Chapter LX: Part VI: The Hermit (4)

Perfect, Savonarola’s work certainly was not, for there was in it the germ of an oligarchic power which at a later day worked like a principle of corruption. Savonarola himself would have wished it more complete. It has been sought to throw personal ridicule upon the great Dominican, and to deny him any marked political eminence; but when we gather the opinions of three great Florentines who lived after him, who were not his disciples, and who were eminently qualified to judge the subject-matter in question, moderns and foreigners may properly remain silent. We refer to Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and Gianotti. Of Savonarola personally, Machiavelli frequently spoke in terms of sarcasm and irony, although in his writings he refers, to “the learning, the prudence, and the purity of his mind.” He describes him (_Decennale Primo_) as “breathing divine virtue”; and again he says: “Of such a man one ought never to speak but with reverence.” He admits the great importance of the institutions founded by Savonarola, and tells Leo X. there is no other way to bring the state of Florence into order than by the restoration of the Consiglio Maggiore—the council for the establishment of which Savonarola struggled with such pertinacity. Gianotti, a noble patriot twice exiled, who made special study of the subject of government, says: “He who established the Consiglio Grande was a far wiser man than Giano della Bella, because the latter thought of securing the liberties of the people by humbling the great, whereas the object of the other was to secure the liberties of all,” and is elsewhere enthusiastic in his admiration of Savonarola. Guicciardini the pompous historian and diplomat, and Guicciardini composing in the privacy of his study, are two different writers. It is not in his _Storia d’Italia_ that we must look for his real sentiments on certain subjects. The diplomat holds the pen there. But in his _Ricordi_, published long after his death, he says: “Such was the love of the Florentines for the liberty conferred upon them in 1494 that no arts, no soothings, no cunning devices of the Medici, ever sufficed to make them forget it; that there was a time when it might have been easy, when it was a question of depriving the few of their liberty; but, after the Consiglio Grande, it was the deprivation of liberty to all.” Elsewhere he says: “You are under heavy obligations to this friar, who stayed the tumult in good time, and accomplished that which without him could only have been attained through bloodshed and the greatest disorders. You would first have had a government of patricians, and then an unbridled popular government, giving rise to disturbances and shedding of blood, and probably ending in the return of Piero de’Medici. Savonarola alone had the wisdom, from the outset, to arrest the coming storm by liberal measures.” Finally, in his _Storia di Firenze_, he has none but the most enthusiastic terms of praise for the prudence, the practical and political genius, of the friar, and calls him the saviour of his country.

THE SERMONS AGAIN.

The great questions of government which then agitated Florence did not for a moment distract Savonarola’s attention from the duty of preaching practical Christian duties. After the course of sermons on Aggeus, he preached on the Psalms, for the Lenten course of 1495 on Job, resuming the Psalms after Lent. Solid teaching and vehement admonition were never absent, and the sermons of 1494 were quite as strongly marked by those features as those of the first course at the _Duomo_, in one of which he tells his hearers: “How have you renounced the devil and his pomps—you who every day do his works? You do not attend to the laws of Christ, but to the literature of the Gentiles. Behold, the Magi have abandoned paganism, and come to Christ, and you, having abandoned Christ, run to paganism. You have left the manna and the bread of angels, and you have sought to satiate your appetite with the food that is fit for swine. Every day avarice augments, and the vortex of usury is enlarged. Luxury has contaminated everything; pride ascends even to the clouds; blasphemies pierce the ears of Heaven; and scoffing takes place in the very face of God. You (who act thus) are of the devil, who is your father, and you seek to do the will of your father. Behold those who are worse than the Jews; and yet to us belong the sacred Scriptures, which speak against them.... Many are the blind who say our times are more felicitous than the past ages, but I think, if the Holy Scriptures are true, our lives are not only not like those of our fathers of former times, but they are at variance with them.... Cast your eyes on Rome, which is the chief city of the world, and lower your gaze to all her members, and, lo! from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, no health is there.

“We are in the midst of Christians, we converse with Christians, but they are not Christians who are so only in name; far better would it be in the midst of pagans.... For now men have become lovers of themselves; covetous, haughty, proud, profane, disobedient, ungrateful, given to ribaldry, without love, without peace, censorious, incontinent, spiteful, without benignity, treacherous persons, deceivers, puffed-up, lovers of voluptuousness more than that of God, _who have the form of righteousness, but who deny the value of it_.”

More than ever the people hung upon his words. Numbers came from Pisa, Leghorn, and the neighboring cities to hear him; many also from as far as Bologna, to remain in Florence during Lent. Residents of the neighboring villages and hamlets, and mountaineers from the Apennines, filled the roads to Florence on Saturdays and the eves of feast days; and, when the city gates were opened at dawn of day on Sunday morning, crowds were there waiting entrance. Strangers thus coming were received with brotherly charity, and the duties of Christian hospitality were observed. Even in winter, the people of Florence rose from their beds after midnight, in order to reach the _Duomo_ in time to secure a place, and then waited in church, taper in hand, praying, singing hymns, or reciting the office, for hours together. The cathedral could not contain his audience. Seats were put up in an amphitheatre to increase the space. Men and boys swarmed on the pillars and every point where it was possible to obtain a position. Even the piazza was full.

All these remarkable manifestations were not without results. Florence became a changed city. Not only were churches assiduously attended, but alms were freely given. Women laid aside their rich ornaments and expensive jewels, and dressed with simplicity. Light and careless carriage or demeanor was rare. Habits of prayer and spiritual reading in the houses of the Florentines became the rule rather than the exception. The obscene carnival songs of the Medicean period were no longer heard in the streets, but, in their place, lauds or hymns. At the hour of mid-day rest, the artisan or tradesman might be seen reading the Bible or some pamphlet by Savonarola, and young men of noted licentious or frivolous habits became models of good conduct. Fast days were observed with such rigor that, in justice to the butchers, the tax on their calling was lowered. Men and women of disedifying or tepid life became religious—among them men of mature age, distinguished in letters, science, and public affairs. Such young men as the Strozzi, the Salviati, the Gondi, and the Accaiuoli joined the friars of S. Mark and other religious orders. Restitution of ill-gotten gains or property was common. But the most wonderful thing of all, says a historian, was to find bankers and merchants refunding, from scruples of conscience, sums of money, amounting sometimes to thousands of florins, which they had unrighteously acquired.

PROPHESIES HIS OWN DEATH.

Still Savonarola pressed on in his work of conversion as though it had just begun. His followers had prepared themselves for a joyful tone of victory in his sermons by reason of his brilliant civic triumphs, and were ready to rend the air with their alleluias. But he, on the contrary, seemed more serious, more sad, than ever, and, in his first discourse after the events we have just related, opened with an allegory full of sorrowful forebodings, and the prophecy of his own violent death:

“A young man, leaving his father’s house, went to fish in the sea; and the master of the vessel took him, while he was fishing, far into the deep sea, whence he could no longer discern the port; whereupon the youth began to lament aloud. O Florence! that sorrowful youth thus lamenting is before you in this pulpit. I left my father’s house to find the harbor of religion, departing when I was twenty-three years old in pursuit only of liberty and a life of quiet—two things I loved beyond all others. But then I looked upon the waters of this world, and began, by preaching, to gain some courage; and, finding pleasure therein, the Lord led me upon the sea, and has carried me far away into the great deep, where I now am, and can no longer descry the harbor. _Undique sunt angustiæ-_-shoals are on every side. I see before me the threatening tribulations and tempests, the harbor of refuge left behind, the wind carrying me forward into the great deep. On my right, the elect calling upon me for help; on my left, demons and the wicked tormenting and raging. Over, above me, I see everlasting goodness, and hope encourages me thitherward; hell I see beneath me, which, from human frailty, I must dread, and into which, without the help of God, I must inevitably fall. O Lord, Lord! whither hast thou led me? That I might save some souls to thee, I am myself so placed that I can no more return to the quiet I left. Why hast thou created me to live among the contentions and discords of the earth? I once was free, and now I am the slave of every one. I see war and discord coming upon me from every side. But do you, O my friends! you the elect of God, have pity upon me. Give me flowers; for, as is said in the Canticle, _quia amore langueo_—because I languish through love. Flowers are good works, and I wish for nothing more than that you should do that which is acceptable to God, and save your own souls.”

Here his agitation was so great that he was obliged to pause, saying: “Now let me have some rest in this tempest.” Then resuming his discourse:

“But what, what, O Lord! will be the reward in the life to come to be given to those who have come victorious out of such a fight? It will be that which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard—eternal beatitude. And what is to be the reward in the present life? The servant will not be greater than his master, is the answer of our Lord. Thou knowest that, after I had taught, I was crucified, and thus thou wilt suffer martyrdom. O Lord, Lord!” he then exclaimed, with a loud voice that echoed throughout the church, “grant me this martyrdom, and let me die quickly for thy sake, as thou diedst for me. Already I see the axe sharpened. But the Lord says to me: Wait yet awhile, until that be finished which is to come to pass, and then thou shalt show that strength of mind which will be given unto thee.”

HIS VISIONS AND PROPHECIES.

He then resumed the explanation of a psalm at the verse _Laudate Dominum quia bonus_, and declaimed in a burst of ecstatic excitement, which carried his hearers along with him, sobbing and weeping. It was by passages like these, in which the magnetic attraction of the speaker’s features, voice, and gestures predominated, that his hearers were most affected. And this readily explains the fact that, when we read his sermons as reported by those present, it is difficult to invest the words with the tremendous effects they seem to have produced. This state of ecstasy which seized him in the pulpit frequently followed him to his solitary cell, where, for days and nights together, he would remain the sleepless victim of visions, until sleep happily released him. From his youthful days, he had made himself familiar with all that S. Thomas Aquinas says of angels and prophets and of their visions, and, in like manner, with all the dreams and visions of the prophets and patriarchs as related in the Old Testament. All these filled his mind, and at night reproduced themselves with the vividness of original revelations. They increased upon him as he read the Bible and the Fathers more assiduously, and he accepted them as divine inspirations sent through the intervention of angels. It is difficult to believe the extent to which a blind faith and devotion to these visions had taken possession of all his faculties, when we look at the calm, decided, and practical manner in which he disposed of important questions of a merely mundane character, such as administration, finance, and civil government.

Savonarola has left on record the fullest account of the workings and condition of his own mind on the subject of his visions and prophecies, in two works—_Dialogo della Verita Profetica_ (Dialogue on Prophetic Truth), and _Compendium Revelationum_.

WAS SAVONAROLA A PROTESTANT?

In these works, Savonarola reveals himself without reserve on the important subject of the prophecies and visions, and lays bare his inmost heart. This is a part of his biography we would gladly treat at length, for the reason that one of the accusations against him is that of insincerity, bad faith, and deception of the people by abusing their credulity. We must, however, content ourselves with the remark that, although these works may afford some proof of an overheated imagination and an overexcited mind, they certainly afford none whatever of any thought or impulse of their author not perfectly sincere and loyal. His two German Protestant biographers, Rudelbach and Meyer, to their honor be it said, were the first to study these prophetic writings of Savonarola. Their views diverge but slightly, both seeking to show that he was a Protestant—a question now scarcely worth while discussing, notwithstanding the impertinent assertion of the Luther monument at Worms. In this connection, we may here cite the opinion of a late writer on Savonarola, a distinguished English Protestant:[165] “So that the effort made by some of the German biographers, more especially Meyer, who artistically concocts a complete system of Protestant dogmatics from his works, appears to be injudicious; and we must come to the only reasonable conclusion: that, though he (Savonarola) is now claimed both by Catholics and Protestants, he lived and died in that church in which he was reared, and which he would not have destroyed, but purified.”[166]

PARTIES AND FACTIONS.

When we speak of the respect and veneration entertained for Savonarola by the population of Florence, we must not for a moment suppose he was any exception to the rule that the presence of a good man is a reproach to the depraved, or that Florence, like Athens, had not within her walls those who were tired of hearing a man called just. The Medici had still a large body of adherents in the city—men who, whether they preferred or not an oligarchy to a republic, still regretted the offices or emoluments they had lost—were themselves of the aristocracy, or sympathized with it. Then came many of the amnestied, who, themselves pardoned, did not therefore forgive others. Then, too, those who felt themselves thwarted in their license or licentiousness by the changed state of public morality. The dominant party—that of the Frate—went by the name of the _Frateschi_. A smaller party, composed of those who were not personally his adherents, but were in favor of a republic, were called _Bianchi_ (white); another and larger party, made up of partisans of the Medici, most of them amnestied, were called _Bigi_ (grays), and, while outwardly favorable to Savonarola, were his bitter and unrelenting enemies, in constant correspondence with Piero de’ Medici, whose return was the object of all their devices and plots. The partisans of the oligarchy, so active in their endeavors to defeat the new government, and bent on getting the power into their own hands, and establish a pretended republic under aristocratic rule, were naturally opposed to both Savonarola and the Medici. They had contemptuously bestowed the name of _Piagnoni_ (Mourners) on the followers of Savonarola, and, from their known bitter hatred, were themselves called the _Arrabiati_ (rabid or infuriated). Carefully avoiding any opposition to the republic, they sought by every means to cast discredit on Savonarola, to throw ridicule upon his visions and prophecies, to create discontent with his reforms, and to foster a spirit of criticism and dislike against him. The accidental elevation to the office of Gonfaloniere of a man unfit for it—Filippo Corbizzi—was seized by them as an opportunity to attack Savonarola as early as 1495. At their instigation, he called together at the Palazzo a sort of theological council of theologians, abbots, priors, etc., before whom a charge of intermeddling in the affairs of state was laid against Savonarola. The council was opened, and the discussion commenced, when, by the merest accident, Savonarola, in entire ignorance of what was taking place, entered the hall with his friend Fra Domenico, of Pescia. He was instantly assailed with words of abuse and invective, and a Dominican monk of Santa Maria Novella, who had some reputation as a theologian, made a violent speech against him. Others followed the monk, and, when all were through, Savonarola, calmly rising, said: “In me you see verified the saying of our Lord: _Filii matris meæ pugnaverunt contra me._[167] It truly grieves me to see my fiercest adversary wearing the dress of S. Dominic. That very dress ought to remind him that our founder himself was in no small degree occupied with the affairs of this world; and that from our order have gone forth a multitude of religious men and saints to take part in the affairs of state. The Florentine republic cannot have forgotten Cardinal Latino, San Pietro Martine, Santa Caterina of Sienna, nor Sant’ Antonino, all of whom belong to the Order of S. Dominic. A religious man is not to be condemned for occupying himself with the concerns of that world in which God has placed him. I defy any one to point out a single passage in the Bible condemnatory of our showing favor to a free government which is to promote the triumph of morality and religion.” And he thus concluded: “It is easy to see that religion ought not to be treated in profane places, and that theology is not a fit subject for discussion in this place.”

There was no attempt at reply, except from one, who cried out: “Tell us now frankly, Do you aver that your words come from God, or do you not?”

“That which I have said I have said openly; and I have nothing to add,” was Savonarola’s reply.

SONNET

TO THE PILLAR THAT STANDS BESIDE THE HIGH ALTAR AT “S. PAUL’S OUTSIDE THE WALLS,” ROME.[168]

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

A conqueror called thee from the eternal night,
And said, “Ascend from thy dark mother’s breast;
Sustain my glory on thy sunlike crest,
And by mine altar watch—an acolyte.”
A poet, wandering from Helvellyn’s height,
Beheld thee dead ere born. That Alpine guest
Adjured thee, “Where thou liest, forever rest,
And freeze those hearts that trust in mortal might.”
The years went by; then, clear above that cloud
Which blinds the nations, from her Roman throne
Thus spake the universal church aloud:
“Arise at last, thou long-expectant stone!
For God predestined, consummate thy vow:
Advance; and where the Apostle stood stand thou!”

MADAME AGNES.

FROM THE FRENCH OF CHARLES DUBOIS.