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

 

8. THE END OF AN ERA

 

LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT died on the night of 8 April 1492 at the age of forty-three.¹ All those around him at the Villa Careggi were distraught. During that night and the following days all manner of omens were said to have been witnessed in and around Florence. Poliziano mentions some of them:

On the night of Lorenzo’s death, an unusually large and bright star was observed in the night sky above the villa [Careggi] in which he lay dying. This fell from the sky and was extinguished at the very time when it was subsequently learned that he had died. As well as this, for three consecutive nights torches were witnessed racing down the hills around Fiesole, all night long. These torches ended up over the sanctuary where the Medici family are buried; here they flickered for a while and then vanished.

Almost all contemporary sources refered to these omens. Guicciardini recorded how ‘people heard wolves howling, and a woman became possessed in Santa Maria Novella and cried out that a bull with horns of fire would burn down the entire city’.²And even the level-headed Machiavelli spoke of how ‘there were many signs from the Heavens that this death would lead to the greatest calamities’.³ Lorenzo’s late eighteenth-century biographer William Roscoe remarks perceptively:

Besides these incidents, founded perhaps on some casual occurrence, and only rendered extraordinary by the workings of a heated imagination, many others of a similar kind are related by contemporary authors, which, whilst they exemplify that credulity which characterises the human race in every age, may at least serve to shew that the event to which they were supposed to allude, was conceived to be of such magnitude as to occasion deviation from the ordinary course of nature.⁴

 

The people of Florence – from the humble cloth-dyers of the slum quarters to the proud intellectuals of the Palazzo Medici – seem to have been particularly susceptible to such ‘events’ (as Savonarola was becoming aware). However, we can be sure that another of the ‘events’ described at this time did in fact take place, though in aptly ambiguous circumstances. When Lorenzo’s personal physician Piero Leoni learned of the death of his master he became deeply troubled, blaming himself for what had happened. Despite all his renowned medical expertise, he had been unable to do anything to prevent this catastrophe. So great was his anguish that he fled from Careggio, hiding himself away in the remote village of San Gervasio, up in the hills some thirty miles west of Florence, and here he committed suicide by throwing himself down a well. However, whispers soon began to circulate that Leoni’s demise was not all that it seemed, and some time later these rumours would surface in a work by the well-known Neapolitan humanist poet Giacopo Sannazaro, which openly stated that Leoni had been murdered on orders from Piero de’ Medici. Apparently the suspicious Piero had become convinced that Leoni’s seeming ineffectiveness was part of a plot to kill Lorenzo, and even got it into his head that Leoni had poisoned his father. If this was so, it was an ominous indication of the character of Florence’s new ruler.

Historians of such repute as Guicciardini and Machiavelli, as well as the diarist Landucci, all seem to have recognised – even at the time it happened – that Lorenzo the Magnificent’s passing marked the end of an era. Landucci, who ran a small apothecary’s shop and was in many respects no more than a chronicler of events, certainly recognised at once the historical significance of what had taken place, writing in his entry recording Lorenzo’s death:

In the eyes of the world, this man was the most illustrious, the most healthy, the most statesmanlike, and the most renowned among men. Everyone declared that he ruled Italy; and truly he was possessed of great wisdom and all his undertakings prospered. He had succeeded in doing what no citizen had been able to do for many years: that is, getting his son made a cardinal; which was not only an honour for his house, but for the whole city.⁵

 

This passage is interesting on several counts. If even the small-time apothecary was aware that history was being made, and that an era had passed, then a large section of the population must have been aware of this too. Thus a sizeable portion of the citizenry of Florence would now have been mentally prepared for change, and perhaps even expecting it.

At one in the morning, just hours after Lorenzo the Magnificent had died, his body was borne aloft and carried down the road to Florence in a solemn procession accompanied by lighted flares. On reaching the city walls, the Porta San Gallo was opened and the body borne to the monastery of San Marco, where next day the citizens of Florence would file past to pay their last respects. Although the Medici considered San Marco ‘our house’, as prior of this monastery Savonarola must certainly have been consulted in advance about this – further evidence, it would seem, of a certain reconciliation between Savonarola and the Medici. Lorenzo’s body lay in state for a day and a half, and during the afternoon of 10 April it was carried on the short journey to the Church of San Lorenzo, the traditional burial place of the Medici. This funeral procession advanced down the Via Larga, past the Palazzo Medici and around the corner to San Lorenzo, with the draped coffin followed by the gonfaloniere, the Signoria and all the foreign ambassadors. Poliziano, Pico della Mirandola and Ficino would all have been present, as would the painters Botticelli and Michelangelo, as well as Lorenzo’s supporters amongst the leading families, such as the Soderini, Vespucci, Rucellai and Valori, and less savoury figures like his financial fixer Miniati. Amongst the crowds would have been Landucci, Machiavelli and the nine-year-old Guicciardini. The people of Florence lined the streets, watching in silence as the sombre tolling church bells rang out over the city rooftops.⁶However, what they actually thought as the coffin of ‘il Magnifico’ passed in front of them remained a secret behind their silent, staring faces. How many of them genuinely mourned Lorenzo’s passing? How many were secretly relieved to see the last of the ‘tyrant’ who had been so publicly decried and condemned by Savonarola? According to some sources, the entire city mourned the passing of Lorenzo the Magnificent, much as his death was mourned by the pope, as well as by rulers throughout Italy and beyond; according to others, only his immediate family, his intellectual circle and the grateful members of the Medici mafia were genuinely moved.

Contrary to the rosy report of Guicciardini, a view supported by Machiavelli, that ‘the people of Florence were living in great prosperity until 1492’, there are indications that some citizens had begun to suffer from a decline in the wool trade. This had become inevitable when the English, for so long the suppliers of wool to Florence, had begun to process and dye their own wool at source. The rich banking families, the merchants and small traders such as Landucci may all have benefited from the wave of ‘great prosperity’, but this had not filtered down to the precariously employed wool-combers and wool-dyers – the so-called ciompi^[1].

Even the surface prosperity alluded to by Guicciardini and Machiavelli remains problematic. It certainly existed: this was a major period of the Renaissance, with considerable spending on painting, sculpture and architecture (whilst Lorenzo was not alone in his spending on jewels and rare manuscripts). Yet this must somehow be squared with the assessment of de Roover, the major economic historian of the Medici bank:

It is now generally accepted that the last decades of the fifteenth century were not a period of great prosperity, but witnessed a depression which was both lasting and profound. It played havoc with the Florentine economy and was certainly in part responsible for the straits of the Medici Bank.⁷

 

Yet how is it possible to reconcile this assessment with the fact that a number of merchant families – most notably that of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici and his brother Giovanni – made their fortunes during just this period? Admittedly, this other branch of the Medici family accumulated much of its wealth through overseas trade, with Spain and the Low Countries. Yet some merchants undeniably prospered through internal trade with Milan, Rome, Naples and Venice.

One way to resolve these apparently opposing views of the Florentine economy is to accept that, in their different ways, both were true. The gap between rich and poor widened considerably during these years. An indication of this can be seen in the large numbers of the poor who began turning to religion – the trend so perceptively utilised by Savonarola. Well before the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, an increasing number of Florentines seem to have been filled with a sense of apprehension about the future and turned to the Church for guidance. This came to a climax in the weeks during his final illness. On 5 April 1492, three days before Lorenzo’s death, Landucci recorded that in the cathedral during Lent ‘a sermon is preached every day now, with 15 thousand people listening’.⁸

These were not sermons by Savonarola, though. He was at this time preaching at the smaller Church of San Lorenzo, where – without actually breaking his covert pact with the Medici – his sermons nonetheless remained highly inflammatory, to say the least, and became the talking point of many in Florence. Just three days after Lorenzo’s funeral had taken place in the very church where Savonarola was preaching, a letter written by Niccolò Guicciardini, an older relative of the historian, told how ‘Each morning in his sermon Savonarola insists upon repeating how all mankind shall suffer the scourge of God … and this very morning I am told he said that God had passed judgement, so that nothing can now save us.’⁹ A week later, on Good Friday, Savonarola described a vision that he experienced – the second of his great visions, which was in its own mysterious way as vivid as the apocalyptic imagery of his bloodthirsty revelation at Brescia. The vision revealed to him:

a black cross which stretched out its arms to cover over the whole of the earth. Upon this cross were inscribed the words ‘Crux irae Dei’ [The Cross of the Wrath of God]. The sky was pitch black, lit by flickers of lightning. Thunder roared and a great storm of wind and hailstorms killed a host of people. The sky now cleared and from the centre of Jerusalem there appeared a gold cross which rose into the sky illuminating the entire world. Upon this cross were inscribed the words ‘Crux Misericordae Dei’ [The Cross of the Mercy of God], and all nations flocked to adore it.¹⁰

 

Surprisingly, this vision had not come to Savonarola during some fervent night of prayer in the solitude of his monastic cell. Years later, in his written version of his revelations, he would claim that he had seen this vision whilst he was in the midst of delivering his sermon, and merely described it to the congregation as he saw it^[2]. One can but imagine the intensity of this experience and Savonarola’s description of it, as well as the effect this must have had on his listeners.

But what did this latest revelation mean? Savonarola refused to be drawn on this topic, and for days afterwards Florence remained rife with speculation. Over two weeks later, a leading citizen wrote in a letter concerning this latest sensation: ‘All of Florence is trying to work out what his prophecies are about.’¹¹ We can only speculate, but it seems evident that Savonarola’s revelation was but a further elaboration of his theme concerning the scourge of God, and how this wrath would strike the Church in Rome, whilst all those who remained faithful to the original word that Christ had preached in the City of Jerusalem would receive God’s mercy.

The first tyrant whose death Savonarola had predicted, that of Lorenzo the Magnificent, had duly taken place. Then word reached Florence that on 25 July Innocent VIII had died in Rome. The second of Savonarola’s three ‘prophecies’ had come true. Only King Ferrante I of Naples remained alive, and rumour had it that he too was now ill. The murmurs amongst the people of Florence began to grow. How could Savonarola possibly have known that such things would come to pass, unless he was indeed a true prophet, receiving word directly from God?

The answer to this lies in the original report of the prophecy that he made in mid-1491 in the sacristy of San Marco to the delegation sent to him by Lorenzo the Magnificent, a prophecy that was overheard by a number of onlookers. Villari’s collation of their firsthand reports decribes how Savonarola ‘began to speak about the city of Florence and the political state of Italy, displaying a depth of knowledge in these matters which astonished his listeners’. In this sense, Savonarola was undoubtedly a very worldly monk, who kept himself well abreast of the latest political developments in Florence, throughout Italy and beyond. In the absence of newspapers, for the most part word of events passed from city to city by way of regular diplomatic reports, as well as news from visiting merchants and travellers. A good number of such travellers were educated monks, passing between monasteries. Dominicans would regularly have arrived at, or passed through, the monastery of San Marco in Florence, bringing with them informed opinion of the latest developments in the cities through which they had journeyed. Under such circumstances, Savonarola would certainly have been aware that Innocent VIII was seriously ailing, that the degenerate seventy-one-year-old King Ferrante of Naples was also not long for this world, and of course he already knew that Lorenzo the Magnificent had been striken with a possibly terminal bout of his congenital affliction. Indeed, many of the more informed members of Savonarola’s congregation would have found little exceptional in his ‘prophecy’ concerning these three tyrants. Others in Florence, more credulous and less informed, would certainly have found such ‘revelations’ about the fate of the great men of their time sensational.

But there was a further factor at work here, which had already won over many of the more informed listeners to his sermons – including exceptional intellectuals like Pico della Mirandola, Poliziano and even, to a certain extent, the dedicated Platonist Ficino.

It is Michelangelo who hints at Savonarola’s true power. The teenage Michelangelo had honed his sculpting skills in the garden set up by Lorenzo the Magnificent close by the monastery of San Marco. Here Michelangelo had spent many long hours painstakingly copying the fragments of classical sculpture collected by Lorenzo. In the midst of his labours he would hear Savonarola preaching to his novices and fellow friars beneath the damask rose-tree in the monastery garden across the street, an experience that he would never forget. Michelangelo’s character had been imbued with a profound spirituality from his earliest years, and he soon found himself listening intently to what Savonarola was saying. But more than this, Michelangelo found himself so enchanted by the manner in which the friar spoke that more than sixty years later he would confide to his favourite pupil Ascanio Condivi that ‘he could still hear [Savonarola’s] living voice ringing out in his mind’.¹²

There can be no doubt that by the time Savonarola returned to Florence and became prior of San Marco he had become an exceptional preacher. He had learned how to project his voice so that it resonated in precisely the most effective manner through any church interior, from the chapel of San Marco to the vast echoing space beneath the dome of Florence Cathedral. He had also learned to tone down his thick Ferrarese vowels, which pronounced the soft Tuscan ‘g’ as if it was a ‘z’ (similar to the Venetian dialect, which is spoken and can be seen on signs in the city to this day). Referring in a sermon to the Bargello (the palace of justice) as the ‘Barzello’ would only have evoked smirks all round in church, and would have been mimicked amongst the people to ridicule him. No, the siren song that would remain in Michelangelo’s mind for ever, and which so entranced the fine minds of the intellectuals and so swayed the common people, must long since have ironed out such risible flaws. This would have been a conscious process undertaken by Savonarola, which must have been carried out during his preaching tours of northern Italy after he first departed from Florence, when his sermons had proved such a failure that he had determined to give up preaching altogether. During his later preaching tours through the cities of northern Italy – all of which had their own highly distinctive dialect and accents – he must have had to adapt his voice so that it was both comprehensible and lacking any quaint colloquialisms or comic idiosyncrasies. This he could have done by trying out various different accents and assessing their effects.¹³

In those peripatetic years, Savonarola would not have known that he was to return one day to Florence, but he would have been aware that the Florentine dialect was in the process of becoming accepted throughout Italy as the national language. Dante may have played his part in instigating this in the previous century by writing his Divine Comedy in Tuscan dialect, but the process had been assisted by his two great literary contemporaries Boccaccio and Petrarch, who had also chosen to write in the Tuscan dialect of their native region rather than in the more usual scholarly Latin. The Divine Comedy, Boccaccio’s racy tales and Petrarch’s love sonnets had spanned the entire gamut of literature, with their works proving so popular to readers of all tastes that the educated classes throughout Italy had soon become proficient in this Tuscan dialect. By the following century it would have been more or less comprehensible throughout northern Italy, where Savonarola (in common with other travelling preachers who delivered sermons to lay congregations) chose to preach in this version of Italian so that he had a better chance of being understood by as many as possible amongst his audiences. This combination of circumstances had meant that by the time Savonarola returned to Florence three years later he would have been fluent, and fully at ease, in the Tuscan dialect, the growing Italian language.

Another point to be borne in mind was that the sermon was invariably the main feature of a contemporary service, especially in Lent and at Advent, when there would be a series of them, delivered as often as not on a daily basis. Such sermons could draw large crowds and could last anything up to two or three hours. All this involved much more than orthodox preaching. In order to keep his audience attentive for such an extended period, the preacher would be required to put on a lively performance. This would often involve rousing rhetorical questions – which he would then proceed to answer himself. Certain sections of society, certain individuals or even particular members of the congregation who were present in the rows of pews, were liable to be singled out. Social types or modes of behaviour would be held up to scorn – often involving mimicry, to comic effect. Local events would be commented upon, and favourite devices such as irony (usually heavy), parody and forthright humour were frequently employed. As was polemic, often extended and rising to passionate invective flights or descending to plain harangues. But such methods were usually employed as a mere device to warm up the congregation, to involve all its disparate individuals. Then would come the most frequent and effective oratorical device: the invocation of mortal fear, which would be exploited to its ultimate degree – fear of death, fear of God’s wrath, fear of hell-fire and all its torments.

Savonarola had become particularly adept at such methods after he had discovered during his Lenten sermons at San Gimignano, six years previously, how apocalyptic revelations could electrify his audience. Initially, he had implied that such revelations were taken from the Bible: the Old Testament prophets and the Book of Revelation. Later he would elaborate upon these, still claiming that they had the backing of the Bible, maintaining that this was the source of his words, even as his imagination extended beyond this source. Only when he became intoxicated with his own powers, to the extent that he began having his own revelations, did Savonarola begin to depart altogether from textural authority and orthodoxy. And it was only then that he had the first inkling that the power he exercised over his congregation from the pulpit could also be extended beyond the church in which he preached.

Savonarola wished to free his congregation from the corruption that had by now permeated the Church at every level. He wished to return to the simple spirituality of the original Christianity that had been preached by Jesus himself. The austere dedication required for such a life could easily be imposed within the confines of a monastery; it could even be observed by those believers amongst the poor who took his words to heart. And within the sanctified confines of the church, with its harrowing crucifixes, holy scenes and exemplary statues of the saints, many would be inspired to change their lives. But after the service the congregation would stream out into the bright sunlight of the city piazzas and streets, which remained unchanged in all their worldly glory. Friends would be greeted, news and gossip exchanged. Life would return to secular normality: family closeness and squabbles, the hard daily drudge of earning one’s bread, the little joys and grim disappointments of everyday existence, life ground down by taxes, harsh laws and political masters. If Christ’s words were to be fulfilled in any permanent and meaningful sense, Savonarola knew that his power would have to be extended beyond the confines of the church buildings and out into the streets of Florence.

Just as Lorenzo the Magnificent had planned, he was duly succeeded by his eldest son, the twenty-year-old Piero de’ Medici. Opinions differ as to Piero and his abilities. Some have regarded him as inept, while others have seen him as talented, but inexperienced. He was a handsome young man, both physically and intellectually gifted. He loved hunting and jousting, but his favourite pastime was the rough-house football known as calcio storico, which took place in the large piazza in front of the church of Santa Croce and was not for the faint-hearted. Much like his father, Piero was well educated, with tutors of the calibre of Poliziano and Ficino, and he also wrote verse, though not as well as his father. In fact, throughout his teenage years he strove hard to emulate Lorenzo. So why did his father secretly concede that of his two sons ‘one is foolish, the other is clever’ – the former relating to Piero?

During Lorenzo’s twenty-three-year reign the Medici had gradually come into their own as Florence’s first family, with all traditional pretence of modesty cast aside. Lorenzo had not been slow to notice that Piero’s privileged status as his son and heir had encouraged a certain arrogance in his character. This had sometimes led Piero to act impetuously or take rash decisions, in imitation of his father’s fabled and courageous decisiveness (which would certainly have been labelled rash or impetuous, had it failed). It was perhaps inevitable that Piero should have felt an underlying uncertainty concerning his own talents, and a wish to excel in the eyes of his father – or perhaps even outshine him. His arrogance and rashness were merely symptoms of these ambitions and uncertainties.

Lorenzo had done his best to curb these flaws in his son, carefully grooming him to take over the reins of power. He had made sure that Piero cultivated the friendship of leading men amongst the Florentine families, such as Paolantonio Soderini, Bernardo Rucellai and Francesco Valori, many of whom were related to the Medici by marriage, and who had proved so loyal during his reign. Lorenzo had also encouraged Piero to listen to their advice. The continuation of Medici rule depended largely upon its popularity with a majority of the powerful leading families, to say nothing of the fickle support of the people. Unfortunately, Piero’s arrogance had not done much to encourage his popularity. This in itself would not have been too harmful had it not been for his aristocratic wife, Alfonsina Orsini. Lorenzo had married Piero to Alfonsina in order to strengthen the Medici alliance with Rome, as well as with King Ferrante of Naples, who had been her mentor. But Alfonsina was a snobbish young woman, and thought that in marrying a Medici she had married beneath her. Worse still, she considered Florence a dull provincial city, lacking the aristocratic and papal residences of Rome, devoid of the ostentatious riches and culture of the city that held sway over the entire realm of Christendom^[3].

Like his father, Piero very much regarded himself as his own man, and as such he wished to establish his own style of rule, rather than merely follow in Lorenzo’s footsteps. Yet at the same time he also shared his father’s impatience with the petty details of the day-to-day administration of the city and the need to supervise the workings of the Signoria. As a result he retained his father’s counsellor Piero da Bibbiena for this purpose, and also kept on the ageing Giovanni Tornabuoni as manager of the ailing Medici bank. Yet in order to put his own stamp upon the administration of the city, at the same time he began promoting a number of new figures – some of whom were deserving and genuinely talented, whilst others were merely friends. Inevitably, these new appointments displaced a number of influential figures, who were often related to the powerful families that supported the Medici. Consequently, Piero began to fall out with the likes of Paolantonio Soderini and Bernardo Rucellai and would soon begin ignoring their recommendations, eventually dismissing them altogether as his advisers.

Lorenzo’s skilful political stewardship had ensured that advisers such as Paolantonio Soderini and Bernardo Rucellai were married into the Medici family, thus commanding the loyalty of the powerful families to which they belonged. Hence, the dismissal of Soderini and Rucellai¹⁴ left them in something of a quandary. They could hardly now ally themselves with those leading families who bitterly, if covertly, continued to oppose Medici rule. Yet it soon became clear that there was a solution to this problem of divided loyalties. The brothers Lorenzo and Giovanni di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici had by this time returned to Florence after their years in the Low Countries and Spain building up their business, whose main commodity was the lucrative transportation of grain. Not only were they considerably richer than the senior branch of the Medici family, but in order to protect their fortune they had followed in the footsteps of their relatives and begun building up a political power-base of their own. This was inevitably allied to the power-base established by the senior branch of the family. However, Piero de’ Medici made little secret of his increasing jealously of Lorenzo and Giovanni, whom he regarded as mere upstarts, causing relationships between the two sides of the family to cool. This disaffection was particularly accentuated by the dismissal of Soderini and Rucellai. Unable and unwilling to break their ties with the Medici, Soderini and Rucellai let it be known that their loyalties now inclined towards the other branch of the Medici family, headed by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, who had already served his time in several senior elected posts in the city administration, where he had proved himself to be a highly organised and talented politician.

As a result, some began to question why the descendants of Cosimo de’ Medici’s branch of the family should simply accede to the rule of the city by right, especially if another member of the family proved himself better equipped to fulfil this role. Yet such talk gained little support within the Medici faction as a whole. These adherents rightly understood that if rule by the son and heir of one branch of the Medici family was questioned, it might not be long before the entire structure of Medici rule came under question. Why, in a city that so prided itself upon being a democratic republic, should one particular family take precedence?

 

NOTES

1. ‘On the night …’: Poliziano, Letters, p.248

2. ‘people heard wolves …’: Guicciardini, Opere (Milan, 1998), p.190

3. ‘there were many …’: Machiavelli, Istorie fiorentine, Book VIII, Sec. 36

4. ‘Besides these incidents …’: Roscoe, Lorenzo, pp.359–60

5. ‘In the eyes of the world …’: Landucci, Diario, p.54

6. ‘the people of Florence …’: Machiavelli, Istorie fiorentine, Book VIII, Ch. 36

7. ‘It is now generally …’: de Roover, Medici Bank, pp.372–3

8. ‘a sermon is preached …’: Landucci, Diario, p.53

9. ‘Each morning in …’: written by Niccolò Guicciardini, 13 April 1492. See Ridolfi, Studi Savonaroliani, p.264

10. ‘a black cross …’ et seq.: this is a brief paraphrase, which is collated by Villari from Savonarola’s own Latin and Italian versions; see Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.167. The Latin version can be found in Savonarola, Compendium Revelationum, which is included in Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, Vita R. P. F. Hieronimip.231 et seq. and an Italian version can be found in Savonarola, Compendio di rivelazioni, ed. Buzzi (Rome, 1996), pp.244–5

11. ‘All of Florence …’: letter written by Bernardo Vettori, 7 May 1492, see Ridolfi, Studi Savonaroliani, p.107

12. ‘he could still …’: Ascanio Condivi, Vita di Michelangelo (Milan, 1928), p.192

13. become an exceptional preacher et seq.: many contemporary sources, from Machiavelli and Poliziano to Condivi, comment upon Savonarola’s sermons and his manner of preaching. Concerning his change of accent, as well as the development of his preaching style, see for instance Martines, Savonarola, pp.95–6, as well as a host of references in the standard biographies by Villari and Ridolfi.

14. the dismissal of Soderini and Rucellai: this is mentioned in Meltzoff, Botticelli … Savonarola, p.256. For the most part, precise details can only be gleaned obliquely; see, for instance, Donald Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence (Princeton, 1970), p.121

 

Lorenzo Medici

 

9. NOAH’S ARK

 

IT IS JUST possible that such behind-the-scenes machinations might even have led to the early downfall of Piero de’ Medici, especially if the people had turned against him. Yet they did not; and one of the main reasons for this must be accorded to Savonarola, who kept his secret deathbed agreement with Lorenzo and refrained from preaching against Piero. Savonarola had sensed his own growing power from the pulpit, and had even been willing to compromise with Lorenzo in the hope of gaining some political influence beyond San Marco. But at this stage any conscious idea of how to impose his beliefs upon the city of Florence as a whole almost certainly remained beyond his conception. After all, how on earth could such a thing have been done? He may secretly have wished to achieve this, have longed for it, even have dreamed of it – but such a thing was simply not possible. It would have involved something akin to turning the entire city into a monastery. Yet there is no doubt that some impossible dream along these lines was beginning to evolve in Savonarola’s mind. How consciously, how practically, it is impossible to tell – but the evidence is incontrovertible. For it was now, during his Advent sermons delivered in December 1492, that his preaching began to focus upon an entirely new topic. Amidst his usual condemnation of the irredeemable evil that threatened to engulf the world, he began preaching his first sermons on Noah’s Ark. Here was the vessel that had in biblical times carried the survivors of God’s Flood, and would do so again when once more God submerged the entire world of his original creation because it had become so corrupted that it was beyond redemption. This was something more than the apocalyptic warnings and injunctions to the faithful to adhere to the original teachings of Jesus in the City of Jerusalem. For the first time, Savonarola was suggesting a positive practical idea for salvation on this Earth. Or so it would seem.

In fact, we do not know the precise nature of these sermons, for according to his biographer Villari, the printed version that has come down to us:

is so ill-assembled and filled with errors that it no longer contains even the slightest hint of Savonarola’s characteristic style, because whoever took down these notes was unable to keep up with the preacher’s words. It seems that all he could manage was to jot down the occasional rough and fragmentary indication of what Savonarola actually said. This was later translated into a coarse form of dog-Latin.¹

 

However, according to Villari, who not only had an unrivalled knowledge of Savonarola, but also seems to have had access to other sources:

Savonarola spoke in his sermons of a mystical Ark, where all who wished to escape and survive the Flood which was soon to overwhelm the world could take refuge. In the literal sense, this was the Ark of Noah which featured in the Book of Genesis. However, in the allegorical sense it could also be seen as the coming together of the righteous who would be saved. Savonarola then elaborated upon this theme, explaining that the length of the Ark represented Faith, its breadth was Charity, and its height was Hope.²

 

Savonarola’s ‘strange allegory’ then took on even more practical dimensions, as he explained how this Ark was to be constructed out of ten planks. Unusually for Savonarola, here he was contradicting the Bible, where God explicitly states, ‘The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits[4], the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.’³ A clue to Savonarola’s motive here can perhaps be gleaned from the fact that in Roman times the city of Florence was originally divided into decumani, or ten districts. Yet Savonarola evidently went out of his way to ensure that this interpretation was not widely recognised, for ‘each day he would give a different interpretation of the ten planks out of which the ark was to be constructed’.⁴

This curious melange of the practical, the metaphorical, the biblical and the spiritual would have a different emphasis to each section of his congregation. Indeed, its very mixture would have reinforced its powerful message. Even so, it was but a short step from the more spiritual aspects of the Ark to its practical manifestation, with its ten planks. Savonarola was clearly dreaming aloud here, letting his imagination roam, even if he still had no conception of how his Ark could be built. At the same time, he was certainly not making a political statement: this much he made clear. Piero de’ Medici and the authorities would not have felt threatened by his sermons, which merely encouraged the citizens to live a more deeply committed Christian life. Savonarola’s promise of support for Piero remained intact.

Such an argument may appear far-fetched, but its force is confirmed by Savonarola’s attitude towards the rest of Italy in these sermons, a political theme that he returned to again and again. Indeed, Florence appears to have been the only major power in the land that escaped his censure during the course of these sermons. Delivering his regular Advent sermons had certainly taken a heavy toll on Savonarola’s physical, mental and imaginative powers, and it was now, at the end of 1492, that the prolonged strain of this ordeal caused him to experience the third of his major ‘revelations’[5]. Alone and sleepless in his cell during the long, cold winter night, Savonarola racked his brains, seeking inspiration for the final Advent sermon that he was due to deliver the next day. But nothing came to him. Then suddenly he had a vision of a hand brandishing a sword, which was inscribed with the words ‘Gladius Domini super terram, cito et velociter’⁵ (‘The sword of God above the Earth, striking and swift’). Later, he heard a great booming voice, which proclaimed itself as the voice of the Lord and announced to him:

The time is nigh when I shall unsheath my sword. Repent before my wrath is vented upon you. For when the day of my judgement comes you may seek to hide but you will find no refuge.

 

As Savonarola’s vision continued, he saw that amidst the roar of thunder the hand in the sky turned the sword towards the Earth, as if to smite it, whilst the air was filled with flames, burning arrows and other omens, which indicated that the Earth was soon to be overwhelmed by war, famine and plague.

The sword in the sky, signifying God’s imminent wrath, was to become a central preoccupation with Savonarola, and a regular feature of his visions. Such were the horrific scenes that Savonarola witnessed in this ‘revelation’ that he refrained from revealing all of them in his sermon next day. Three years later, when he came to write his ‘Compendium of Revelations’, he would confess his reason for withholding what he had seen. He feared that telling of such outlandish things would merely make him a subject of ridicule amongst the people of Florence. Once again the full text of this sermon has not come down to us, but contemporary sources concur that, far from turning him into a laughing stock, this sermon in fact terrified a large section of his congregation, who had never before heard of such things as he predicted. All the indications are that this was the occasion when Savonarola warned that Italy was to be invaded by a new Cyrus[6], whose conquering army would cross the mountains, sweeping all before it. Because this invasion would be fulfilling God’s will, this army led by ‘Cyrus’ would prove invincible, and ‘he shall take cities and fortresses with great ease’.⁶ In support of his chilling prophecy, Savonarola quoted the words of the Lord as they had been inscribed by the Old Testament prophet in the Book of Isaiah: ‘I will go before thee and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron.’⁷

However, not all were terrified by Savonarola’s words. Despite the precautions that Savonarola had taken, many came away from his sermon convinced that this time he had gone too far: he had revealed himself to be nothing more than a deranged publicity-seeker. His claims to prophecy, far from revealing him to be a saint, were no more than hallucinations, the symptoms of incipient mental illness or simply imaginative ravings. But such opinions were in the minority, and over time this sermon would come to be seen as perhaps the most significant evidence supporting Savonarola’s assertion to be a prophet. Here, undeniably, he claimed to see the future. And it would soon become clear what he had in mind. The westward expansion of the Ottoman Empire remained a constant threat to western Europe, from Hungary to the Balkans. It had only been twelve years since Ottoman troops had actually landed on the Italian mainland and occupied Otranto in the heel of Italy for two years, before withdrawing: it seemed only a matter of time before they would return. Indeed, in one of his sermons Savonarola seemed to welcome this prospect:

O Lord, we have become despised by all nations: the Turks are masters of Constantinople, we have lost Asia, we have lost Greece, and we pay tribute to the Infidel[7]. O Lord God, Thou hast punished us in the manner of an angry father, Thou hast banished us from Thy presence. Make haste with the punishment and the scourge, so that we may be returned to Thee. Effunde iras tuas in gentes [‘Unleash Thy wrath upon our people’].⁸

Savonarola found himself uncomfortable in his new position as prior of San Marco. During his earlier years at the monastery, the lax and often luxurious existence indulged in by the more senior members of the community, who belonged to important Florentine families and were often personal friends of Lorenzo, had brought him close to despair. But now that he had been elected prior, and Lorenzo was dead, he was determined that all this should change, and that San Marco should return to the austerity intended by the founder of the Dominican order. At the end of the twelth century, St Dominic had travelled the highways and byways barefoot, preaching the original gospel of Jesus and living off the meagre charity provided by his listeners. After founding his order, he had insisted that its friars follow his example, taking strict vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Yet despite taking these vows, Savonarola now found himself at San Marco, living amidst the many luxuries and beautiful frescoes donated over the years by the Medici family and other wealthy patrons. He was distressed by the apparent hypocrisy of his position, and longed for his community to live according to the austerity that he so enthusiastically preached in his sermons.

This preyed on his mind to such an extent that one night it caused him to have a dream[8]. During the course of this, Savonarola saw living in the afterlife the twenty-eight friars of San Marco who had died during the previous years. To his consternation he saw that all but three of these friars had been damned to spend all eternity in hell for breaking their monastic vows, especially with regard to poverty. During their life in San Marco they had all fallen prey to the desire for luxuries and a life of comfort. This dream confirmed Savonarola’s resolve to embark upon his reform of San Marco. Indeed, he decided, it would probably be better for all concerned if the community moved out of San Marco altogether, for it was already becoming too crowded, though such a move would obviously involve protracted negotiations with higher authorities.

Savonarola’s reputation for piety had spread, and was already beginning to attract to San Marco a stream of earnest young visitors intent upon returning to the simple Christianity of Jesus that Savonarola advocated in his sermons. These visitors came from far and wide and were not all young men; they included a number of scholars and artists, inspired by Savonarola’s intellect and personality in much the same way as he had attracted Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano. Amongst these was the Jewish scholar Mithridates, who had instructed Pico and Ficino some years previously in the mysteries of the Kabbala. Both Mithridates and Ficino were striving to reconcile their essentially heretical knowledge with the simple Christianity of Jesus.

Amongst the artists, Botticelli appears to have had no qualms about surrendering himself altogether into the hands of Savonarola, although the suggestion by Giorgio Vasari that ‘he gave up painting’⁹ during this period, in order to devote himself to God, has since been shown to be almost certainly false. Instead, his art now returned to the depiction of religious scenes, especially of a sorrowful nature; and Botticelli’s colourful temperament, which had previously celebrated the pagan symbolism of the classical era with such serene beauty, now began to darken, taking on a more profound psychological depth. The case of Michelangelo, the other major artist so attracted to Savonarola and his teachings, is more problematic. Michelangelo’s temperament had always had a deep religious strain. This was undoubtedly encouraged by Savonarola’s teaching, but there is no evidence that the ‘little friar’ in any significant way influenced his art – which, although religious in a profound sense, retained a surface muscular sensuality that drew on essentially secular influences such as humanism and classical art.

Savonarola’s closest friend amongst the Florentine intellectual community seems to have presented an altogether different case. Where Pico was concerned, all question of heresy was a thing of the past. During the months following his return to Florence under the protection of Lorenzo he appears to have abandoned all thought of creating any further philosophical works. Yet it is now clear that around this time he returned to writing. He had long since renounced any secular beliefs, placing his faith in the hands of Savonarola, who was more than ever impressed by the quality of his friend’s spirituality and intellect. Savonarola would even go so far as to claim of Pico that ‘in mind alone, he was greater than St Augustine’.¹⁰ This was some compliment, considering that the philosopher and theologian St Augustine was undeniably one of the greatest intellects amongst the saints, and as such had been an object of extreme veneration to Savonarola from his earliest days as a novice.

This superlative respect appears to have been mutual – despite there being such evident differences between Pico and Savonarola with regard to temperament, ambition, social standing and lifestyle. And there can be no doubt that these differences remained evident – especially where the last of these categories was concerned. For even during this most pious and penitent stage of his life, Pico found it impossible to set aside the habits of a lifetime. Ridolfi paraphrases ‘a previously undiscovered note’¹¹ written by Fra Giovanni Sinibaldi, one of Savonarola’s most trusted confidants at San Marco during this period:

From this we learn an extraordinary and unexpected fact which certainly does not accord with the much-vaunted ‘life of a saint’ which Pico was reported to have lived during this period – namely, the fact that he was living with a concubine.¹²

 

In such circumstances – historical, linguistic and geographical – the use of the word ‘concubine’ (concubina) would indicate a common-law wife, rather than, as can be the case elsewhere, a mistress, an unaccredited extra wife or simply a ‘kept woman’. Pico had evidently abandoned his previous licentious habits, but could not bring himself to forgo the pleasures of the flesh entirely. Yet why should Pico, who was now striving in so many ways to emulate his friend Savonarola, and was discussing theological matters with him on such a regular basis, have chosen to live in sin, especially when he knew all too well Savonarola’s horror of fornication? Why didn’t Pico simply get married? Nothing is known of his partner, and it is of course possible that in the manner of the period a wide difference in class rendered marriage out of the question. However, there could have been another reason for Pico remaining single, and this appears to be the most likely explanation. Pico had been encouraged by Savonarola to prepare himself for taking up monastic vows and entering the Dominicans as a friar. Pico was at first all for this idea, but would later be less sure if he was fitted for such a life. At any rate, although he blew hot and cold about this life-changing choice, it remained a strong possibility, and any officially documented marriage would have rendered such a vocation out of the question. Ridolfi also makes a rather surprising suggestion, writing that, ‘According to Sinibaldi, Savonarola was well aware of this state of affairs and even confided it to Fra Roberto Ubaldini … the future chronicler of San Marco.’¹³ This all-but-unbelievable circumstance provides a key to a number of ensuing events that might otherwise appear utterly inexplicable.

Although Pico may have renounced his humanist ideas and heretical universal philosophy, Savonarola was determined that his friend should not renounce his formidable intellect. To this end, he encouraged Pico to write a work that would eventually become entitled Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem (loosely ‘Against Astrological Prediction’). Astrology had become highly popular amongst the humanists, because it attempted to show that human lives were dominated by psychological traits (star signs) whose movements through the night sky could be scientifically mapped in relation to one another (producing ‘influences’). All this ran parallel with the burgeoning Renaissance sense of individualism, self-understanding and growing scientific awareness. Unfortunately, this was not psychology but wishful thinking, not self-understanding but self-delusion, not physics but metaphysics. And instead of allowing the soul the freedom to choose its own destiny, so that it could be judged fit for heaven, purgatory or hell, by implication its predestined determinism locked each human being into an inescapable fate no matter how he or she chose to behave. There could be no denying that astrology was incompatible with Christian doctrine (as indeed it was with the central tenets of the humanist outlook).

Savonarola was so keen to promulgate this argument, and encourage Pico to put his intellectual talents to good use in its cause, that he became a source of constant encouragement to his friend. According to Giovanni Nesi, a Platonist friend of Ficino, Savonarola assisted Pico by giving him ‘advice and judgement’¹⁴ whilst he was writing Disputationes. How far this went is difficult to say, but other informed contemporary sources suggest that Savonarola’s role may have extended to the point where he virtually co-authoredDisputationes. Either way it was a work of some brilliance, which systematically dismantled one by one the foundations upon which this ancient Babylonian science of divination existed. Parts are unmistakably authored by Pico, such as when he reverts to ridicule, pointing out that astrologers – far from being able to prophesy great events – were not even able to forecast the weather. Other more subtle theological points could have been written by either of the putative co-authors. Typical of these was the insistence that by relying upon the movements of zodiacal signs and planets, named after secular images and pagan deities, the astrologers were in fact interceding with false gods. These owed no allegiance to God and operated according to their own movements or whimsical laws, all of which had nothing whatever to do with the Christian orthodoxy of the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament or with the New Testament teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. In essence, the astrological universe was a mechanical universe with ‘influences’, rather than a meaningful universe with a moral purpose.

Despite such evidence of his continuing brilliance, Pico’s mind had now undergone a profound categorical transformation. Previously he had sought to synthesise the ideas of various ages and religions into a creative unison, to reconcile all of humanity’s experience of the world into one imaginative vision that would be acceptable to all human beings. This ‘syncretism’ was a positive aspiration, in tune with the Renaissance ethos, and it is not difficult to see it as a metaphor, prescient of the scientific world view that would begin to emerge over the coming centuries, with its universally applicable laws. To a certain extent, Disputationes can also be viewed as a scientific work – in that it is a rejection of metaphysics and whimsical associations involving ‘influences’ and symbols. Unfortunately, in all other aspects it represents a complete reversal of Pico’s thought. Rejecting the Renaissance way of thinking, Pico was now returning to the characteristic mindset of the medieval era. Instead of attempting to create a truth by synthesis, he was now reverting to the medieval method of thought championed by Savonarola. The truth was to be found in the correct interpretation of a body of authoritative texts. Incorrect interpretations, or other unorthodoxies, had to be condemned as the antithesis of such truth, as heresies. Authority, as in the word of God, was the only acceptable truth. Pico’s great intellect had reverted from the Renaissance to the medieval world, from the freedom of creative imagination to the limitations of orthodoxy.

Savonarola was, of course, most supportive of Pico’s wish to take up holy orders, and did his best to dissuade him from his moments of vacillation. Yet even Savonarola knew that such a step would require more than his strong support and Pico’s belief in his vocation. The charge of heresy – the result of Pico’s earlier philosophical activities – remained outstanding after Innocent VIII’s death. The only way Pico could be pardoned was by order of the new pope, Alexander VI. Concrete evidence of Pico’s reform and strict adherence to orthodoxy could certainly have been produced by the publication of his brilliantly argued Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem, but Savonarola had his doubts about presenting such a work to the Borgia pope Alexander VI. Not only was the new pope degenerate and unreliable (facts to which Savonarola had already begun making oblique reference in his sermons), but it was also rumoured that the Spanish Borgia family were highly superstitious and deeply committed practitioners of astrology. (This may well explain why Disputationes was not in fact published, or even widely distributed in manuscript form, until well after the death of both its putative authors.) No, if Alexander VI was to be persuaded to drop the charge of heresy against Pico, Savonarola realised that some other approach would have to be used.

But for the time being he became preoccupied with another important matter.

 

NOTES

1. ‘is so ill-assembled …’: see Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol, I, p. 200. The offending Latin text was published more than forty years later in Girolamo Savonarola, Reverendi P. Fra Hieronymi Savonarole in primam D. Joannis epistolam… [Bernardini Stagni edition] (Venice, 1536)

2. ‘Savonarola spoke in …’: this apparent paraphrase from Savonarola’s sermons appears in Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.200

3. ‘The length of the ark …’: Genesis, Ch. 6, v.15

4. ‘each day he …’: Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.201

5. ‘Gladius Domini …’ et seq.: Savonarola, Compendium Revelationum, pp.229–31

6. ‘he shall take …’: cited in Seward, Savonarola, p.67

7. ‘I will go …’: Isaiah, Ch. 45, v.2

8. ‘O Lord, we …’: see Villari, La Storia … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.199. This is a paraphrase from Savonarola, ‘Prediche sul Salmo Quam bonus’ (Prato, 1846), sermon XXIII, 562–79. The latter is a reprint of the original summaries made in Latin by Savonarola himself after delivering these sermons. According to Villari, ibid. p.188n., ‘These sermons were later translated and published in an amended form by Girolamo Gianotti during the sixteenth century.’ Interestingly, the Ottoman threat and the possibility of God making use of the Turks as his scourge was not ‘amended’ by Gianotti in the light of the later French invasion, which appeared to so many to fulfil Savonarola’s prophecy.

9. ‘he gave up …’: Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, trans. George Bull (Harmondsworth, 1965), Vol. I, p.227

10. ‘in mind alone …’: cited in Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.146. There are many similar expressions of Savonarola’s intellectual admiration for Pico.

11. ‘a previously undiscovered …’: see Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.147

12. ‘From this we learn …’: ibid. For Ridolfi’s unimpeachable sources, see Vol. II, p.549 n.11, where he goes into considerable detail concerning Sinibaldi’s notes, which appear in the margins of a copy of Domenico Benivieni, Defensione [of Savonarola] (Florence, 1496), which is conserved in the Collezione Guicciardiniana3.7.91, at the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze.

13. ‘According to … the future chronicler …’: see Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.147, 65

14. ‘advice and judgement’: cited in Ridolfi, Vita … Savonarola, Vol. I, p.148. For further information on Savonarola’s participation, see ibid., Vol. II, pp.349–50 n.13.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Or ‘the clompers’ – so named after the sound that their distinctive wooden clogs made on the stone-slabbed streets, especially when they trudged off to work in the stillness of the dawn.

[2] Given Savonarola’s fanatical adherence to the truth, such a claim is highly unlikely to have been a lie. Indeed, modern neuroscience would tend to support Savonarola’s claim. During such ‘visions’, localised brain activity indicates that the person undergoing this mental state does actually ‘see’ what he claims to see. Similarly, when a subject claims to hear ‘voices’ speaking to him, appropriate brain activity indicates that he is speaking the truth. In neither of these cases does the subject feel that he is in any way responsible for these mental effects, which appear to him to emanate from a powerful outside source.

[3] In the eyes of history, the very opposite is of course the case. By now the Renaissance was at its height in Florence, whereas Rome was still largely medieval in its culture. In the Holy City, the Renaissance was only just beginning – and even this was to a large extent due to imported Florentine artists.

[4] A cubit is usually reckoned to have been at least one and a half feet, making Noah’s Ark around 150 yards long.

[5] This was the revelation mentioned earlier, which was wrongly thought to have preceded the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, allegedly causing the congregation to see the thunderbolt that struck the cathedral as miraculous evidence of God’s scourge, as mentioned by Savonarola.

[6] Cyrus the Great, who appears several times in the Old Testament, was the sixth-century BC King of the Persians who set free the Israelites from their captivity in Babylon, allowing them to return to their homeland to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem. As such, Cyrus had long been seen in the Judaeo-Christian tradition as an unwitting instrument of God.

 

[7] The Asia referred to here is the orginal territory given that name – the province of the Roman Empire that occupied the bulk of western Anatolia (modern Turkey), including the entire Aegean coast. The tribute was that paid to the Turks by the Venetians and the Genoese so that they could continue their lucrative trade with the Levant.

[8] This particular incident, along with several others, is usually referred to as one of Savonarola’s ‘visions’. Circumstances suggest that on this and some other occasions what he experienced was in fact a dream, rather than a waking ‘vision’. The latter he would seem to have experienced (that is, seen in his mind) in a waking context whilst he was in a heightened emotional state (such as during a sermon) or when his mind was affected by his regime of excessive self-denial – which involved such mind-altering activities as painful self-chastisement, starvation or sleep deprivation.