted from him after his frail body had been broken by the extremities of torture.¹²

 

The execution did not end entirely without unexpected incident. Mention was made of the hangman sadistically jerking the rope around Savonarola’s neck, causing his body to dance in the air and attempting to make a mockery of him before the crowd. Presumably it was this buffoonery which meant that the hangman was personally unable to complete the gruesome ceremony as intended. On the evidence of the paintings of this scene, the ladder leading to the top of the gibbet must have reached up well over twenty feet; however, before the executioner could descend the ladder to complete his task, a spectator had beaten him to it. A man with a lighted torch burst forward out of the surrounding crowd and set fire to the brushwood, yelling, ‘Now at last I can burn the Friar who would have liked to burn me!’¹³

As the fire quickly spread through the dried kindling on the circular platform around the cross, others in the front of the crowd began tossing little packets of gunpowder into the conflagration, causing small explosions and cascades of sparks. Just as the flames began to leap up into the air towards the hanging figures, a sudden wind blew up, forcing the flames away from their bodies. The crowd immediately began to back away from the fire exclaiming, ‘A miracle! A miracle!’¹⁴ Yet the wind eventually dropped as suddenly as it had begun, and the crowd surged forward once more as the flames began to lick up around the bodies, sheathing them in fire. Burlamacchi, who certainly witnessed these events from a close vantage point, then goes on to describe how the fire burned through the rope securing Savonarola’s hands behind his back, letting his arms fall free. The upward current of the fire then caught his right arm, raising it into the air, his hand opening dramatically, as if from amidst the flames he was blessing those who stood gazing up at him. This caused consternation amongst the many who witnessed it: women began sobbing hysterically, some fell to their knees, believing that they were being blessed by the man whom many had secretly believed to be a saint. Others simply fled from the piazza in fright and panic.

Yet not all were so overcome. The Arrabbiati had been determined to avoid any devotional scenes, and had hired groups of urchins to jeer and dance about the leaping flames. Some flung stones, which hit the dangling bodies being consumed by the flames, causing bits to fall from them down into the roaring heart of the fire. On orders from the Signoria, armed guards now formed a ring around the bonfire, forcing back the crowd, preventing spectators from gathering up any relics that might be removed. They were determined that Savonarola’s execution should not be the beginning of a cult perpetuating his name and religious ideas. At the same time, further bundles of sticks were tossed into the fire, increasing its size and intensity.

The chains wrapped around the bodies were secured to the gibbet and kept them suspended, even as the fire burned through the ropes around their necks. While the flames consumed the bodies and organs of the condemned men, their limbs began to fall into the central inferno, leaving only glimpses of the blackened remains of their ragged torsos visible amidst the increasing conflagration. To make doubly sure that no relics could be obtained, Remolino took it upon himself to order the gibbet itself to be pushed over so that it fell into the fire, crashing down and carrying the blackened bodies with it. Remolino was in this instance acting beyond his jurisdiction: having passed on responsibility for the death-penalty to the civil authorities, these matters were now under the command of the Signoria. However, it seems that all in power were equally determined that Savonarola’s death should put an end to both the man and all he stood for.

By this time the piazza had been cleared, and after the fire had cooled down the ashes were shovelled up into carts. When these had been filled, they were pushed down the street some 200 yards to the nearby Ponte Vecchio, with the official mace-bearers lining either side of the carts to prevent any further attempts to secure relics. Here the cartloads of ashes were unceremoniously dumped into the waters of the Arno, their remnant dust-clouds gradually settling onto the surface, where they were carried off downstream by the current, over the weir and beyond the city walls, through the green Tuscan countryside towards the river mouth, where the waters dispersed into the sea.

 

NOTES

1. ‘Collect up from my cell …’: Burlamacchi, Savonarola, p.155

2. ‘I hear that you have …’ et seq.: ibid., pp.156–7

3. ‘The account of his last …’: Roberto Ridolfi, ‘Savonarola’ entry, Encyclopaedia Britannica (2002 edn), Vol. X, p.485

4. ‘It was already well …’ et seq.: Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. II, pp.238–9. The source of the story and the quote are Burlamacchi, Savonarola, pp.157 and 193.

5. ‘do not seem credible …’: ibid., p.239 n.1

6. ‘A multitude of people …’: Guicciardini, Opere (Bari, 1929), Vol. I, p.298

7. ‘the ceremonies lasted …’: cited in Martines, Savonarola, p.274, giving as his contemporary source Piero Vaglienti, Storia dei sui tempi 1492–1514 ed. G. Berti et al. (Pisa, 1982), p.48

8. ‘I separate you from …’ et seq.: cited in Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. 1, p.400. The initial incident is recorded in slightly differing forms by several contemporary sources, such as Iacopo Nardi, Istorie di Firenze, 2 vols, ed. A. Gelli (Florence, 1848), Vol. I, p.136, and Simone Filipepi, Estratto della Cronaca, in P. Villari and E. Casanova,Scelta di prediche e scritti di fra Girolamo Savonarola(Florence, 1898), p.504 et seq.

9. ‘They were robed in all …’: et seq.: Landucci, Diario, p.177

10. ‘Savonarola, now is …’: cited in Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.402

11. ‘there not being …’ et seq.: Landucci, Diario, pp.177–8

12. ‘which he suffered …’: Guicciardini, Opere (Bari, 1929), Vol. I, p.298

13. ‘Now at last …’: Burlamacchi, Savonarola, pp.161–2

14. A miracle …’: Burlamacchi, Savonarola, p.162

 

AFTERMATH

 

SAVONAROLA’S PASSING was greeted with widespread relief, which soon gave way to hectic celebrations. The following month Landucci recorded how:

everyone had begun indulging in degenerate behaviour, and at night-time one saw halberds or naked swords all over the city, with men gambling by candlelight in the Mercato Nuovo [New Market] and elsewhere without any shame. Hell seemed to have opened; and woe betide anyone who had the temerity to rebuke vice!¹

 

At the same time, the authorities launched a concerted attempt to extirpate Savonarola’s teachings. Immediately after his execution, Bishop Remolino announced that anyone in possession of writings by Savonarola was to surrender them within four days or face excommunication. He then returned to Rome to deliver his official papal report, taking with him the beautiful young prostitute he had been given. The grateful Alexander VI would later reward Remolino by making him a cardinal.

The secular administration of Florence was purged of any remnant Piagnonisympathisers. A number of other leading Savonarola supporters fled the city, though at least one remained. As much as any, Botticelli had found himself plunged into psychological turmoil by the struggle that had originated between Lorenzo the Magnificent and Savonarola. Vasari gave a last glimpse of the effect this had wreaked upon the genius whose radiant philosophical works had so enlightened the early Renaissance:

As an old man, he became so poor that … but for the support of friends he might have died of hunger … Finally, having become old and useless, hobbling about supported by two sticks because he could no longer stand upright, he died infirm and decrepit.²

 

Although the Piagnoni may have been humiliated, the citizens of Florence had no wish for a return to Medici rule. The more democratic Great Council, which Savonarola had done so much to instigate, had become a popular and respected element of the republican government, and Medici supporters too now found themselves out of favour. Such a clear-out of the old guard on both sides made way for a generation of talented new administrators. This included the young Machiavelli, who was voted into a senior post and proved so able that he was soon being sent abroad as a Florentine envoy.

Florence would remain militarily weak, under threat from Alexander VI and especially the army of his ruthless son, Cesare Borgia. In an attempt to remedy the situation, Machiavelli was hurriedly despatched as an envoy to the French court. Here he played a role in skilfully re-establishing Florence’s close ties with the powerful new French king, Louis XII, thus continuing the policy advocated by Savonarola. This protected the city from invasion until the death of Alexander VI in 1503. Piero de’ Medici died in the same year, but Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici had long cultivated the friendship of Alexander VI’s rival, Cardinal della Rovere, who soon afterwards became the new pope, Julius II, and allowed Cardinal Giovanni to use the papal forces to retake Florence. However, within a few years the reinstated Medici rule proved so corrupt and unpopular that in 1527 it was overthrown in favour of a republic, which soon saw a re-emergence of Savonarolan fundamentalism, declaring itself the ‘Republic of Christ’. This was eventually overthrown after a lengthy siege of the city by forces loyal to the Medici pope, Clement VII, which began in the fateful year of 1529, just as Savonarola is said to have predicted.

Lorenzo the Magnificent may have made the mistake of inviting Savonarola to return to Florence, yet the outcome of this invitation would not disrupt his secret long-term plans for extending Medici power far beyond the limits of the city state – plans that would see their fruition in later generations, when the Medici would become popes, and even rulers of France. The behaviour of two Medici popes – Leo X (the former Cardinal Giovanni) and Clement VII – would lead directly to the Reformation, which tore Christendom in two and changed the face of Europe for ever. The controversial policies of the two Medici queens of France – Catherine and Marie de Médicis – would be instrumental in preserving the French nation as the single sovereign entity that consequently flourished as the most powerful country in Europe under the ‘Sun King’, Louis XIV. If it had not been for Lorenzo the Magnificent and his ambitious plans for his descendants, none of this might have happened. Indeed, the history of Europe might well have taken an entirely different course.

In less than forty years the opposition between a quasi-benign but corrupt capitalist system run by the leader of a family of powerful bankers and an opposing fundamentalist who fulfilled a public longing for the moral certainties of an earlier age, as well as for a more democratic egalitarian society, had moved far beyond the struggle between the Medici and Savonarola within the city of Florence. By the time of Pope Clement VII (1523–34) the Reformation was already well under way, and the reforms that Savonarola advocated had split the unity of Christendom. Whilst leading the Reformation, Martin Luther marked his admiration for Savonarola by writing an introduction to his final ‘Exposition’, clearly regarding him as a forerunner. Yet there were profound differences between Savonarola and Luther. Savonarola believed in reforming the Church from within, and would have viewed Luther as the worst form of heretical priest, especially in the light of his marriage to a nun.

Following the Reformation, the dichotomy between a progressive materialism and the rule of spirituality would continue to underlie a number of major revolutionary upheavals. In this, Savonarola had been ahead of his time. Politically, his emphasis on democracy was undeniably modern. Yet he was also arguably the first in modern Europe to face the problems of leading a revolution where the euphoria of liberty was followed by repression – in the name of maintaining the purity of the revolution, as well as protecting it against its enemies. In the centuries following Savonarola, this would become a virtually inevitable historical process, visible in one form or another from the beheading of Charles I by the Puritans in England, through to the French Revolution and Robespierre. This trend was still recognisable in the twentieth century, from Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia to the Ayatollahs in Iran. In the early years of the present century, just as the struggle had spread beyond late fifteenth-century Florence to embrace the whole of Europe, the modern variant of this clash between fundamentalism and materialism has spread beyond the nation state to become a worldwide phenomenon.

There was death in Florence – of Lorenzo the Magnificent, of citizens (from plotters to plague victims), of Savonarola. At the same time an entire era was dying, that of the Middle Ages. And as this old order died in Florence, it gave birth to the new: the full flourishing of the Renaissance and the modern political state.

 

NOTES

1. ‘everyone had began …’: Landucci, Diario, p.181

2. ‘As an old man …’: Vasari, Le Vite, Vol. I, pp.869, 871

 

 

 

 

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[1] A halberd was a pike-like weapon with a long wooden shaft tipped by a metal capping consisting of a spike, an axe-blade and a sharpened point. An arquebus was the earliest form of rifle: a long-barrelled musket operated by a matchlock, generally using gunpowder and firing round lead bullets. It came into use earlier in the century, was effective only at short range and liable to explode, making it often more dangerous to the user than the target. The early mortars were a form of short-barrelled wide-bore cannon, which used gunpowder to fire into the air cannonballs or stones and were equally dangerous for all concerned.

[2] Understandably, amidst the darkness and general chaos pervading the city, the order of events that took place that night varies slightly in the different contemporary accounts. I have not adhered precisely to Landucci’s account, but have chosen what appears to have been the most likely sequence.

[3] The times given by contemporary sources vary considerably. For instance, the events that Landucci described as taking place at ‘6 in the night’ – that is 2 a.m. (see here) – probably took place somewhat earlier, while Burlamacchi gave the time of Savonarola’s arrest as ‘the sixth hour of the night’ (1937 edn, p.161). Ridolfi stated ‘It was now after the seventh hour of the night’ (Vol. I, p.368) and in a note (n.27) he discusses Burlamacchi and this problem of timing. All that can safely be stated is that the arrest and the ensuing events took place in the darkness of what we would call the early hours – that is, some time before first light, which began just before 5 a.m. in Florence at that time of year.

[4] The original Italian refers to tratti di fune (pulls on the rope) – in other words, they were subjected to the traditional Florentine strappado, rather than the customary conception of the rack.

[5] Rumours of the arrival of such a prophet may also well have prompted the Franciscans’ insistence upon inspecting Fra Domenico’s genitals for any ‘supernatural signs’ before the ordeal by fire.

 

[6] Where the Inquisition was concerned, torture was in practice frequently inflicted for its own sake. Then, as now, the ‘truth’ extracted by such extreme methods was always liable to conform with what the victim thought the torturer required of him, and this method was thus not always reliable as a method of extracting trustworthy information.

[7] ‘Art thou that prophet? And he saith, I am not.’ John, Ch. 1, v.21.

[8] This improbable prophecy, which almost certainly fell into the same psychological category as that concerning Charles VIII, would also be fulfilled. However, the only source for this prophecy is the fervently pro-Savonarolan Burlamacchi.

[9] More widely known as the Spanish Boot or Iron Boot, this was a widespread instrument of torture in medieval Europe. It usually consisted of iron plates, which would be strapped to encase the foot so that iron wedges could be hammered between the casing into the flesh. Sometimes the ‘boot’ would consist of two casings with inner iron spikes, which could be strapped tighter and tighter. Or it could be larger and sealed, so that water could be poured over the foot inside, which could then be held over a fire until it gradually boiled.

[10] Sometimes referred to as Remolines or Remolins; in Florence, possibly because he had been sent from Rome, he was often called Romolino.

[11] Latin editions would certainly have reached England long before any English version appeared. The first known English edition, which came out in 1543, was entitled ‘An exposicyon after the maner of a coteplacyo vpon .lj. Psalme called Miserere me De’.⁶ Such was the demand for this work that it was soon followed by other translations, suggesting that it proved popular amongst upper-class women who were educated to read, but had not been taught Latin, as well as amongst literate, less-educated men, such as merchants, certain guild members and officials. These translations appeared despite England’s separation from the Church of Rome in 1531 – a further indication, if such was needed, of the regard in which this work came to be held by all Christians.

 

[12] Believers in the Arian heresy, which caused the most serious split in the ancient Church less than three centuries after the death of Christ, basically declared that Christ was ‘begotten’ – in other words, that he was a man, and not divine.

[13] The Church Fathers were the spiritual leaders of the Christian Church during the first five centuries or so after the death of Christ, many of whom lived exemplary lives, some enduring martydom with great spiritual fortitude.

[14] The main contemporary source for the ensuing events remains the pro-Savonarolan Burlamacchi, whose descriptions, perhaps inevitably, stray at times into hagiography. Yet there were others who left a record of these times. Landucci describes the later events as he saw them. Sources such as Parenti, Nardi and Cerretani also gave descriptions that for the most part tally with the main outline of the facts. Guicciardini, regarded by many as the father of modern history, who grew up in Florence and was fifteen years old at the time, would begin his considered description of these events just ten years later. I have at points made use of all these sources.

 

[15] That is, the Church in heaven

[16] The two earliest printed Italian versions of Landucci (1865 and 1883, both Florence) refer to ‘radendo loro el capo e mano’ – that is, shaving the head and hands – thus specifically including their priestly tonsures.