15
DESPITE THE EVIDENT popularity of Savonarola’s sermons, along with widespread satisfaction that Medici rule had been replaced by a more republican government, Florence was now a divided city. And the focus of this division was undeniably Savonarola. The most loyal supporters of the ‘little friar’ remained the Frateschi (the ‘Friar’s Men’), mainly drawn from amongst the monks of San Marco and their intellectual friends. However, Savonarola’s largest support came from those referred to derisively as the Piagnoni – a word that covered a spectrum of meanings. Literally, it means ‘snivellers’, ‘grumblers’ or ‘wailers’ – that is the downtrodden who were always snivelling away or complaining, and wailing out their prayers. These were Savonarola’s beloved ‘simple folk’, who despite his pleas for forgiveness and reconciliation still retained a deep-seated hatred for the Medici and their supporters, many of whom had of course fled the city. However, although those who remained behind had for the time being prudently adopted a low profile, they nonetheless represented a considerable force, who referred to themselves as the Bigi (the ‘Greys’), and would soon begin plotting for the return of Piero de’ Medici. As for Piero de’ Medici himself, he too still represented a distinct threat to Florence. Along with his well-connected brother Cardinal Giovanni, he had begun to solicit support for the Medici cause amongst various states, as well as the upper echelons of the Church, especially Alexander VI. Savonarola’s rejection of the Holy League had ensured that opinion in Rome, and indeed amongst leaders throughout Italy, was now swinging behind the reinstatement of the Medici.
However, the main opposition to Savonarola soon emerged from within Florence itself, in the form of the Arrabbiati (the ‘Enraged Ones’),fn1 a widespread group who resented Savonarola’s interference in the city’s secular government, some of whom also favoured a return to the old Medici days. Then there were the secular liberals who called themselves the Bianchi (the ‘Whites’), to distinguish themselves from the ‘Greys’; though glad to see the back of the Medici, they retained a nostalgic affection for the easygoing times of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and also believed that priests had no place in a republican government. Another group on the same side of the divide as the Arrabbiati, though hardly as passionate in their views, were the Tiepidi (the ‘Tepid Ones’ – that is, lukewarm, or moderate in their opinions). The Tiepidi were opposed to Savonarolan reform and drew much of their support from the permissive priests who saw no reason why their vows should confine them to a life of puritan penury. Besides being popular amongst the wealthy families from which many of the Tiepidi originated, this faction also had important links with Rome.
Nonetheless, the two main opposing groups in Florence remained the Arrabbiati and the Piagnoni, with the others aligning themselves alongside either one of these, with more or less sympathy. Savonarola remained the essential divisive factor. Both of these leading factions had their fervent advocates in the Great Council, even though the disenfranchised Piagnoni were not directly represented. Savonarola made it his duty to see that Piagnoni interests were taken into account, and their sheer numbers amongst the population, who now felt a new confidence as a result of the city’s liberation, ensured that their influence was felt.
The importance that Savonarola attached to the Great Council cannot be overestimated, at least at this early stage. He saw it as the safeguard of the citizens’ recently gained freedom, and pressed the Signoria to start as soon as possible on the building of a large chamber in the Palazzo della Signoria where the working quorum of 500 members of the Great Council could conduct their daily business. This chamber would be a material and symbolic manifestation of the new government, and the site chosen was on the first floor above a courtyard on the north side of the building known as the Dogana (formerly used as a customs house). The Signoria seems to have handed over the entire project to Savonarola from the outset, and he quickly appointed the local architect Simone del Pollaiuolo, a close friend and firm believer in his ideas. The building of this great chamber attracted widespread popular attention, and an indication of this interest (as well as the speed with which it was constructed) can be judged from entries in Landucci’s diary. On 18 July 1495 he recorded: ‘at the Dogana the foundations for the Great Hall were being laid; and the Fratewas constantly encouraging this work’.1 Less than a month later, on 12 August, he noted: ‘The vaulting of the roof of the Great Hall has been finished.’ This must have been some feat for a hall of such a size. The present Salone dei Cinquecento (Chamber of the Five Hundred), as it is still known, is only a slight extension of the original hall, yet it measures 170 feet long, 75 feet wide and more than 25 feet high.
Some have seen this chamber, and the range of groups across the political spectrum that met within it, as the beginnings of modern political party politics as we know it. There is no doubting an embryonic resemblance here, but as the modern historian Lauro Martines argues: ‘though we may use the word “party”, we must [not confuse] the implied meaning with anything like the anatomy of a modern political machine’.2 Even in republican Florence, there was nothing approaching democratic politics in our modern Western sense, just as there was no idea of universal suffrage. Class, group and family interests held sway, whilst ideology remained for the most part incoherent, certainly not articulated in any explicit programme.
Hence, even comparatively democratic Florence was unable to sustain a political party system as such. Any notion of semi-permanent adherence was unlikely to survive in a constitution where the elected Signoria only lasted in office for two months, and where membership of the Great Council expired after six months. Under such circumstances alliances between leading figures were liable to switch, and any that reached beyond family ties were quick to revert to trusted kinship loyalty at the first signs of difficulty. At the same time, there remained the all-important matter of commercial partnerships so essential for business of any sort, and the power of patronage, without which no young man could fulfil his political, administrative, commercial or artistic ambitions. These too were mainly structures of extended family loyalties, cemented by marriages and so forth. You did not send a man to represent your business or act as your manager in another city unless you could be absolutely sure of his loyalty and willingness to follow instructions. On top of this, as Martines makes clear, the political process was simply not capable of tolerating overt dissent, ‘or even – as an acknowledged right – peaceful opposition to a governing clique’. The entire notion of a democratic opposition remained unacceptable. Those who spoke out publicly against government policy were liable to be arrested and thrown in prison. Even if a senior member of a leading family voiced his opposition publicly, he and his entire family could be sent into exile or silenced by punitive taxes which could reduce them to ruin.
Indeed, opposition remained a clandestine and dangerous business. Not for nothing were the ardent Medici supporters known as the Bigi, a bland colour tone that was intended to emphasise their low-profile invisibility – for their contacts with Piero de’ Medici, as well as their suggestion that he launch an invasion that they would support, were undeniably treason, and as such punishable by death. Opposition thus manifested itself in subversive action, the opposite of loyalty to the state. Violence, such as assassination, was another political measure to which opposing factions were liable to resort. Savonarola was a particular target, and when he left San Marco to walk through the streets to another church where he was delivering a sermon, he was invariably accompanied by a bodyguard of loyal followers. As Landucci recorded: ‘On 24 May some people attempted to attack Frate Girolamo in the Via del Cocomero after he had delivered a sermon.’3 Indeed, Savonarola himself in his letter to Alexander VI on 31 July included amongst the reasons for his inability to visit Rome:
There are many enemies here who are thirsting after my blood and have made several attempts upon my life, both by assassination and by poison. For this reason I am unable to venture out of doors in safety without endangering myself, unless I am accompanied by armed guards, even within the city, let alone abroad.4
There had also been a serious downturn in trade, resulting largely from the continuing independence of Pisa, which had simply refused to resubmit to Florentine rule once the French garrison imposed by Charles VIII had withdrawn. The port of Pisa stood at the mouth of the River Arno and thus controlled much of Florence’s overseas trade. In an attempt to remedy this stranglehold the Signoria in Florence had hired a mercenary army to retake Pisa, but so far this had proved both ineffective and costly. Even such wealthy merchants as Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco could no longer afford to support the art that had played such a leading role in the Renaissance in Florence. As a result, Florentine artists were beginning to seek employment in other cities, and the Renaissance was spreading throughout Italy with profound effect upon an age when, according to the great nineteenth-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt:
both sides of human consciousnesss – that which turned inwards as well as that which turned towards the outer world – lay obscured beneath a common veil, either dreaming or merely half awake. This veil was woven out of faith, childlike prejudices and illusion; and seen through it, the world and its history appeared tinted in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, a nation, a party, a corporation, a family, or in some other general category. It was in Italy that this veil first dissolved into thin air, allowing an objective perception and treatment of the state, as well as all things of this world in general. At the same time, the subjective side asserted itself with similar emphasis, allowing man to become a self-aware individual and to recognise himself as such.5
Perceptive minds, such as those of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, understood that this profound transformation which was taking place within their culture was progressive in nature – despite its insistence upon harking back to the achievements of the classical era. Western European humanity was evolving – commercially expanding trade routes into new continents, and culturally expanding on a similar scale into territory previously unexplored by Europeans. The clock could not be turned back. Savonarola may have been a moving force for a more equitable society, yet ironically such political progressivism was yoked to a cultural and moralistic conservatism. As a patron of the arts, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco was determined that, at least in its progressive sense, Lorenzo the Magnificent’s legacy should be encouraged. When his favourite young artist Michelangelo returned to Florence a year after his flight to Bologna, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco resolved to help him as best he could during these difficult times. According to Ascanio Condivi, to whom Michelangelo recounted his life during his last years:
When Michelangelo returned to his homeland he began carving a marble statue of Eros, at the age of six or seven, lying as if asleep. When Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici saw this work he could not but admire its classical beauty, and suggested a plan to Michelangelo, telling him, ‘If you could treat the marble so that it looks as if it has been buried, I can send this to Rome and pass it off as a rare ancient work which has recently been unearthed, and you could get a far better price for it.’ Michelangelo was such a genius that he knew even the most devious tricks of his trade, and when he heard Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s words he immediately set to work as he had suggested.6
But this scam did not go entirely according to plan. The man chosen by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco to negotiate the sale in Rome of Michelangelo’s statue to the wealthy Cardinal Raffaele Riario succeeded in persuading the cardinal of the authenticity of this ‘rare ancient find’, for which he then paid an undisclosed, but substantial, sum. The go-between then kept most of this for himself, cheating both Michelangelo and Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco. Meanwhile Cardinal Riario, who was a renowned connoisseur, soon discovered that his ‘ancient’ sculpture was in fact a contemporary fake. However, he was so impressed by the sheer skill of Michelangelo’s work that he invited the artist to Rome to work for him – thus fulfilling what had probably been Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s intention all along. Michelangelo would live in Rome for the next three years, producing some of his first masterpieces for a series of rich patrons. These included a magnificent larger than life-sized statue of a tipsy Bacchus, the Ancient Roman god of wine, which Vasari perceptively noted has ‘all the slenderness of male youth somehow combined with the sensuality and roundness of the female form’.7 By contrast, this was also the period when Michelangelo produced his first transcendent religious masterpiece, the Pietà, depicting Mary grieving over the naked body of the dead Christ in her lap, a work that caused Michelangelo’s contemporary Vasari to wonder at:
the miracle of how such a formless block of stone could be transformed to such a perfection of the flesh as nature herself is scarce capable of producing.8
Such depictions of the delights of wine and the perfection of naked flesh were hardly the kind of work that Michelangelo could have produced in Savonarola’s ‘City of God’. Michelangelo’s profound belief in God may have been attuned to that of Savonarola, but only by escaping from his influence was Michelangelo capable of fulfilling the genius that had first been recognised in him by Lorenzo the Magnificent. Only amidst the corruption of Rome would this most religious of artists be able to carry forward the promise of the Renaissance and realise his own leading role in its promulgation.
Botticelli, on the other hand, remained behind in Florence. According to Vasari, who grew up in Florence just two decades later and must therefore have heard at first hand from fellow citizens who had lived through these times:
Botticelli became such an ardent follower of Savonarola’s teachings that he was induced to give up painting altogether. As this meant he had no means of earning a living his life fell into the greatest disorder. Yet this only served to make him an even more fervent member of the Piagnoni and abandon all thought of following his vocation.9
Vasari was almost certainly wrong about Botticelli abandoning painting during this period, for several canvases have been reliably dated from these years. However, there is no doubt that the market for paintings all but ceased in Savonarola’s ‘City of God’, leaving many accomplished artists without any source of income. Possibly as a result of poverty, Botticelli is known to have transferred his studio and moved in with his brother Simone Filipepi, who lived in the Via Nuova. Simone was renowned as a strongPiagnoni sympathiser, though his continuing love of secular literature would seem to go against his alleged belief in the imminent and absolute truth of Savonarola’s apocalyptic predictions. Around this time, in the latter half of 1495, Botticelli was probably still involved in completing his drawings to illustrate Dante’s Divine Comedy – a private task that may well have encouraged the rumours concerning his abandonment of his vocation.
Many experts believe that during this time Botticelli also painted his late masterpiece Lamentation over the Dead Christ, which depicts the traditional grieving figures around Christ’s prostrate body. This is the work of a soul coming to terms with his new life. The Virgin Mary’s expression is utterly blank with grief, the saints around her exhibiting their own range of sorrowful emotions. The face of the female figure to the right all but blends with that of the dead Christ; as she presses her cheek to his, one can almost sense the closeness of her breath against Christ’s deathly palllid cheek. Yet if we look more closely we can see that this is unmistakably the face that Botticelli once depicted in The Birth of Venus, as she rose from the waves. Whilst the figure to the left tending to the wounds in the dead Christ’s feet is recognisable as one of the dancing goddesses fromPrimavera. Botticelli’s serene pagan beauties have succumbed to heart-rending grief over the figure who has succeeded them in Botticelli’s heart.
In many ways this Lamentation reflected a similar transformation that was taking place amongst the people of Florence – or at least among the majority who now saw Savonarola as their leader, politically as well as spiritually. They would no longer just be his followers, they would believe in him. They would abandon their old way of life, their joys and their sadnesses, to dedicate themselves as the new citizens of the ‘City of God’. There was no denying the strength of faith, amounting almost to a contained collective hysteria, that now began to infuse the downtrodden Piagnoniand their followers.
Yet as we have seen, not all of Savonarola’s followers were Piagnoni. Even amongst those who fervently believed in him and his call for a return to the simplicity of the early Christian way of life, there still remained that intellectual element that had once included so many of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s circle at the Palazzo Medici. Representative of these was Ficino, who wished Savonarola to reinforce his colleagues’ blind faith with the strength of an earlier tradition. Where Savonarola harked back to the Old Testament prophets, Ficino still wished to persuade him to incorporate the philosophical tradition of Platonism into his faith. As well as inspiring humanism, Plato’s ideas had also provided an intellectual backing for much Christian theology. Ficino regarded Plato much like a Christian saint whose ideas had prepared the ground prior to the arrival of Christ himself. Where St John the Baptist had come to be regarded as Christ’s religious herald, Plato should be recognised as his intellectual forerunner.
Plato’s inclusion in the Christian heritage would unite all who were attracted to Savonarola’s beliefs, as well as giving this faith a philosophical foundation that few amongst the growing number of Renaissance intellectuals throughout Italy could have resisted. Here was a faith that would eliminate the growing pagan element amongst the humanists. If Savonarola was to establish Florence as the centre of a new Christendom, surely this was the way forward. Here lay the foundations of a religious Renaissance to match – indeed, surpass – the artistic and intellectual Renaissance that had been born in Florence. What the Bible promised for the Piagnoni, Plato could provide for intellectual believers and leaders all over Italy, who had become so disillusioned with the corrupt Church establishment in Rome.
Yet now, to Ficino’s consternation, Savonarola continued to have his doubts about the orthodoxy of some of Plato’s later thinking, and especially that of his followers. Such late Platonic thinking had led Ficino to believe in a number of hermetic ideas, some of which had originally struck a peculiar chord with a number of Savonarola’s metaphysical notions. We know from Savonarola’s record of his revelations that he believed in the existence of, and even saw, such things as angels and demons. He was also a profound believer in prophecy, most notably when this sprang from the visions he saw in his mind’s eye. But such notions of prophecy derived directly from the prophets of the Old Testament. On the other, hand, Savonarola detested other more esoteric forms of prophecy such as astrology. Such beliefs were pure heresy.
fn1 Not for nothing does this word have connotations with ‘rabid’ and thus ‘rabies’.