III. THE MARTYR
Pope Alexander VI was not deeply disturbed by Savonarola’s criticism of the clergy or of the morals of Rome. He had heard the like before; hundreds of ecclesiastics, for centuries past, had complained that manypriests lived immoral lives, and that the popes loved wealth and power more than became the vicars of Christ.18 Alexander was of a genial temperament; he did not mind a little criticism so long as he felt secure in the Apostolic chair. What disturbed him in Savonarola was the friar’s politics. Not the semidemocratic nature of the new constitution; Alexander had no special interest in the Medici, and perhaps preferred in Florence a weak republic to a strong dictatorship. Alexander feared another French invasion; he had joined in forming a league of Italian states to expel Charles VIII and to discourage a second French attack; he resented the adherence of Florence to its alliance with France, considered Savonarola the power behind this policy, and suspected him of secret correspondence with the French government. Savonarola wrote to Charles VIII about this time three letters seconding the proposal of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere that the King should call a general council of ecclesiastics and statesmen to reform the Church and depose Alexander as “an infidel and a heretic.”19 Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, representing Milan at the papal court, urged the Pope to end the friar’s preaching and influence.
On July 21, 1495 Alexander wrote a brief note to Savonarola:
To our well-beloved son, greeting and the apostolic benediction. We have heard that of all the workers in the Lord’s vineyard thou art the most zealous; at which we deeply rejoice, and give thanks to Almighty God. We have likewise heard that thou dost assert thy predictions proceed not from thee but from God.* Therefore we desire, as behooves our pastoral office, to have speech with thee considering these things; so that, being by these means better informed of God’s will, we may be better able to fulfill it. Wheretofore, by thy vow of holy obedience, we enjoin thee to wait on us without delay, and shall welcome thee with loving kindness.20
This letter was a triumph for Savonarola’s enemies, for it placed him in a situation where he must either end his career as a reformer, or flagrantly disobey the Pope. He feared that once in the papal power he would never be allowed to return to Florence; he might end his days in a Sant’ Angelo dungeon; and if he did not come back his supporters would be ruined. On their advice he replied to Alexander that he was too ill to travel to Rome. That the Pope’s motives were political appeared when he wrote to the Signory on September 8 protesting against the continued alliance of Florence with France, and exhorting the Florentines not to endure the reproach of being the only Italians allied with the enemies of Italy. At the same time he ordered Savonarola to desist from preaching, to submit to the authority of the Dominican vicar-general in Lombardy; and to go wherever the vicargeneral should bid him. Savonarola replied (September 29) that his congregation was unwilling to subordinate itself to the vicar-general, but that meanwhile he would refrain from preaching. Alexander, in a conciliatory response (October 16), repeated his prohibition of preaching, and expressed the hope that when Savonarola’s health should permit he would come to Rome, to be received in “a joyful and fatherly spirit.”21 There, for a year, Alexander let the problem rest.
Meanwhile the prior’s party had recaptured control of the Council and the Signory. The emissaries of the Florentine government in Rome besought the Pope to withdraw his interdict on the friar’s preaching, urging that Florence needed his moral stimulus in Lent. Alexander seems to have given a verbal consent, and on February 17, 1496, Savonarola resumed his preaching in the cathedral. About this time Alexander commissioned a learned Dominican bishop to examine Savonarola’s published sermons for heresy. The bishop reported: “Most Holy Father, this friar says nothing that is not wise and honest; he speaks against simony and the corruption of the priesthood, which in truth is very great; he respects the dogmas and authority of the Church; wherefore I would rather seek to make him my friend—if need be by offering him the cardinal’s purple.”22 Alexander complaisantly sent a Dominican to Florence to offer Savonarola the red hat. The friar felt not complimented but shocked; this, to him, was but another instance of simony. His answer to Alexander’s emissary was: “Come to my next sermon, and you will have my reply to Rome.”23
His first sermon of the year reopened his conflict with the Pope. It was an event in the history of Florence. Half the excited city wished to hear him, and even the vast duomo could not contain all who sought entry, though within they were crowded so tightly that no one could move. A group of armed friends escorted the prior to the cathedral. He began by explaining his long absence from the pulpit, and affirming his full loyalty to the teachings of the Church. But then he issued an audacious challenge to the Pope:
The superior may not give me any command contrary to the rules of my order; the pope may not give any command opposed to charity or the Gospel. I do not believe that the pope would ever seek to do so; but were he so to do I should say to him, “Now thou art no pastor, thou art not the Church of Rome, thou art in error.”… Whenever it be clearly seen that the commands of superiors are contrary to God’s commandments, and especially when contrary to the precepts of charity, no one is in such case bound to obedience…. Were I to clearly see that my departure from a city would be the spiritual and temporal ruin of the people, I would obey no living man that commanded me to depart… forasmuch as in obeying him I should disobey the commands of the Lord.24
In a sermon for the second Sunday in Lent he denounced the morals of Christendom’s capital in harsh terms: “One thousand, ten thousand, fourteen thousand harlots are few for Rome, for there both men and women are made harlots.”25 These sermons were spread throughout Europe by the new marvel, the printing press, and were read everywhere, even by the sultan of Turkey. They aroused a war of pamphlets in and out of Florence, some of them accusing the friar of heresy and indiscipline, others defending him as a prophet and a saint.
Alexander sought an indirect escape from open war. In November, 1496, he ordered the union of all Tuscan Dominican monasteries in a new Tuscan-Roman Congregation, to be directly under the authority of Padre Giacomo da Sicilia. Padre Giacomo was favorably disposed toward Savonarola, but would presumably accept a papal suggestion to transfer the friar to another environment. Savonarola refused to obey the order of union, and took his case over the head of the Pope to the public at large in a pamphlet called “An Apology of the Brethren of San Marco.” “This union,” he argued, “is impossible, unreasonable, and hurtful, nor can the brethren of San Marco be bound to agree to it, inasmuch as superiors may not issue commands contrary to the rules of the order, nor contrary to the law of charity or the welfare of our souls.”26 Technically all monastic congregations were directly subject to the popes; a pope might compel the merger of congregations against their will; Savonarola himself, in 1493, had approved Alexander’s order uniting the Dominican Congregation of St. Catherine’s at Pisa, against its will, with Savonarola’s Congregation of St. Mark.27 Alexander, however, took no immediate action. Savonarola continued to preach, and issued to the public a series of letters defending his defiance of the Pope.
As the Lenten season of 1497 approached, the Arrabiati prepared to celebrate carnival by such festivities, processions, and songs as had been sanctioned under the Medici. To counter these plans Savonarola’s loyal aide, Fra Domenico, instructed the children of the congregation to organize a quite different celebration. During the week of Carnival—preceding Lent—these boys and girls went about the city in bands, knocked at doors, and asked for—sometimes demanded—the surrender of what they called “vanities” or cursed objects (anathemase)—pictures considered immoral, love songs, carnival masks and costumes, false hair, fancy dresses, playing cards, dice, musical instruments, cosmetics, wicked books like the Decameron or the Morgante maggiore.… On the final day of Carnival, February 7, the more ardent supporters of Savonarola, singing hymns, marched in solemn procession, behind a figure of the Infant Jesus carve
d by Donatello and borne by four children in the guise of angels, to the Piazza della Signoria. There a great pyramid of combustible material had been raised, 60 feet high and 240 feet in circumference at the base. Upon the seven stages of the pyramid the “vanities” collected during the week, or now brought to the sacrifice, were arranged or thrown, including precious manuscripts and works of art. Fire was set to the pyre at four points, and the bells of the Palazzo Vecchio were rung to acclaim this first Savonarolan “burning of the vanities.”*
The Lenten sermons of the friar carried the war to Rome. While accepting the principle that the Church should have some terra firma of temporal power, he argued that the wealth of the Church was the source of her deterioration. His invective now knew no bounds.
The earth teems with bloodshed, yet the priests take no heed; rather, by their evil example, they bring spiritual death upon all. They have withdrawn from God, and their piety consists in spending their nights with harlots…. They say that God hath no care of the world, that all cometh by chance; neither believe they that Christ is present in the sacrament…. Come hither, thou ribald Church. The Lord saith: I gave thee beautiful vestments, but thou hast made idols of them. Thou hast dedicated the sacred vessels to vainglory, the sacraments to simony. Thou hast become a shameless harlot in thy lusts; thou art lower than a beast; thou art a monster of abomination. Once thou felt shame for thy sins, but now thou art shameless. Once anointed priests called their sons nephews, but now they speak of their sons.†… And thus, O prostitute Church, thou hast displayed thy foulness to the whole world, and stinkest unto heaven.28
Savonarola suspected that such tirades would earn him excommunication. He welcomed it.
Many of ye say that excommunication will be decreed…. For my part I beseech Thee, O Lord, that it may come quickly.… Bear this excommunication aloft on a lance, open the gates to it! I will reply to it: and if I do not amaze thee, then thou mayest say what thou wilt.… O Lord, I seek only Thy cross! Let me be persecuted; I ask this grace of Thee. Let me not die in my bed, but let me give my blood for Thee, even as Thou gavest thine for me.29
These passionate sermons created a furore throughout Italy. Men came from distant cities to hear them; the duke of Ferrara came in disguise; the crowd overflowed from the cathedral into the square, and each striking sentence was relayed from those within to those without. In Rome the people turned almost unanimously against the friar, and called for his punishment.30 In April, 1497 the Arrabiati secured control of the Council, and—on pretext of danger from the plague—forbade all preaching in the churches after May 5. Urged on by Roman agents of the Arrabiati, Alexander signed a decree excommunicating the friar (May 13); but he let it be known that he would rescind the excommunication if Savonarola would obey the summons to Rome. The prior, fearing imprisonment, still refused, but for six months he held his peace. Then on Christmas Day he sang High Mass at San Marco, gave the Eucharist to his friars, and led them in a solemn procession around the square. Many were scandalized at an excommunicate celebrating Mass, but Alexander made no protest; on the contrary he intimated that he would withdraw the excommunication if Florence would join the league to resist a second invasion from France.31 The Signory, gambling on the success of the French, rejected the proposal. On February 11, 1498, Savonarola completed his rebellion by preaching in San Marco. He denounced the excommunication as unjust and invalid, and charged with heresy any man who should uphold its validity. Finally he issued an excommunication himself:
Therefore, on him that giveth commands opposed to charity anathema sit [let there be a curse]. Were such a command pronounced by an angel, even by the Virgin Mary herself and all the saints (which is certainly impossible), anathema sit.… And if any pope hath ever spoken to the contrary, let him be declared excommunicate.32
On the last day before Lent Savonarola read Mass in the open square before San Marco’s, administered the sacrament to a great multitude, and publicly prayed: “O Lord, if my deeds be not sincere, if my words be not inspired by Thee, strike me dead on this instant.” That afternoon his followers staged a second burning of the vanities.
Alexander informed the Signory that unless it could dissuade Savonarola from further preaching he would lay an interdict upon the city. Though now thoroughly hostile to the prior, the Signory refused to silence him, preferring to let the onus of such a prohibition remain with the Pope; besides, the eloquent friar might be useful in combating a pope who was organizing the Papal States into a power too strong for the comfort of its neighbors. Savonarola continued to preach, but only in the church of his monastery. The Florentine ambassador reported that feeling against the friar was so intense in Rome that no Florentine was safe there; and he feared that if the Pope issued the threatened interdict all Florentine merchants in Rome would be thrown into jail. The Signory yielded, and ordered Savonarola to quit preaching (March 17). He obeyed, but predicted great calamities for Florence. Fra Domenico filled the convent pulpit in his stead, and served as the voice of his prior. Meanwhile Savonarola wrote to the sovereigns of France, Spain, Germany, and Hungary, begging them to call a general council for the reform of the Church:
The moment of vengeance has arrived. The Lord commands me to reveal new secrets, and make manifest to the world the peril by which the bark of St. Peter is threatened, owing to your long neglect. The Church is all teeming with abomination, from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet; yet not only do ye apply no remedy, but ye do homage to the cause of the woes by which she is polluted. Wherefore the Lord is greatly angered, and hath long left the Church without a shepherd…. For I hereby testify… that this Alexander is no pope, nor can be held as one; inasmuch as, leaving aside the mortal sin of simony, by which he hath purchased the papal chair, and daily selleth the benefices of the Church to the highest bidder, and likewise putting aside his other manifest vices, I declare that he is no Christian, and believes in no God.33
If, he added, the kings will call a council he will appear before it and give proof of all these charges. One of these letters was intercepted by a Milanese agent, and was sent to Alexander.
On March 25, 1498 a Franciscan friar, preaching in the church of Santa Croce, turned the drama of the case upon himself by challenging Savonarola to an ordeal of fire. He stigmatized the Dominican as a heretic and false prophet, and offered to walk through fire if Savonarola would do the same. He expected, he said, that both of them would be burned, but hoped by his sacrifice to free Florence from the disorders that had been caused by a proud Dominican’s disobedience of the Pope. Savonarola rejected the challenge; Domenico accepted it. The hostile Signory seized the chance to discredit a prior who in its view had become a troublesome demagogue. It approved of the resort to medieval methods, and arranged that on April 7 Fra Giuliano Rondinelli of the Franciscans and Fra Domenico da Pescia should enter a fire in the Piazza della Signoria.
On the appointed day the great square was filled with a crowd eager to enjoy a miracle or the sight of human suffering. Every window and roof overlooking the scene was occupied with spectators. In the center of the square, athwart a passage two feet wide, twin pyres had been erected of wood mixed with pitch, oil, resin, and gunpowder, guaranteed to make a searing flame. The Franciscan friars took their stand in the Loggia dei Lanzi; the Dominicans marched in from the opposite direction; Fra Domenico carried a consecrated Host, Savonarola a crucifix. The Franciscans complained that Fra Domenico’s red cape might have been charmed into incombustibility by the prior; they insisted on his discarding it; he protested; the crowd urged him to yield; he did. The Franciscans asked him to remove other garments which they thought might have been charmed; Domenico consented, went into the palace of the Signory, and changed clothes with another friar. The Franciscans urged that he should be forbidden to approach Savonarola, lest he be re-enchanted; Domenico submitted to being surrounded by Franciscans. They objected to his carrying either a crucifix or a consecrated Host into the fire; he surrendered the crucifix but kept the Host,
and a long theological discussion ensued between Savonarola and the Franciscans as to whether Christ would be burned along with the appearances of bread. Meanwhile the Franciscan champion remained in the palace, begging the Signory to save him by any ruse. The priors allowed the discussions to go on till darkness fell, and then announced that the ordeal could no longer take place. The crowd, cheated of blood, attacked the palace, but was repulsed; some Arrabiati tried to seize Savonarola, but his guard protected him. The Dominicans returned to San Marco, jeered by the populace, though apparently the Franciscans had been the chief cause of delay. Many complained that Savonarola, after claiming that he was inspired by God and that God would protect him, had allowed Domenico to represent him in the ordeal, instead of facing it himself. These thoughts spread through the city, and almost overnight the prior’s following faded away.