SAVONAROLA 



179 



struggle against its successful rival Genoa, who in 

 the 16th century filled up its harbour ; it was only 

 opened again in 1815. 



Savonarola, GIROLAMO (JEROME), religious 

 and political reformer, was born of a noble family 

 at Ferrara, Septeml>er 21, 1452. He was educatec 

 at home, and at a very early age became deeply 

 versed in the philosophy of the schools ; but his dis- 

 position was from the first tinged with religious 

 asceticism, and in 1474 he formally withdrew from 

 secular affairs, and entered the Dominican order 

 at Bologna. Having completed his novitiate and 

 the studies of the order, he seems to have made his 

 first public appearance as a preacher in 1482, at 

 Florence, where he had entered the celebrated 

 convent of his order, San Marco, and where he 

 preached the Lent in that year. His first trial, 

 however, was a failure ; his voice was harsh and 

 unmusical, and his simple, devout earnestness 

 failed to interest his hearers, so that, after a time, 

 the course of lectures was entirely deserted. Some 

 time afterwards Savonarola was sent to a convent 

 of his order at Brescia, where his zeal began to 

 attract notice, and the disadvantages of manner 

 and address ceased to be felt nnder the influence 

 of his sterling genius and irresistible enthusiasm. 

 In 1489 he was once more recalled to the convent 

 of San Marco at Florence. His second appearance 

 in the pulpit of San Marco was a complete success. 

 The great subject of his declamation was the sin- 

 fulness and apostasy of the time ; and in his 

 denunciation of the vices and crimes of his age 

 he took as his theme what has been the topic of 

 enthusiasts in almost every age, the mystical 

 visions of the Apocalypse. These he applied with 

 terrible directness to the actual evils with which, as 

 with a moral deluge, the age was inundated ; and 

 for his half-expositions, half-prophetical outpour- 

 ings his followers claimed for him the character 

 of an inspired prophet. Under the rule of the 

 great head of the Medici family, Lorenzo the 

 Magnificent, art, literature, and philosophy had 

 all followed the common direction of that elegant 

 but semi-pagan revival which the scholars of the 

 15th century had inaugurated ; and the whole spirit 

 of the social as well as intellectual movement of 

 which Florence, under the Medici, was the centre 

 was utterly at variance with the lofty Christian 

 spirituality and severe asceticism in which Savona- 

 rola placed the very first conditions of the restora- 

 tion of true religion and morality. His preaching, 

 therefore, in its spirit, aa well as in its direct 

 allusions, was no less antagonistic to the estab- 

 lished system of the government than to the 

 worldly and irreligious manners of the age ; the 

 visions and predictions ascribed to him had quite 

 as much of political applicability as of religions 

 significance ; and thus, to the aristocratic adherents 

 ,f the Medici, Savonarola early became an object 

 of suspicion, if not of antipathy and dread. It is 

 said by Pico de Mirandola that he refused to grant 

 absolution to Lorenzo when the latter lay dying in 

 1492 as the Magnificent declined to accede to the 

 demands made by his confessor. 



Up to this time, however, Savonarola's relations 

 with the church were, if not of harmony, at least 

 not of antagonisgi ; and when, in the year 1493, a 

 reform of tin- Dominican order in Tuscany was pro- 

 posed undf r liin auspices, it was approved by the 

 pope, and Savonarola was named the first vicar- 

 general. Alxiut this date, however, his preaching 

 had assumed a directly political character, and the 

 predictions and denunciations which formed the 

 staple of many of his discourses pointed plainly 

 to a political revolution in Florence and in Italy 

 as the divinely ordained means for the regeneration 

 of religion and morality. In one of his discourses 

 he pointed plainly to the advent of the French 



under Charles VIII. ; and when this prediction was 

 fulfilled by the triumphant appearance of the French 

 expedition, Savonarola was one of a deputation 

 of Florentines sent to welcome Charles VIII. as 

 the saviour of Italy, and to invite him to Florence. 

 Very soon, however, the French were compelled to 

 leave Florence, and a republic was established, of 

 which Savonarola became, although without politi- 

 cal functions, the guiding and animating spirit, his 

 party, who were popularly called Piagnoni, or 

 ' Weepers,' from the penitential character which 

 they professed, being completely in the ascendant. 

 It was during this brief tenure of influence that 

 Savonarola displayed to the fullest extent both 

 the extraordinary powers of his genius and the 

 full extravagance of the theories to which his 

 enthusiastic asceticism impelled him. The re- 

 public of Florence was to be the model of a 

 Christian commonwealth, of which God Himself 

 was the chief ruler, and His Gospel the sovereign 

 law ; and thus the most stringent enactments were 

 made for the repression of vice, and of all the sin- 

 ful follies by which it is fomented and maintained. 

 All the haunts of debauchery were suppressed ; 

 gambling in all its forms was prohibited ; the 

 vanities of dress were restrained by sumptuary 

 enactments ; and, under the impulse of the popular 

 enthusiasm which the enthusiasm of the prophet 

 engendered, women flocked in troops to the public 

 square to fling down their costliest ornamente, and 

 his followers made in the piazza an immense ' bon- 

 fire of vanities," destroying in one hecatomb large 

 numbers of cards, dice, masks, carnival costumes, 

 and probably some books of licentious poetry and 

 indecent pictures. There seems no ground for 

 the charge often made that he and his disciples 

 destroyed in indiscriminating zeal valuable statues 

 and rare manuscripts. 



Meanwhile, the extremes of his rigorism ; the 

 violence of his denunciations, which did not spare 

 even the pope himself ( Alexander VI.) ; the assump- 

 tion by him, or attribution to him, of a super- 

 natural gift of prophecy ; and the extravagant 

 interpretation of the Scriptures, and especially of 

 the Apocalypse, by which he sought to maintain 

 liis views, dre>y upon him the displeasure of Rome. 

 He was cited, in the year 1495, to answer a charge 

 if heresy at Rome ; and, on his failing to appear, 

 lie was forbidden to preach; the brief by which 

 the Florentine' branch of his order had been made 

 independent was revoked ; he was ottered a cardi- 

 nal's hat on condition of his changing his style 

 of preaching an offer he indignantly refused ; 

 and he was again forbidden to preach. Once 

 again Savonarola disregarded this order. But his 

 difficulties at home now began to deepen. The 

 neasures of the new republic proved impracticable. 

 The party of the Medici, called ' Arrabbiati ' ( ' En- 

 aged ' ), began to recover ground. A conspiracy 

 for the recall of the exiled House was formed ; and 

 although, for the time, it failed of success, and five 

 of the conspirators were condemned and executed, 

 yet this very rigour served to hasten the reaction. 

 The execution of these conspirators was afterwards 

 laid to the charge of Savonarola, who was said to 

 lave been the chief opponent of the proposal to 

 jrant them an appeal a charge for which there 

 seems to be no foundation. But all circumstances 

 seemed now to count against the once all-powerful 

 Savonarola. At the critical point of the struggle 

 of parties came, in 1497, a sentence of excommuni- 

 cation from Rome against Savonarola. Savonarola 

 openly declared the censure invalid, because unjust, 

 and refused to hold himself bound by it. During 

 -he plague Savonarola, precluded by the excom- 

 munication from administering the sacred offices, 

 levoted himself zealously to ministering to the 

 ick monks. A second 'bonfire of vanities' in 



