Chapter I: Crichton, and the Crichtonians (6)

“Widows are like children—under the special protection of the Lord. The true life for them to lead is to give up all worldly thoughts, and devote themselves to the service of God; to become like the turtle-dove, which is a chaste creature; and thus, when it has lost its companion, no longer takes up with another, but spends the rest of its life in solitude and lamentation. Nevertheless, if for the education of her children, or through poverty, or for other good and sufficient motive, the widow desire to marry again, let her do so by all means. This would be preferable to being surrounded by admirers, and so expose herself to the risk of calumnies and to a thousand dangers. Let the widow who is not inclined to maintain the strict decorum, the somewhat difficult reserve, becoming her position, rather return to the dignified life of a married woman; but let those who feel that they possess strength and temper of mind equal to the demands of their state become a model to other women. A widow ought to dress in sober attire, to live retired, to avoid the society of men, to be gravity itself, and to maintain such severity of demeanor that none may dare utter by word or show by a smile the least want of respect. By such a life, she will be a continual lesson to other women, and will render it unnecessary for a widow to use words of counsel by which to acquire influence over others. It is unbecoming a widow to be prying into the lives and failings of other persons; it is unbecoming for her to be or even appear to be vain, nor ought she, for the sake of others, to forget what is due to herself.”

SCHOLAR AND POET.

Mention has already been made of Savonarola’s devotion to the task of teaching the novices of the order, not only by his famous “damask rose-bush” lectures which all learned Florence crowded to hear, but his classes of the humanities and physical sciences. Not content with this, and desiring that the monks of his convent should live by the fruit of their own labors, he established schools in which they might learn painting, sculpture, architecture, and the art of copying and illuminating manuscripts. He also opened a department of oriental languages, where Greek, Hebrew, Turkish, and Chaldean were taught. In urging their cultivation, he said he hoped that he and his brethren would be sent by the Lord to spread the Gospel among the Turks.

When, after the expulsion of the Medici, the Florentine signiory, on account of the financial embarrassments of the republic, resolved to sell the Medicean library, there was great danger that this magnificent accumulation, then the most valuable collection of Greek and Latin authors known in Europe, and specially rich in the most precious MSS., would be either scattered or fall into the hands of strangers. There was no private citizen in Florence wealthy enough to purchase it. Savonarola, who fully appreciated its value, and who had already brought up the library of his own convent to a high standard, making it accessible to all, and the first free library in all Italy, resolved that these treasures should not leave the city. His first act of authority as prior had been to enforce the original rule of S. Dominic as to the poverty of the order. The saint’s last words were: “Be charitable, preserve humility, practise poverty with cheerfulness: may my curse and that of God fall upon him who shall bring possessions into this order!” Nevertheless, under certain so-called reformed rules, the convent at Florence had adopted the power of holding property, and its wealth in landed possessions had greatly accumulated. Savonarola’s first reform was to enforce the practice of poverty in the order, while the absence of landed income was to be supplied by the labors of the monks and a yet more rigid economy. It so happened that the sale of the convent property, in pursuance of this reform, had just been made, and Savonarola had at his command a sum of two thousand florins—a large amount for that period. His convent bought the library for three thousand florins, paying two thousand on account, and binding themselves to liquidate the balance, which was a claim held by a French creditor, in eighteen months. This transaction occurred precisely during the period of the celebrated bonfire of vanities, at which Savonarola is unjustly charged with having destroyed innumerable classical manuscripts.

Space fails us to speak of Savonarola as a poet. Like many other boys, he scribbled verses in his early youth, and wrote a poem, _De Ruina Mundi_, at the age of twenty. There is something anticipatory of Byron in the sadness and gloom of its tone:

“Vedendo sotto sopra tutto il mondo,
Ed esser spenta al fondo
Ogni virtute, ed ogni bel costume,
Non trovo un vivo lume,
Né pur chi de’ suoi vizi si vergogni.”[145]

We find in his youthful productions, says Villari, “both vigor and poetic talent, but united with negligence of form.” Later in life, he wrote numerous spiritual lauds, composed for the purpose of counteracting and taking the place of the degrading carnival songs in vogue under the Medici. As poetry, they possess no special merit. Villari mentions several of his canzoni, written when he was a young man, and cites one in praise of S. Catherine of Negri, in three long stanzas of fifteen lines each, in which he finds great delicacy and exquisite tenderness of feeling. He also refers to some of his Latin compositions modelled on the Psalms, which are eminently poetical. In one of them, he celebrates the praises of God, saying: “I sought thee everywhere, but found thee not. I asked the earth, Art thou my God? and I was answered, Thou deceivest thyself: I am not thy God. I asked the air, and was answered, Ascend still higher. I asked the sky, the sun, the stars, and they all answered me, He who made me out of nothing, he is God; he fills the heavens and the earth; he is in thy heart. I then, O Lord, sought thee far off, and thou wast near. I asked my eyes if thou hadst entered by them, and they answered, We know colors only. I asked the ear, and was answered that it knew sound only. The senses, then, O Lord, knew thee not; thou hast entered into my soul, thou art in my heart, and thou makest manifest thyself to me when I am performing works of charity.”

Owing to his terribly earnest denunciation of pagan excesses in poetry and painting, and his indignation at their imitation by Christians, Savonarola has been held up as the enemy of both poets and poetry, and this even in his own day. To this charge he replied in his work on _The Division and Utility of all the Sciences_, one part of which treats of poetry. We select a few of its points. He begins:

“It never entered my mind to say a word in condemnation of the art of poetry. I condemned solely the abuse which many had made of it, although I have been calumniated on that account by many persons, both in speaking and writing.... The essence of poetry is to be found in philosophy. If any one believe that the art of poetry teaches us only dactyls and spondees, long and short syllables, and the ornaments of speech, he has certainly fallen into a great mistake.... The object of poetry is to persuade by means of that syllogism called an example, expressed with elegance of language, so as to convince and, at the same time, to delight us. And as our soul has supreme delight in song and harmony, the ancients contrived the measures of versification, that, by such means, men might be more readily excited to virtue. But measure is mere form; and the poet may produce a poem without metre and without verse. This, in fact, is the case in the Holy Scriptures, in which our Lord makes true poetry consist in wisdom; true eloquence in the spirit of truth; hence, our minds are not occupied with the outward letter, but are filled with the spirit.” ... He then goes on to denounce “a fallacious race of pretended poets, who know no better than to tread in the footsteps of the Greeks and Romans; keep to the same form, the same metre; invoke the same gods, nor venture to use any other names or words than those they find in the ancients.... This is not only a false poetry, but one most pernicious to youth. We find the heathens themselves condemning such poets. Did not Plato himself declare that a law ought to be passed to expel those poets from the city who, by the allurements of the most corrupting verses, contaminate everything with vile lusts and moral degradation? What, then, are our Christian princes about? Why do they not issue a law to expel from their cities not only these false poets, but their works also, and all the works of ancient authors who have written on libidinous subjects and praise false gods? It would be well if all such works were destroyed, and none were allowed to remain except such as excite to virtuous conduct.”

It is on such passages as these that Savonarola’s enemies base their charges of enmity to poetry, etc. The charges are unfounded. His æsthetic opinions were in harmony with the purest principles of art, and his sense of the true and the beautiful was always acute. “In what does beauty consist?” he asks, in one of his sermons. “In colors? No. In figures? No. Beauty results from harmony in all the parts and colors. This applies to composite subjects; in simple subjects, beauty is in light. Look at the sun and the stars—their beauty is in light; behold the spirits of the blessed—light constitutes their beauty; raise your thoughts to the Almighty—he is light and is beauty itself. The beauty of man and woman is greater and more perfect the nearer it approaches to the primary Beauty. But what, then, is this beauty? It is a quality resulting from a due proportion and harmony between the several members and parts of the body. You would never say that a woman was handsome because she had a fine nose and pretty hands; but when her features harmonize. Whence comes this beauty? Inquire, and you will find it is from the soul.”

Addressing himself to women, he said: “Ye women who glory in your ornaments, in your head-dresses, in your hands, I tell you that you are all ugly! Would you see true beauty? Observe a devout person, man or woman, in whom the Spirit dwells—observe such an one, I say, while in the act of prayer, when the countenance is suffused with divine beauty, and the prayer is over. You will then see the beauty of God reflected in that face, and a countenance almost angelic.”

We have thus endeavored, in referring to Savonarola’s acquirements, and by presenting him to our readers in a variety of mental aspects, to convey some idea of the moral, intellectual, and æsthetic sides of his character, in order that, as the story of his life and the account of the exciting incidents with which it is filled progress in our pages, they may be the better able to appreciate his action by at least a partial knowledge of his spiritual constitution and mental resources. We resume, then, the thread of our narrative.

THE SERMON AT BOLOGNA.

Savonarola preached his usual course of Lenten sermons in 1493, not at Florence, but at Bologna. His correspondence with his brother friars at S. Mark’s during his absence shows that he had gone there unwillingly, and it is hence supposed that Piero de’ Medici had brought about his absence through orders from his superiors at Milan and at Rome. The friar confined his preaching to subjects of doctrine and morals, and at the outset attracted but little public attention. The _beaux esprits_ set him down as “a poor simpleton, a preacher for women”—_uomo semplice e predicatore da donne_. But his animation and sincerity were contagious, and hearers soon came in crowds. The tyrant Giovanni Bentivoglio then ruled Bologna, and his wife, an Orsini, appeared at all the sermons, entering late, and followed by a large retinue of gentlemen, pages, and ladies—_gentildonne e damizelle_. The silent rebuke of stopping short in his sermon until the disturbance thus caused had subsided was tried by the preacher several times in vain. He then referred to the disedification given by such interruptions, and mildly requested that ladies who came to hear the sermon should endeavor to be present at its beginning. In response, the haughty woman made a point of continuing the annoyance with offensive and increased ostentation, until one morning, when thus breaking in upon the friar while in all the fervor of his discourse, his patience gave way, and he cried out: _Ecco, ecco il demonio che viene ad interrompere il verbo di Dio_—“Behold the demon who comes to interrupt the word of God!” All the blood of all the Orsinis boiled over at this public insult. A reigning princess to be thus treated by a mere _frate_! As the story runs, she ordered two of her attendants to slay him in the pulpit; but whether their courage failed them, or the crowd would not permit them to reach the friar, they did not carry out their order. Still enraged, she sent two other satellites to his cell, where Savonarola received them with such dignity and impressive calmness that their resolution oozed away, and they said with great respect: “Our lady has sent us to your reverence to know if you had need of anything.” To which suitable and courteous reply being made, they were dismissed. In his closing sermon at Bologna, the preacher announced: “This evening I shall depart for Florence with my slender staff and wooden flask, and I shall sleep at Pianoro. If any person want aught of me, let him come before I set out. _My death is not to be celebrated at Bologna, but elsewhere._”

The legend runs that it was on this journey, when near to Florence, that Savonarola, unable to take any food and broken with fatigue, sank by the roadside, powerless to go further. Quickly there came to him the vision of an unknown man, who, giving him strength, accompanied him to the city gate, and disappeared, saying: “Remember that thou doest that for which thou hast been sent by God.” Each reader will decide for himself as to the degree of credibility to be attached to such a legend. Certain it is, nevertheless, that Savonarola himself and many men of the strongest minds of that day fully believed in it.[146]

INDEPENDENCE OF S. MARK’S.

On his return to Florence in the spring of 1493, Savonarola found a worse state of things than he had left on his departure. The rule of Piero de’ Medici was rapidly becoming every day less tolerable, and the discontent of the people more marked and bitter. One thing, however, the people knew well. It was that Savonarola was their friend. Piero de’ Medici was also perfectly aware of it, and, as he had the power, might at any moment through his influence have the Dominican prior ordered away to Milan by his superiors in Lombardy or Rome, as the Tuscan convents formed one province with those of Lombardy. This union had been brought about some fifty years before by reason of the depopulation of the Tuscan convents from the plague. As this state of things had long ceased to exist, and the convents were again full, it occurred to Savonarola to seek the restoration of the Tuscan convents to their original condition of an independent province. In his management of this important and difficult piece of practical business, there was nothing whatever of the visionary monk, and he set to work with all his energy to carry out a measure in which he felt that the purity and elevation of his order and the liberties of the Florentine people were at stake. The authorization for the measure he desired must of course come from Rome, and, in order to obtain it, he sent thither two of his friars, Alessandro Rinuccini, a member of one of the most illustrious families of Florence, and Domenico da Pescia. The latter in particular was unreservedly devoted to his prior, ardent in his admiration of him, and fully persuaded that he was a prophet sent by God. On arriving at their destination, they encountered a formidable opposition. Not only the Lombards, but the King of Naples, the republic of Genoa, the Dukes of Milan and Ferrara, and Bentivoglio of Bologna, all joined in striving for the defeat of the petition. Strangely enough—and it is mentioned by historians as an evidence of his frivolous mind and inattention to serious matters—Piero de’ Medici had been persuaded to favor a measure of which the main object was to free S. Mark’s and its prior from his authority. In fact, Savonarola could not have advanced a step without obtaining his approbation, inasmuch as the application of the convent as made could not be allowed to be presented without the approbation of the Florentine government. In bringing about this important success, Savonarola had the assistance of Philip Valori, and John, Cardinal de’ Medici, a brother of Piero, who afterwards became Pope Leo X. While at Rome, the general of the Dominicans and Cardinal Caraffa of Naples warmly supported him. Nevertheless, the two friars of S. Mark’s who had been sent to Rome were dispirited by the formidable aspect of the opposition they there encountered, and wrote to their prior that success was impossible, and he must give up all hope of carrying his point. Savonarola’s reply was: “Away with doubts! Stand firm, and you will be victorious; the Lord scatters the councils of the nations, and casts the designs of princes to the ground.” In a consistory of the 22d of May, the Tuscan question came up, but the pope refused to approve the brief, and dismissed the consistory until the following day. All the cardinals departed with the exception of Caraffa, who took the liveliest interest in the success of the measure, and had a strong personal influence with Alexander VI. They entered into a friendly conversation, during which the cardinal produced the brief, and asked the pope to sign it. With a smile, he declined; when, presuming on his personal familiarity, and in a half-jesting manner, Caraffa took the pontifical ring from the pope’s finger, and sealed the brief. Just then, in hot haste, came in fresh and stronger remonstrances from Lombardy, but the pope replied that it was too late—“What is done is done”; and he would hear no more of it.

Savonarola’s first care was to reform and strengthen the discipline of his convent, and it was at this juncture that he brought it back to the original rule of poverty established by the founder of the order, as we have already stated. Then followed the enforcement of the strictest personal economy, the acquisition and practice of useful arts by the monks whereby to earn their livelihood, and the study of the oriental languages. In all his conventual reforms, the new prior taught by example as much as by precept. His monks saw that he inculcated no principle of which he was not a living model. Sober in his diet, ascetic in all his habits, of an application to study that seemed to know no fatigue, he inspired all by his labor and self-denial. In all the whole convent, the humblest monk was not more poorly clad than his prior. No cell so naked, no pallet so hard, as his. Rigid with others, he was severe with himself. Numerous candidates presented themselves for admission to the Convent of S. Mark, which was now the admiration of all Tuscany. The sons of the most distinguished families in Florence sought to become inmates of S. Mark’s, and the Rucellai, the Salviati, the Albizzi, the Strozzi, and even the Medici, pressed into the narrow limits of the crowded convent, in order to receive at the hands of Savonarola the robe of S. Dominic. Additional buildings were absolutely necessary, and those of the Sapienza were obtained—the same that were a few years since used for the stables of the grand duke.

Under the brief lately obtained from Rome, the Dominican convents of Fiesole, Prato, and Bibbiena, and the two hospices of the Maddalena, asked for reception into the Tuscan congregation under Savonarola’s authority, and were admitted. Even the friars of another order, the Camaldoli, were desirous of uniting themselves with S. Mark’s, in order to be under the rule of Savonarola; but he could not accede to their request, for want of authority. All this success and honor did not in the slightest degree affect his character. If, during his career, he manifested pride and daring, it was towards the great and powerful. In private life, and in the interior of his convent, he was to the end the same gentle and humble brother the monks had known as Fra Girolamo.

ADVENT, 1493.

It was natural, under the circumstances, that the Superior of the Tuscan Congregation of Dominicans, the preacher whose predictions had been so wonderfully verified, the exemplary monk who had been called to the bedside of the dying Lorenzo the Magnificent, should enter upon the delivery of his course of Advent sermons for 1493 with increased confidence and far greater freedom of speech than the comparatively unknown Fra Girolamo had ever manifested. His audiences grew daily more numerous, and crowds awaited for hours his coming. The twenty-five sermons of this course were on the Seventy-third Psalm (_Quam Bonus_). His principal topics were the unhappy and ruinous condition of the church, the immoral lives of the Italian princes and many of the higher clergy, approaching punishments, and the desire of all good men to stem the rising tide of depravity. We have already cited the passages (“They tickle the ears with Aristotle, etc.,” and “In the houses of the great prelates”) in which he denounces the clergy and hierarchy; and he thus describes the princes of Italy: “These wicked princes are sent as a punishment for the sins of their subjects; they are truly a great snare for souls; their palaces and halls are the refuge of all the beasts and monsters of the earth, and are a shelter for caitiffs and for every kind of wickedness. Such men resort to their courts because there they find the means and the excitements to give vent to all their evil passions. There we find the wicked counsellors who devise new burdens and new imposts for sucking the blood of the people; there we find the flattering philosophers and poets who, by a thousand stories and lies, trace the genealogy of those wicked princes from the gods; and, what is still worse, there we find priests who adopt the same language. That, my brethren, is the city of Babylon, the city of the foolish and the impious, the city which the Lord will destroy.”

And then, after speaking sharply of a superfluity of golden mitres and golden chalices, he adds: “But dost thou know what I would say? In the primitive church, there were wooden chalices and golden prelates; but now the church has golden chalices and wooden prelates....”

“What doest thou, O Lord? Why slumberest thou? Arise and take the church out of the hands of the devil, out of the hands of tyrants, out of the hands of wicked prelates. Hast thou forgotten thy church? Dost thou not love her? Hast thou no care for her? We are become, O Lord, the opprobrium of the nations. Turks are masters of Constantinople. We are become tributaries of infidels. O Lord God! thou hast dealt with us as an angry father; thou hast banished us from thee; hasten the punishment and the scourge, that there may be a speedy return to thee. _Effunde iras tuas in gentes_—’Pour out thy wrath upon the nations.’ Be not scandalized, my brethren, by these words; rather consider that, when the good wish for punishment, it is because they wish to see evil driven away, and the blessed reign of Jesus Christ triumphant throughout the world. We have now no other hope left us, unless the sword of the Lord threatens the earth.”

THE DELUGE.

In Lent, 1494, Savonarola resumed his preaching in a course of sermons which, as published, have been entitled _Sermons on Noe’s Ark_ (_Prediche sopra l’Arca di Noé_). It was, in fact, a continuation of the expounding of Genesis begun in 1490. The impression produced by them upon his auditors was very great. All the biographers unite in describing how the people were carried away, the wonder he excited, and how marvellously all that was foretold came to pass. His Advent sermons had dwelt on the near approach of punishments—a coming deluge of calamities—and he now constructs a mystical ark in which all may take refuge. He prophesied the approach of a new Cyrus who should conquer Italy without resistance. At length, on Easter morning, his ark being completed, he invited all to hasten to enter it with the virtues which distinguish Christians: “The time will come when the ark will be closed, and many will repent that they had not entered therein.” Thus the short chapter of Genesis relating to the ark occupied the whole of Lent, and he resumed the subject in the month of September following. On the twenty-first day of that month, he was to expound the seventeenth verse, relating to the Deluge.

The Dome of Florence was crowded. All waited for the sermon in anxiety and excitement, but attentive and motionless. Mounting the pulpit, and surveying the multitude in impressive silence for a few moments, he thundered out: “And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth.” A thrill of terror convulsed the vast assemblage. Pico di Mirandola relates that a cold shiver ran through all his bones, and that the hairs of his head stood on end; and Savonarola has recorded that he was profoundly moved. That very day the news had arrived that a horde of foreign troops were descending the Alps to conquer Italy, and popular credulity made their numbers countless, invincible in arms, gigantic, cruel, and ferocious. “Having, before the arrival of the King of France, just closed the ark, these sermons caused such terror, alarm, sobbing, and tears, that every one passed through the streets without speaking, more dead than alive.” (_MS. history in Magliabecchian library._) Terror there was indeed. Italy was helpless. There was neither nation nor national army. The princes were defenceless, and the whole country must fall an easy prey to the invader. Men saw rivers of blood before them. What could save them? All rushed to Savonarola, imploring counsel and help. He alone could succor them. All his words had been verified. All those whose deaths he foretold had gone to their graves. Punishment threatened had begun. The sword of the Lord had indeed descended upon the earth. Not only the people flocked about him, but the graver men and magistrates of Florence asked his counsel, and his admirers and adherents became in a moment, as if by magic, the rulers of the city.

Here may be said to terminate the monastic life of Savonarola, and, in order to follow his career, we must with him quit the cloister, and accompany him among the people of Florence down in the public places.

MADAME AGNES.

FROM THE FRENCH OF CHARLES DUBOIS.