700 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
by Savonarola. The young men went in procession through the streets and reaching the pile of vanities, they with others joined hands and danced around the pile and then set fire to it amid the singing of religious songs. The sound of bells and trumpets added to the effect of the strange spectacle. Men thoug^lit of the bookstand philters, burnt at Ephesus under the spell of Paul's preachiiig. The scene was repeated the last year of Savonarola's life, 1498.
Savonarola has been charged with having no sympathy with the Renaissance and the charge it is not easy to set aside. As Burckhardt, the historian of that movement, says, he remained a monastic. In one writing, he sets forth the dangers of literature. Plato and Aristotle are in hell. And this was the judgment expressed in the city of the Platonic Academy ! Vii'gil and Cicero he tolerated, but Catullus, Ovid and Terence he condemned to banishment.^
At one time, under the spell of the prior's preaching, all Florence seemed to be going to religion. Wives left their husbands and betook themselves to convents. Others married, taking the vow of nuptial abstinence and Savonarola even dreamed that the city might reach so perfect a condition that all marrying would cease. People took the communion daily and young men attended mass and received the eucharistic emblem. Fra Bartolomeo threw his studies of naked figures into the fire and for a time continued to think it sinful to use the hands in painting which ought to be folded continually in prayer. It was impossible that such a tension should continue. There was enthusiasm but not regeneration. A reaction was sure to come and the wonder is that Savonarola retained so much of the popular confidence, almost to the end of his life.
Alexander would have none of the Florentine reforms and wa^determined to silence SavonarxDhi at an.y ciist. Within the city, the air was full of rumors of plots to restore the Medici and some of the conspirators were executed. Enemies of the republic avowed their purpose to kill Savonarola and circulated sheets and poems ridiculing and threatening him. In-
1 Die Kultur d. Renaissarice, II. 200 sq.
§ 76. GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA. 701
suiting placards were posted up against the walls of his convent and, on one occasion, the pulpit of the cathedral was defiled with ordure and draped in an ass' skin, while spikes were driven into the place where the preacher was accustomed to strike his hand. Landucci speaks of it as a "great scandal." Assassins even gathered in the cathedral and were only cowed by guards posted by the signory. The friar of St. Mark's seemed not to be appalled. It was ominous, however, that the signory became divided in his sunport.
If possible, Savonarola became more intense in his arraignment of the evils of the Church. He exclaimed: " O prostrate Church, thou hast displayed thy foulness to the whole earth. Thou hast multiplied thy fornications in Italy, in France, in Spain and all other regions. Thou hast desecrated the sacraments with simony. Of old, priests called their bastards nephews, now they call them outright sons." Alexander could not mistake the reference nor tolerate such declamations. The integrity of the supreme seat of Christendom was at stake. A prophetic function superior to the papacy Eugenius III. might recognize, when it was administered in the admonitions of a St. Bernard, but the Florentine prophet had engaged in denunciation even to personal invective. The prophet was losing his balance. On May 12, 1497, for "his_ failure to obey our Apostolic admonitions and commands " and as " one suspected of heresy " Alexander declared him excommunicate- All were forbidden to listen to the condemned man or have converse with him.^
In a letter addressed a month later " to all Christians, the elect of God," Savonarola again affirmed his readiness to yield to the Church's authority, but denied that he was bound to submit to the commands of his superiors when these were in conflict with charity and God's law. " Henceforth," exclaimed the Puritan contemporary, Landucci, " we were deprived of the Word of God." The signory wrote to Alexander in support of Savonarola, affirming his purity of character and soundness j)i doctrine, and friends, like Pico della Mirandola the younger, issued defences of his conduct. The elder Pico della Miran- 1 The bull is given by Villari, II. 189 sq. ; Pastor, III. 411 sq.