9

Noah’s Ark

IT IS JUST possible that such behind-the-scenes machinations might even have led to the early downfall of Piero de’ Medici, especially if the people had turned against him. Yet they did not; and one of the main reasons for this must be accorded to Savonarola, who kept his secret deathbed agreement with Lorenzo and refrained from preaching against Piero. Savonarola had sensed his own growing power from the pulpit, and had even been willing to compromise with Lorenzo in the hope of gaining some political influence beyond San Marco. But at this stage any conscious idea of how to impose his beliefs upon the city of Florence as a whole almost certainly remained beyond his conception. After all, how on earth could such a thing have been done? He may secretly have wished to achieve this, have longed for it, even have dreamed of it – but such a thing was simply not possible. It would have involved something akin to turning the entire city into a monastery. Yet there is no doubt that some impossible dream along these lines was beginning to evolve in Savonarola’s mind. How consciously, how practically, it is impossible to tell – but the evidence is incontrovertible. For it was now, during his Advent sermons delivered in December 1492, that his preaching began to focus upon an entirely new topic. Amidst his usual condemnation of the irredeemable evil that threatened to engulf the world, he began preaching his first sermons on Noah’s Ark. Here was the vessel that had in biblical times carried the survivors of God’s Flood, and would do so again when once more God submerged the entire world of his original creation because it had become so corrupted that it was beyond redemption. This was something more than the apocalyptic warnings and injunctions to the faithful to adhere to the original teachings of Jesus in the City of Jerusalem. For the first time, Savonarola was suggesting a positive practical idea for salvation on this Earth. Or so it would seem.

In fact, we do not know the precise nature of these sermons, for according to his biographer Villari, the printed version that has come down to us:

is so ill-assembled and filled with errors that it no longer contains even the slightest hint of Savonarola’s characteristic style, because whoever took down these notes was unable to keep up with the preacher’s words. It seems that all he could manage was to jot down the occasional rough and fragmentary indication of what Savonarola actually said. This was later translated into a coarse form of dog-Latin.¹

However, according to Villari, who not only had an unrivalled knowledge of Savonarola, but also seems to have had access to other sources:

Savonarola spoke in his sermons of a mystical Ark, where all who wished to escape and survive the Flood which was soon to overwhelm the world could take refuge. In the literal sense, this was the Ark of Noah which featured in the Book of Genesis. However, in the allegorical sense it could also be seen as the coming together of the righteous who would be saved. Savonarola then elaborated upon this theme, explaining that the length of the Ark represented Faith, its breadth was Charity, and its height was Hope.²

Savonarola’s ‘strange allegory’ then took on even more practical dimensions, as he explained how this Ark was to be constructed out of ten planks. Unusually for Savonarola, here he was contradicting the Bible, where God explicitly states, ‘The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits,^fn1the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.’³ A clue to Savonarola’s motive here can perhaps be gleaned from the fact that in Roman times the city of Florence was originally divided into decumani, or ten districts. Yet Savonarola evidently went out of his way to ensure that this interpretation was not widely recognised, for ‘each day he would give a different interpretation of the ten planks out of which the ark was to be constructed’.⁴

This curious melange of the practical, the metaphorical, the biblical and the spiritual would have a different emphasis to each section of his congregation. Indeed, its very mixture would have reinforced its powerful message. Even so, it was but a short step from the more spiritual aspects of the Ark to its practical manifestation, with its ten planks. Savonarola was clearly dreaming aloud here, letting his imagination roam, even if he still had no conception of how his Ark could be built. At the same time, he was certainly not making a political statement: this much he made clear. Piero de’ Medici and the authorities would not have felt threatened by his sermons, which merely encouraged the citizens to live a more deeply committed Christian life. Savonarola’s promise of support for Piero remained intact.

Such an argument may appear far-fetched, but its force is confirmed by Savonarola’s attitude towards the rest of Italy in these sermons, a political theme that he returned to again and again. Indeed, Florence appears to have been the only major power in the land that escaped his censure during the course of these sermons. Delivering his regular Advent sermons had certainly taken a heavy toll on Savonarola’s physical, mental and imaginative powers, and it was now, at the end of 1492, that the prolonged strain of this ordeal caused him to experience the third of his major ‘revelations’.^fn2 Alone and sleepless in his cell during the long, cold winter night, Savonarola racked his brains, seeking inspiration for the final Advent sermon that he was due to deliver the next day. But nothing came to him. Then suddenly he had a vision of a hand brandishing a sword, which was inscribed with the words ‘Gladius Domini super terram, cito et velociter’⁵ (‘The sword of God above the Earth, striking and swift’). Later, he heard a great booming voice, which proclaimed itself as the voice of the Lord and announced to him:

The time is nigh when I shall unsheath my sword. Repent before my wrath is vented upon you. For when the day of my judgement comes you may seek to hide but you will find no refuge.

As Savonarola’s vision continued, he saw that amidst the roar of thunder the hand in the sky turned the sword towards the Earth, as if to smite it, whilst the air was filled with flames, burning arrows and other omens, which indicated that the Earth was soon to be overwhelmed by war, famine and plague.

The sword in the sky, signifying God’s imminent wrath, was to become a central preoccupation with Savonarola, and a regular feature of his visions. Such were the horrific scenes that Savonarola witnessed in this ‘revelation’ that he refrained from revealing all of them in his sermon next day. Three years later, when he came to write his ‘Compendium of Revelations’, he would confess his reason for withholding what he had seen. He feared that telling of such outlandish things would merely make him a subject of ridicule amongst the people of Florence. Once again the full text of this sermon has not come down to us, but contemporary sources concur that, far from turning him into a laughing stock, this sermon in fact terrified a large section of his congregation, who had never before heard of such things as he predicted. All the indications are that this was the occasion when Savonarola warned that Italy was to be invaded by a new Cyrus,^fn3 whose conquering army would cross the mountains, sweeping all before it. Because this invasion would be fulfilling God’s will, this army led by ‘Cyrus’ would prove invincible, and ‘he shall take cities and fortresses with great ease’.⁶ In support of his chilling prophecy, Savonarola quoted the words of the Lord as they had been inscribed by the Old Testament prophet in the Book of Isaiah: ‘I will go before thee and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron.’⁷

However, not all were terrified by Savonarola’s words. Despite the precautions that Savonarola had taken, many came away from his sermon convinced that this time he had gone too far: he had revealed himself to be nothing more than a deranged publicity-seeker. His claims to prophecy, far from revealing him to be a saint, were no more than hallucinations, the symptoms of incipient mental illness or simply imaginative ravings. But such opinions were in the minority, and over time this sermon would come to be seen as perhaps the most significant evidence supporting Savonarola’s assertion to be a prophet. Here, undeniably, he claimed to see the future. And it would soon become clear what he had in mind. The westward expansion of the Ottoman Empire remained a constant threat to western Europe, from Hungary to the Balkans. It had only been twelve years since Ottoman troops had actually landed on the Italian mainland and occupied Otranto in the heel of Italy for two years, before withdrawing: it seemed only a matter of time before they would return. Indeed, in one of his sermons Savonarola seemed to welcome this prospect:

O Lord, we have become despised by all nations: the Turks are masters of Constantinople, we have lost Asia, we have lost Greece, and we pay tribute to the Infidel.^fn4 O Lord God, Thou hast punished us in the manner of an angry father, Thou hast banished us from Thy presence. Make haste with the punishment and the scourge, so that we may be returned to Thee. Effunde iras tuas in gentes [‘Unleash Thy wrath upon our people’].⁸

Savonarola found himself uncomfortable in his new position as prior of San Marco. During his earlier years at the monastery, the lax and often luxurious existence indulged in by the more senior members of the community, who belonged to important Florentine families and were often personal friends of Lorenzo, had brought him close to despair. But now that he had been elected prior, and Lorenzo was dead, he was determined that all this should change, and that San Marco should return to the austerity intended by the founder of the Dominican order. At the end of the twelth century, St Dominic had travelled the highways and byways barefoot, preaching the original gospel of Jesus and living off the meagre charity provided by his listeners. After founding his order, he had insisted that its friars follow his example, taking strict vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Yet despite taking these vows, Savonarola now found himself at San Marco, living amidst the many luxuries and beautiful frescoes donated over the years by the Medici family and other wealthy patrons. He was distressed by the apparent hypocrisy of his position, and longed for his community to live according to the austerity that he so enthusiastically preached in his sermons.

This preyed on his mind to such an extent that one night it caused him to have a dream.^fn5 During the course of this, Savonarola saw living in the afterlife the twenty-eight friars of San Marco who had died during the previous years. To his consternation he saw that all but three of these friars had been damned to spend all eternity in hell for breaking their monastic vows, especially with regard to poverty. During their life in San Marco they had all fallen prey to the desire for luxuries and a life of comfort. This dream confirmed Savonarola’s resolve to embark upon his reform of San Marco. Indeed, he decided, it would probably be better for all concerned if the community moved out of San Marco altogether, for it was already becoming too crowded, though such a move would obviously involve protracted negotiations with higher authorities.

Savonarola’s reputation for piety had spread, and was already beginning to attract to San Marco a stream of earnest young visitors intent upon returning to the simple Christianity of Jesus that Savonarola advocated in his sermons. These visitors came from far and wide and were not all young men; they included a number of scholars and artists, inspired by Savonarola’s intellect and personality in much the same way as he had attracted Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano. Amongst these was the Jewish scholar Mithridates, who had instructed Pico and Ficino some years previously in the mysteries of the Kabbala. Both Mithridates and Ficino were striving to reconcile their essentially heretical knowledge with the simple Christianity of Jesus.

Amongst the artists, Botticelli appears to have had no qualms about surrendering himself altogether into the hands of Savonarola, although the suggestion by Giorgio Vasari that ‘he gave up painting’⁹ during this period, in order to devote himself to God, has since been shown to be almost certainly false. Instead, his art now returned to the depiction of religious scenes, especially of a sorrowful nature; and Botticelli’s colourful temperament, which had previously celebrated the pagan symbolism of the classical era with such serene beauty, now began to darken, taking on a more profound psychological depth. The case of Michelangelo, the other major artist so attracted to Savonarola and his teachings, is more problematic. Michelangelo’s temperament had always had a deep religious strain. This was undoubtedly encouraged by Savonarola’s teaching, but there is no evidence that the ‘little friar’ in any significant way influenced his art – which, although religious in a profound sense, retained a surface muscular sensuality that drew on essentially secular influences such as humanism and classical art.

Savonarola’s closest friend amongst the Florentine intellectual community seems to have presented an altogether different case. Where Pico was concerned, all question of heresy was a thing of the past. During the months following his return to Florence under the protection of Lorenzo he appears to have abandoned all thought of creating any further philosophical works. Yet it is now clear that around this time he returned to writing. He had long since renounced any secular beliefs, placing his faith in the hands of Savonarola, who was more than ever impressed by the quality of his friend’s spirituality and intellect. Savonarola would even go so far as to claim of Pico that ‘in mind alone, he was greater than St Augustine’.¹⁰ This was some compliment, considering that the philosopher and theologian St Augustine was undeniably one of the greatest intellects amongst the saints, and as such had been an object of extreme veneration to Savonarola from his earliest days as a novice.

This superlative respect appears to have been mutual – despite there being such evident differences between Pico and Savonarola with regard to temperament, ambition, social standing and lifestyle. And there can be no doubt that these differences remained evident – especially where the last of these categories was concerned. For even during this most pious and penitent stage of his life, Pico found it impossible to set aside the habits of a lifetime. Ridolfi paraphrases ‘a previously undiscovered note’¹¹ written by Fra Giovanni Sinibaldi, one of Savonarola’s most trusted confidants at San Marco during this period:

From this we learn an extraordinary and unexpected fact which certainly does not accord with the much-vaunted ‘life of a saint’ which Pico was reported to have lived during this period – namely, the fact that he was living with a concubine.¹²

In such circumstances – historical, linguistic and geographical – the use of the word ‘concubine’ (concubina) would indicate a common-law wife, rather than, as can be the case elsewhere, a mistress, an unaccredited extra wife or simply a ‘kept woman’. Pico had evidently abandoned his previous licentious habits, but could not bring himself to forgo the pleasures of the flesh entirely. Yet why should Pico, who was now striving in so many ways to emulate his friend Savonarola, and was discussing theological matters with him on such a regular basis, have chosen to live in sin, especially when he knew all too well Savonarola’s horror of fornication? Why didn’t Pico simply get married? Nothing is known of his partner, and it is of course possible that in the manner of the period a wide difference in class rendered marriage out of the question. However, there could have been another reason for Pico remaining single, and this appears to be the most likely explanation. Pico had been encouraged by Savonarola to prepare himself for taking up monastic vows and entering the Dominicans as a friar. Pico was at first all for this idea, but would later be less sure if he was fitted for such a life. At any rate, although he blew hot and cold about this life-changing choice, it remained a strong possibility, and any officially documented marriage would have rendered such a vocation out of the question. Ridolfi also makes a rather surprising suggestion, writing that, ‘According to Sinibaldi, Savonarola was well aware of this state of affairs and even confided it to Fra Roberto Ubaldini … the future chronicler of San Marco.’¹³ This all-but-unbelievable circumstance provides a key to a number of ensuing events that might otherwise appear utterly inexplicable.

Although Pico may have renounced his humanist ideas and heretical universal philosophy, Savonarola was determined that his friend should not renounce his formidable intellect. To this end, he encouraged Pico to write a work that would eventually become entitled Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem (loosely ‘Against Astrological Prediction’). Astrology had become highly popular amongst the humanists, because it attempted to show that human lives were dominated by psychological traits (star signs) whose movements through the night sky could be scientifically mapped in relation to one another (producing ‘influences’). All this ran parallel with the burgeoning Renaissance sense of individualism, self-understanding and growing scientific awareness. Unfortunately, this was not psychology but wishful thinking, not self-understanding but self-delusion, not physics but metaphysics. And instead of allowing the soul the freedom to choose its own destiny, so that it could be judged fit for heaven, purgatory or hell, by implication its predestined determinism locked each human being into an inescapable fate no matter how he or she chose to behave. There could be no denying that astrology was incompatible with Christian doctrine (as indeed it was with the central tenets of the humanist outlook).

Savonarola was so keen to promulgate this argument, and encourage Pico to put his intellectual talents to good use in its cause, that he became a source of constant encouragement to his friend. According to Giovanni Nesi, a Platonist friend of Ficino, Savonarola assisted Pico by giving him ‘advice and judgement’¹⁴ whilst he was writing Disputationes. How far this went is difficult to say, but other informed contemporary sources suggest that Savonarola’s role may have extended to the point where he virtually co-authoredDisputationes. Either way it was a work of some brilliance, which systematically dismantled one by one the foundations upon which this ancient Babylonian science of divination existed. Parts are unmistakably authored by Pico, such as when he reverts to ridicule, pointing out that astrologers – far from being able to prophesy great events – were not even able to forecast the weather. Other more subtle theological points could have been written by either of the putative co-authors. Typical of these was the insistence that by relying upon the movements of zodiacal signs and planets, named after secular images and pagan deities, the astrologers were in fact interceding with false gods. These owed no allegiance to God and operated according to their own movements or whimsical laws, all of which had nothing whatever to do with the Christian orthodoxy of the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament or with the New Testament teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. In essence, the astrological universe was a mechanical universe with ‘influences’, rather than a meaningful universe with a moral purpose.

Despite such evidence of his continuing brilliance, Pico’s mind had now undergone a profound categorical transformation. Previously he had sought to synthesise the ideas of various ages and religions into a creative unison, to reconcile all of humanity’s experience of the world into one imaginative vision that would be acceptable to all human beings. This ‘syncretism’ was a positive aspiration, in tune with the Renaissance ethos, and it is not difficult to see it as a metaphor, prescient of the scientific world view that would begin to emerge over the coming centuries, with its universally applicable laws. To a certain extent, Disputationes can also be viewed as a scientific work – in that it is a rejection of metaphysics and whimsical associations involving ‘influences’ and symbols. Unfortunately, in all other aspects it represents a complete reversal of Pico’s thought. Rejecting the Renaissance way of thinking, Pico was now returning to the characteristic mindset of the medieval era. Instead of attempting to create a truth by synthesis, he was now reverting to the medieval method of thought championed by Savonarola. The truth was to be found in the correct interpretation of a body of authoritative texts. Incorrect interpretations, or other unorthodoxies, had to be condemned as the antithesis of such truth, as heresies. Authority, as in the word of God, was the only acceptable truth. Pico’s great intellect had reverted from the Renaissance to the medieval world, from the freedom of creative imagination to the limitations of orthodoxy.

Savonarola was, of course, most supportive of Pico’s wish to take up holy orders, and did his best to dissuade him from his moments of vacillation. Yet even Savonarola knew that such a step would require more than his strong support and Pico’s belief in his vocation. The charge of heresy – the result of Pico’s earlier philosophical activities – remained outstanding after Innocent VIII’s death. The only way Pico could be pardoned was by order of the new pope, Alexander VI. Concrete evidence of Pico’s reform and strict adherence to orthodoxy could certainly have been produced by the publication of his brilliantly argued Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem, but Savonarola had his doubts about presenting such a work to the Borgia pope Alexander VI. Not only was the new pope degenerate and unreliable (facts to which Savonarola had already begun making oblique reference in his sermons), but it was also rumoured that the Spanish Borgia family were highly superstitious and deeply committed practitioners of astrology. (This may well explain why Disputationes was not in fact published, or even widely distributed in manuscript form, until well after the death of both its putative authors.) No, if Alexander VI was to be persuaded to drop the charge of heresy against Pico, Savonarola realised that some other approach would have to be used.

But for the time being he became preoccupied with another important matter.

^fn1 A cubit is usually reckoned to have been at least one and a half feet, making Noah’s Ark around 150 yards long.

^fn2 This was the revelation mentioned earlier, which was wrongly thought to have preceded the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, allegedly causing the congregation to see the thunderbolt that struck the cathedral as miraculous evidence of God’s scourge, as mentioned by Savonarola.

^fn3 Cyrus the Great, who appears several times in the Old Testament, was the sixth-century BC King of the Persians who set free the Israelites from their captivity in Babylon, allowing them to return to their homeland to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem. As such, Cyrus had long been seen in the Judaeo-Christian tradition as an unwitting instrument of God.

^fn4 The Asia referred to here is the orginal territory given that name – the province of the Roman Empire that occupied the bulk of western Anatolia (modern Turkey), including the entire Aegean coast. The tribute was that paid to the Turks by the Venetians and the Genoese so that they could continue their lucrative trade with the Levant.

^fn5 This particular incident, along with several others, is usually referred to as one of Savonarola’s ‘visions’. Circumstances suggest that on this and some other occasions what he experienced was in fact a dream, rather than a waking ‘vision’. The latter he would seem to have experienced (that is, seen in his mind) in a waking context whilst he was in a heightened emotional state (such as during a sermon) or when his mind was affected by his regime of excessive self-denial – which involved such mind-altering activities as painful self-chastisement, starvation or sleep deprivation.