16

‘A bolt from the blue’¹

INITIALLY, IT SEEMED that little attention had been paid in the Vatican to Savonarola’s impudent reply to Alexander VI, refusing his cordial invitation to visit Rome. The pope had other matters on his mind: after the humiliation inflicted on him by Charles VIII and the French army on their passage through Rome, he now had to re-establish his power in the Holy City, and at the same time plan his next political move on the Italian scene.

After Savonarola had delivered his ‘last sermon’ at the end of July 1495, overseen the first edition of his ‘Compendium of Revelations’ into print and despatched his letter replying to Alexander VI, he had retired to the summer countryside to recover from the mental and physical exhaustion brought on by his ascetic way of life and by his strenuous attempts to guide Florentine politics, all exacerbated by his dysentery. It seems most likely that he stayed at the hospice of Santa Maria del Sasso in the mountains at Casentino some thirty miles east of Florence. Two years previously this had become part of the independent Tuscan Congregation under the rule of Savonarola, and his stay thus coincided with his intention to visit all the institutions that had recently come under his rule. Away from the heat and stress of the city, along with the self-imposed intensity of his life at San Marco, Savonarola had gradually begun to recover his health and strength.

Then, some time during the second week in September, with all the force of ‘a bolt from the blue’, a papal Brief arrived in Florence from Rome. This was dated 8 September, was certainly not composed by Alexander VI, and was probably not even written on his direct orders. However, its composition and method of address betrayed all the skill of a highly accomplished political operator, to say nothing of a man well versed in the ways of the Church. It is now known that this so-called papal Brief was in fact penned by Bartolomeo Floridi, Bishop of Cosenza, a leading member of the papal secreteriat, almost certainly at the prompting of Piero de’ Medici or his followers in Rome.^fn1

All the better to serve his purpose, and possibly to cover his tracks, Floridi deviously chose not to send his Brief directly to Savonarola at San Marco, but instead to ‘the prior and Monastery of Santa Croce’.² This was the centre of the main clerical opposition to Savonarola in Florence, the home of the rival Franciscans. Consequently, as doubtless intended, the contents of this so-called papal Brief quickly spread through Florence, especially amongst the Arrabbiati and the Medici supporters, a week or so before the Brief was passed on to San Marco. Even then it did not pass immediately into Savonarola’s hands, as the original receipt indicates that the prior was at the time ‘gratia recuperandae valetudinis absens’ ³ – in other words, he was still away recuperating, probably at Casentino.

The Brief itself was a chilling document. After opening with a few general observations about how dangerous matters, such as ‘schisms within the Church’ and ‘heretical thinking’, can result from ‘adopting a false simplicity’, it then passed on to name ‘a certain Girolamo Savonarola’, who had:

become so deranged by recent upheavals in Italy that he has begun to proclaim that he has been sent by God and even speaks with God … claiming that anyone who does not accept his prophecies cannot hope for salvation … Despite our patience he refuses to repent and absolve his sins by submitting to our will. Consequently, we have decided to put an end to the scandalous secession of the Tuscan Congregation from that of Lombardy, to which we only consented because of the exhortations of certain deceitful friars. We have decided to re-unite these congregations under the rule of the Lombardy Vicar-General Sebastiano Maggi, who will lead an inquiry into the activities of Savonarola as well as into his writings. Until this inquiry is completed, Savonarola is suspended from all preaching … Anyone who does not comply with the requirements of this brief will suffer instant excommunication.

Savonarola’s immediate reaction to this document can only be imagined. Now he stood to lose the independence that he had gained at such cost – for which he had compromised the very integrity upon which all his spiritual aims were based, entering into his pact with the dying Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Savonarola may not actually have received the so-called papal Brief until he returned to Florence. His reply to it was certainly written in Florence, and is dated 29 September, probably no more than a day or so after he first read its contents. Savonarola realised that if he was to have any chance of retaining his independence and fulfilling the role that he felt God had given him, he would have to convince Rome of his cause. In this letter he would have to demonstrate, and redeem, the very nature of his faith. Painstakingly he justified himself, point by point, attempting to refute each of the accusations made against him. The difficulty of doing this, yet at the same time not contradicting the authority of the pope and the orthodoxy of Church doctrine, proved a formidable task. As a result, a number of his arguments appear somewhat too clever for their own good. Having extolled the virtues of his pure and simple faith above all else, Savonarola now found himself relying upon his exceptional intellect to argue its case.

His meticulous reply extended over more than ten closely written pages. Later, he would famously maintain that the papal Brief contained ‘no less than eighteen mistakes’;⁴ however, just a few of his arguments will suffice to give the flavour of this letter. Savonarola claimed that contrary to the allegations made in the Brief, he had always been submissive to the Church: he had committed no heresy, because all he had done was call for sinners to repent. When it came to his role as a prophet, his argument was particularly devious:

With regards to prophecy, I have absolutely never made any claim to be a prophet. However, it would not be heresy were I to do so, for I have foretold things that have already come to pass, and the other things I have foretold will be proven true when they come to pass in the future.⁵

His most elaborate and pedantic arguments were reserved for his rebuttal of the papal Brief’s claims concerning the separation of the Lombardy and Tuscan Congregations. Savonarola insisted that this separation had not been the result of ‘the exhortations of certain deceitful friars’, as it had come about through the intervention of Cardinal Caraffa, the Cardinal Protector of the Dominican order. (Cardinal Caraffa’s subterfuge, and then slipping the ring from the pope’s finger – which certainly involved deceit, and arguably extortion too – were not mentioned, although Savonarola would certainly have been informed of what had happened.) Furthermore, he went on to argue, although the move for separation may have been instigated by the Dominicans of San Marco, they could hardly be stigmatised as ‘deceitful friars’ when they were known far and wide for their exemplary piety. Not least, Savonarola contended that it was definitely unjust to appoint the Vicar General of the Lombardy Congregation to head an inquiry into his behaviour, for Vicar General Maggi was known to have become his sworn enemy as a result of the separation. Ridolfi summarises Savonarola’s extraordinary conclusion:

Thus the accusations made against him were exposed as nothing but low slander. And for this reason, he indicated that he would take no action in accord with these superior orders until His Holiness, recognising his innocence, absolved him from all blame in this matter.⁶

This last ‘indication’ was certainly dangerous. However, Savonarola was playing on the fact that Alexander VI’s unwarranted interference in the affairs of the Dominicans was liable to cause deep ructions within the Church hierarchy. In consequence, immediately after finishing his reply to the pope, he wrote to Cardinal Caraffa, as head of the order, pleading for his support in this matter and claiming:

I am well aware of who is behind all these lies about me, and understand that they are the work of perverse citizens who wish to re-establish tyranny in Florence.⁷

Savonarola was confident that his arguments would win the day. So much so, that he now took matters into his own hands. Regardless of his insistence in his letter that he had always been submissive to the wishes of the Church, he defied the order in the papal Brief banning him from preaching by delivering a sermon on Sunday 11 October. This was followed by another the next Sunday. Savonarola’s motives for this action appear to have been to forestall his enemies. He had almost certainly heard from Rome (probably by way of Cardinal Caraffa) that Alexander VI had now covertly chosen to support the Medici cause and was backing a possible coup. The central messages of Savonarola’s sermons were both specious and directly political. First, he claimed that he had written to the pope and that his position had been resolved. He then advised the citizens of Florence that it was necessary to take immediate measures against the Arrabbiati, who were plotting against him, and to defend themselves against an imminent Medici coup. Now, instead of urging Florentines to forgive their enemies, he deliberately incited them to violence: ‘The time for mercy is past, it is time you took up your swords … cut off the head of anyone who opposes the republic.’⁸ Later, he drove home his message with what was unmistakably a direct reference to Piero de’ Medici: he urged the citizens of Florence to behave like the Ancient Romans when faced with the traitors who sought to overthrow the republic and restore Tarquin as their king: ‘Cut off his head, even though he be head of his family, cut off his head!’

Yet by the time he came to preach a third sermon, on Sunday 25 October, his entire attitude had undergone a transformation. This time he bade his congregation farewell, adding cryptically: ‘Pray to God that I will be inspired when the time comes for me to preach once more.’⁹ Savonarola had somehow received advance warning of what was about to take place. In a Brief from Alexander VI dated 16 October (which at the time of the sermon was still on its way from Rome to Florence), the pope had stated unequivocally:

We command you, by virtue of your vow of obedience, to cease preaching forthwith, both in public and in private, until such time as you are able to present yourself before us.¹⁰

This time there was no mistaking the author, the authority or the authenticity of the papal Brief (though in accord with protocol, it was once again signed by Floridi, to whom it would have been dictated). Alexander VI was determined to silence Savonarola. Yet why did he not officially excommunicate him?

Alexander VI now found himself facing the possibility of a serious threat to his very papacy itself. It had become clear that Charles VIII was once again considering the possibility of leading the French army into Italy, and this time he would not hesitate to depose Alexander VI at the first opportunity. Savonarola had remained in contact with Charles VIII, and had in fact written to him during the summer, urging him to do just this. Savonarola remained convinced that Charles VIII represented the ‘scourge of God’ and, should he fail to act in his appointed capacity, or behave in a manner not worthy of this role, God would not fail to punish him, as he had pointed out to the king personally when he had prevented him from sacking Florence.

As a result of this new threat, Alexander VI had decided to pursue a different policy in Italy, one that was no longer so reliant upon the Holy League, which was already showing signs of falling apart. His long-term aim would be to try and lure France into an alliance. This would be a difficult task, but it seemed the best hope to enable him to realise his political ambitions – or, indeed, to remain in power. And for this he would need the goodwill of Savonarola. Any attempt to excommunicate the ‘little friar’ would have upset both the people of Florence and Charles VIII, who still looked upon Savonarola as his friend. However, by taking the minor step of forbidding him from preaching, for disobeying the order in the previous papal Brief, Alexander VI knew that he was well within his rights. In fact, such a response would have been expected of him, in order to maintain his authority as pope: neither the people of Florence nor Charles VIII could have expected less. By silencing Savonarola, Alexander VI knew that he would be rendering him virtually ineffective. Savonarola’s power – over the people and his followers within the Church – lay above all else in his oratory.

During the ensuing months, Alexander VI found himself under considerable pressure to rescind his order silencing Savonarola, especially if he wished to gain the favour of Charles VIII. In consequence, when both the Florentine ambassador and Cardinal Caraffa once more pressed him to sign an order permitting Savonarola to start preaching again early in 1496, Alexander VI let it be known verbally that Savonarola could go ahead and preach the coming Lenten sermons. However, he refused to sign any document to this effect: Savonarola’s licence was thus limited, and open to immediate denial.

Carnival time, in the run-up to Lent, was traditionally a period of boisterous celebration in Florence. This was when Lorenzo the Magnificent had laid on his most elaborate and excessive entertainments, such as the bawdy dramas for which he had composed rhymes like ‘The Song of the Peasants’ (‘We’ve all got cucumbers, and big ones too …’). The activities of Carnival stemmed from the pre-Christian pagan festivals of Ancient Rome, and their true meaning had long since been lost in time. According to traditional custom, the citizens put on fancy dress and wore masks, roaming the streets and participating in wild revelries, often involving obscene ditties and lewd antics. Bonfires would be lit, around which men and women would perform bacchanalian dances. Barriers would be erected at the entrances to the different neighbourhoods, and any who wished to pass would be subjected to rude personal questions and coerced into paying ‘customs’ money. Things sometimes went too far during the ritual stone-throwing fights between gangs of boys from rival districts, when participants would frequently suffer ugly wounds, cracked skulls and even, on occasion, be killed. Many respectable citizens felt that these ‘celebrations’ were now getting dangerously out of control, and Savonarola latched onto this sentiment, organising a systematic campaign aimed at stamping out such ‘unchristian’ behaviour.

To do this, he made use of boys between the age of twelve and eighteen. In preparation for the traditional Christian rite of passage that confirmed full membership of the Church, allowing participants to take Holy Communion, the young men of Florence would be required to attend religious classes. Here they would learn their catechism, the questions and answers they would be expected to remember for the confirmation ceremony. Savonarola realised that these classes presented a unique opportunity to organise the youth of Florence into a strong religious force capable of combating the excesses of Carnival. He instructed the friars from San Marco who gave these classes to win over their charges to the simple faith that he preached in his sermons. Ideal candidates for such radicalising zeal, these impressionable adolescent boys soon became enthusiastic converts to Savonarola’s brand of fundamentalism. They were then organised into groups, clad in white for purity, and sent out into the Carnival streets with the aim of preventing any excesses. Altars, complete with crucifix and candles, were set up at the main city crossroads, where the boys sang hymns, encouraging the passers-by to stop and join in with them. Stealing a march on the revellers, they also set up their own street barriers, where instead of ridiculing those who sought to pass and bullying them into giving money, they would humbly seek alms for the poor. And by contrast with the gangs who roamed the streets looking for stone-throwing fights with their neighbourhood rivals, ‘Savonarola’s boys’ knocked on doors collecting items for charity.

Landucci, ever the upright citizen, recorded with pride that ‘some of my sons were amongst those blessed and pure-minded troops of boys’.¹¹ In his diary, he described an incident involving Savonarola’s boys during Carnival and the reaction it provoked:

Some boys took it upon themselves to confiscate the veil-holder of a girl walking down the Via de’ Martegli, and her family created a great uproar about it. This all took place because Savonarola had encouraged the boys to oppose the wearing of unsuitable ornaments by women.¹²

Savonarola also encouraged similar high-handed action towards the gamblers that he detested, ‘so that whenever anyone said, “Here come Savonarola’s boys!”, all the gamblers fled, no matter how rough they were’. Likewise, the ‘little friar’ had it in for his favourite abomination, which remained so popular in Florence: ‘The boys were so respected that everyone foreswore evil practices, and most of all the abominable vice. Such a thing was never mentioned by young or old during this holy time.’ The ‘abominable vice’ to which Landucci here refers was sodomy, which was widely practised throughout the city at this time on both men and women – by young men because of the unavailability of young women, who were required to remain virgins until they were married, and by husbands who wished to prevent their wives from producing a ruinous number of children. At Savonarola’s request, one of the first meetings of the Great Council in December 1494 had passed a new law imposing the death-penalty for sodomy. Yet despite Savonarola’s strictures, the city refrained from any mass burning at the stake of sodomites: over the coming three years just one man would be condemned, and he ‘was also said to be an infamous thief and bandit, for which the penalty was also death’.¹³ As Lauro Martines puts it: ‘Even in the face of a strong commitment to the Friar, Florence had too much political wisdom to witch-hunt active homosexuals and sodomised women.’¹⁴ Yet this might be seen as the exception that proved the rule. In so many other spheres, Savonarola’s coercion to religious fundamentalism was growing ever more effective.

Despite these puritanical constraints, Savonarola’s repression was evidently felt by many to be nothing compared to the repression from which the more democratic ‘City of God’ had relieved its citizens. Instead of the subtly pervasive and corrupting repression of Lorenzo the Magnificent and the Medici party enforcers, the people were seemingly liberated by their new-found holiness. As Landucci put it: ‘God be praised that I saw this short period of holiness. I pray that he may give us back that holy and pure life … what a blessed time it was.’ Although there was definitely some reaction against ‘Savonarola’s boys’ when they launched their campaign during the pre-Lenten Carnival of 1496, Landucci’s pious sentiments were undoubtedly echoed by a large number of his fellow citizens.

He paints a vivid picture of what took place on Shrove Tuesday 1496, the day before the beginning of Lent, when in previous years the raucous behaviour had reached its traditional climax:

16 February. The Carnival. A few days earlier Savonarola had preached against such stupid Carnival traditions as gangs of boys throwing stones at each other and building camps out of twigs. Instead, he said that they should be out collecting alms for thepoveri vergognosi [the destitute]… So instead of erecting barriers in the streets, the boys behaved like holy innocents, holding up crucifixes at street corners. As this was the last day of Carnival, after Vespers the bands of boys assembled in their four quarters of the city, each bearing its own special banner … They marched accompanied by drummers and pipers, accompanied by the official mace bearers and servants of the Palazzo della Signoria, singing praises to heaven, all bearing olive branches in their hands. This sight moved many good and respectable citizens to tears … In all, some six thousand boys or more, all between the ages of five and sixteen, are said to have taken part.¹⁵

These four processions came together at the Ospedale degli Innocenti.^fn2 This joint procession then wound its way through the entire city, singing hymns and collecting items for charity, stopping off at various major locations – including many of the city’s best-known churches, such as Savonarola’s San Marco, before crossing the river to the Oltrarno, returning across the Ponte Vecchio and proceeding to the cathedral. Indicatively absent from this itinerary was the Palazzo Medici, which would certainly have been a stopping-off point for any such city processions during the previous decades – an unsurprising omission, given the circumstances, yet one that would have been of profound and moving significance to all: the times had changed, and those days were over.

The lengthy hymn-singing procession must have taken well over an hour, possibly two, if it stopped at all the places dutifully listed by Landucci in his diary. Likewise, the long route must have been seen by a large percentage of the population of Florence – who either lined the routes or looked down from their windows – many of whom would, under normal circumstances, have spent the day revelling. Although not all the people of Florence were in favour of this new development, no serious incidents such as barricading the streets or stone-throwing were recorded by contemporary sources.

When the procession reached the cathedral:

the church was packed out with men and women, divided with the women on one side and the men on the other, and here the offering was made, with such faith and tears of holy emotion as ever witnessed. Around several hundred florins must have been collected. Many gold florins were put into the collecting bowls, but mostly it was in small copper coins and silver. Some women gave their veil-holders, some their silver spoons, handkerchiefs, towels, and all kinds of other things. It seemed as if everyone wanted to make an offering to Christ and His Mother. I have set down these things because they are true, and I did see them with my own eyes, at the same time experiencing great emotion.

Although the last sentence has the feel of a subsequent addition, its message would only seem to confirm the extraordinariness of what Landucci felt he was experiencing on this day. Once more, the most civilised city in Europe was ahead of its time. This was a revolution, no less – the first in the dawn of the modern era. In this aspect, Savonarola can be seen as being the precursor of a tradition that would go on to produce such figures as Luther, Cromwell, Robespierre, even Lenin. And it is not difficult to see in Savonarola embryonic elements of all these figures – just as it is not difficult to see in Landucci’s ecstatic words (‘what a blessed time it was …’ etc.) a presentiment of Wordsworth’s celebrated stanza on the French Revolution:

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,¹⁶

But to be young was very heaven! …

Next day, Ash Wednesday 1496, Savonarola delivered his first Lenten sermon in the cathedral before a congregation packed to overflowing:

steps for Savonarola’s boys were set up along the walls, opposite the chancel behind the women … and all the boys on the steps sang sweet praises to God before the sermon began. And then the clergy entered the chancel and began singing the Litanies, to which the boys responded. It was all so beautiful that everyone wept, even the most reserved men amongst them, saying: ‘This is a thing of the Lord.’¹⁷

Many have considered Savonarola’s Lenten sermons for 1496 as the finest he delivered. There is less of the extreme apocalyptic imagery of his early sermons, and instead he put forward arguments outlining his aims. In his opening sermon he saw a specific future involving those who had recently done so much to promulgate his ideas:

In you, young men, I place my hope and that of the Lord. You will govern the city of Florence, for you are not prone to the evil ways of your fathers, who did not know how to get rid of their tyrannical rulers or appreciate God’s gift of liberty to his people.¹⁸

He also dealt with the unresolved matter of his relations with the Church, resorting once more to skilful intellectual argument:

I have written to Rome explaining that if by accident I have in some way written or preached anything which is heretical … I am prepared to apologise and unreservedly withdraw anything that I have said. I will always submit to the rule of the Church.

He even went so far as to argue that the Church was infallible with regard to dogma.

However, although the Church itself was infallible here, this did not mean that churchmen and the faithful were compelled to obey each and every order from clerical superiors, even if such a command came from the pope himself. Savonarola insisted: ‘The pope cannot command me to do something which contradicts the teaching of the Gospels.’ This was to be a continuing theme of his entire Lenten sermons. He insisted, ‘We must obey God rather than man.’ He reserved his particular contempt for ‘the high priests of Rome … you whose lust, love of luxury and pride have been the ruin of the world, violating men and women alike with your lasciviousness, turning children to sodomy and prostitution … you who spend the night with your concubine and in the morning conduct the sacraments’.¹⁹

Crucially, it seems that Savonarola had now realised that if he confined himself to the Tuscan Congregation over which he ruled, he would inevitably be isolated by the Church hierarchy, and then moves would begin to declare his teachings a heresy. Rome would summon Florence’s enemies, the city would be attacked and defeated, whereupon all his reforms would come to nothing. Thus he was left with no alternative but to extend his ambitions and seek to reform the entire Church. As a consequence, his rhetoric hardened. Those who inhabited the city of Rome must be prepared to suffer the fates of hell: ‘You will be clapped in irons, hacked to pieces with swords, burned with fire and eaten up by flames.’ In a later Lenten sermon he would describe his apocalyptic visions comparing the fate of Rome to that of Babylon:

The light will vanish and amidst the darkness the sky will rain fire and brimstone, while flames and great boulders will smite the earth … because Rome has been polluted with an infernal mixture of scripture and all manner of vice.²⁰

The Arrabbiati and Savonarola’s enemies within the Church in Florence were gleefully reporting his every word to Rome. His call to defy any pope who contradicted the gospel was bad enough, but his reference to ‘you’ who spend the night with a concubine and next morning conduct Mass was immediately recognisable to all who heard it, whether they were listening in the congregation or received reports of it amongst the hierarchy in Rome: this was an unmistakable allusion to the behaviour of Alexander VI.

With each ensuing sermon, the authorities in Florence became increasingly worried. The Signoria knew that they could not restrain Savonarola for fear of antagonising the Piagnoni, yet they were well aware that the growing anger amongst the Arrabbiati might boil over, and were fearful of what measures Alexander VI might take against the city. There is evidence that the authorities deputed Piero Capponi to speak with Savonarola, warning him of the dangers he was inviting. Surprisingly, this seems to have given Savonarola cause for thought, as can be seen from his last sermon of the series, delivered after Easter on 10 April. He opened with his customary defiance, insisting that he would never obey orders to do anything wrong, whether they came from his religious superiors or even the pope himself. Addressing any such an enemy, he insisted: ‘It is you who are wrong. You are not the Church, you are simply a man and a sinner.’²¹ Yet something that Capponi had passed on to him must have had a chastening effect, for he then alluded to what lay ahead in his struggles. ‘Do you wish to know how all this will end for me? I can tell you that it will end with my death, when I shall be cut to pieces.’ As if attempting to forestall this fate, he now incongruously sought to argue his innocence of any transgression against Alexander VI:

Information has been relayed to His Holiness, both by letter and by word of mouth, that I have been criticising him for sinful behaviour. This is not true. As it is written in the Bible: ‘Thou shalt not curse thy ruler.’ I have never done such a thing, and I have definitely never referred to anyone by name whilst preaching from this pulpit.

This was disingenuous to say the least. Savonarola had certainly taken the precaution of never mentioning Alexander VI by name, but all in the congregation had known to whom he was referring.

News of Savonarola’s sermons had angered rulers throughout Italy. They would never have allowed a priest to preach such inflammatory sermons within their own states, and knew that the very airing of such views could only lead to trouble amongst their own citizens. This subversive priest had to be stopped. Just as Savonarola knew that he could only succeed if his message spread out into the world and succeeded in conquering Rome, so the rulers of Italy realised that their leadership was open to question as long as Savonarola continued to preach his fundamentalist religion, with its dangerous political connotations. He had to be silenced, once and for all, and the person who had to do this was the pope. Yet Alexander VI was still aware that if he made any serious attempt to punish Savonarola, he would only outrage the citizens of Florence, who would in turn call upon Charles VIII to hasten his plans to invade Italy and dethrone him. Playing for time, Alexander VI appointed an ecclesiastical committee of senior theologians to investigate Savonarola’s behaviour, and his preaching, for evidence of heresy.

One of the reasons why people had been turning to Savonarola in such numbers was the persisting desperate situation that was now unfolding in Florence. The Pisans continued to resist all attempts by the Florentine mercenary army to retake their city, which meant that by now much trade in Florence had almost ground to a standstill. This situation had only been made worse by the exceptional weather, which had blighted much of Italy for almost a year now. According to Landucci on 4 May 1496, ‘Throughout this time it never stopped raining, and the rainstorms had gone on for about eleven months, there never once being a whole week with no rain.’²² Things got so bad that on 18 May he reported, ‘There came such a great flood that it washed away the young corn planted in the fields, even as far down in the plains as here; while at Rovizzano^fn3 it swept through two walls on the roadside.’

With the failure of the coming harvest inevitable, the peasants began streaming in from the countryside for the protection of the city, where entire families were soon camping out on the streets and begging for food. The prevailing air of Christian compassion amongst the citizenry meant that none starved, and Savonarola organised the monks of San Marco to distribute food and suitable clothing collected during Lent. Even so, these vermin-ridden families living on the pavements soon began to present a public health hazard. Worrying gossip spread, and as early as 14 May Landucci had heard that ‘The plague has returned in several districts of Florence.’ Two weeks later, he recorded, ‘Many people began suffering from a certain complaint called “French boils”. This looked like smallpox; but it went on increasing, and no one knew a cure for it.’ This was almost certainly syphilis, rather than the buboes (boils) that are symptomatic of the bubonic plague^fn4. After paying for the upkeep of the mercenary army fighting at Pisa, there was little left in the public coffers, leaving the Signoria powerless to deal with the growing number of refugeees from the countryside or the spread of disease.

Meanwhile in Rome the committee of theologians reported back to Alexander VI that they could find no evidence of heresy amongst Savonarola’s teachings. This unexpected finding was almost certainly due to the presence of Cardinal Caraffa on the committee. If anyone was to discipline a Dominican friar it should be the Vicar General of his order, not the pope. Leaders of other orders expressed similar sentiments. No one wished for any unwelcome precedent that extended the power of the pope at their expense. Besides, all were agreed that Savonarola could hardly be accused of heresy when all that he had preached was backed up by his exceptional biblical scholarship.

Alexander VI then decided upon a different tactic. Some time during the first weeks of August he summoned to audience Fra Ludovico da Ferrara, who was not only the Provost General of the Dominican order,^fn5 but also happened to come from Savonarola’s home city. Ludovico da Ferrara was instructed to undertake a confidential mission to Savonarola at San Marco, to ask his advice on how to persuade the city of Florence to become the pope’s ally.

Fra Ludovico duly travelled to Florence, where he conferred with Savonarola, revealing to him that if he cooperated with Alexander VI’s plans, the pope promised that – to the great honour of Florence – he would make him a cardinal. Savonarola was unwilling to give any immediate response to Fra Ludovico, and merely told him, ‘Come to my next sermon and you’ll hear my reply.’²³

Savonarola had been invited by the Signoria to deliver a sermon the following Saturday 20 August in the recently completed hall of the Great Council.^fn6 This sermon was not expected to confine itself to religious matters, and was a semi-official means by which the Signoria and senior members of the administration were informed of his ideas on political matters and foreign policy. Unlike his passionate sermons in the cathedral, here Savonarola spoke in more sober terms, addressing a number of questions that he knew were uppermost in the minds of several senior officials. He explained why he had taken it upon himself to stay in correspondence with Charles VIII: this was to remind the king of his duty to fulfil his role as the ‘scourge of God’. At the same time he denied the accusation that he opposed Alexander VI’s Holy League. He had remained against Florence joining the League only because the city had given its word to Charles VIII that it would remain his ally. After dealing with various other matters, such as aid for those living in the streets, he turned to the rumour that was now sweeping Florence that he was about to be made a cardinal. At this point his manner changed abruptly. Once again, it was as if he was delivering a sermon with all the ire and conviction of an Old Testament prophet. He denied vehemently that he had any wish to receive a cardinal’s crimson hat:

If I coveted such a thing would I be standing before you in this threadbare habit? … On the contrary, the only gift I seek is the one God gives to his saints – death, a crimson hat of blood, that is all I wish for.²⁴

In his Lenten sermons Savonarola had foretold his own death (‘I shall be cut to pieces’); now he more explicitly revealed his longing to become a martyr. He appeared to regard such an end as inevitable, and it is worth bearing this in mind during the ensuing events, for it must have informed his every decision.

Meanwhile the heavy rains continued, wreaking their effect across the countryside, leaving a desolate scene: ‘In many places the corn had not yet been harvested. The entire season is late and neither the corn, nor the grapes, nor the figs have yet ripened.’²⁵ Food stocks were now dangerously low in Florence, and the city faced the prospect of a possible famine.

At the same time, the war against Pisa continued to go badly. The besieged Pisans were being supported by ships from Venice and Milan. These would soon be aided by a number of troops sent by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, who had been called in by Ludovico ‘il Moro’ Sforza of Milan.^fn7 Florence could ill afford to pay the wages of its mercenaries, and some simply decamped to the other side, where they felt they would be better paid.

Piero Capponi had been placed in charge of the Florentine forces and did his best to rally the unenthusiastic mercenaries nominally under his command. When the Pisan forces broke out and sought to cut the Florentine line of supply to the port of Livorno, on the coast fifteen miles to the south, Capponi moved to repulse them. A brave man, he led his men from the front, encouraging the mercenaries into effective action. However, in the course of leading an attack on the castle at Solana, in the hills above Livorno, he was struck by a shot from an arquebus (an early form of musket). His wound proved fatal, and he died on the field of battle.

News of Capponi’s death caused great grief amongst the people of Florence, for he was still regarded as a hero for publicly standing up to Charles VIII. Capponi’s body was transported back to his home city on a barge up the Arno, and on 27 September he was given a public funeral, which attracted large crowds.^fn8

Just over a month later, Landucci recorded how news arrived from the Florentine allies in Livorno:

that twelve ships bearing cargoes of corn had arrived there, but this turned out to be a false report. Instead this was the fleet of the King of France, and the Livornese went out and routed the camp of the Emperor Maximilian I, slaying about forty men and capturing their artillery²⁶

The siege of Pisa was hardly ended by this ‘rout’, but at least the Florentines knew that they could now rely upon French aid, and that their dwindling supplies of corn would soon be replenished.

All such hopes were dashed when news came through that Charles VIII’s son and heir, the dauphin, whose birth in September had been greeted with such great joy by the king, had died just twenty-five days later on 2 October. Charles VIII was overcome with grief, and put off his planned invasion of Italy. Savonarola had of course warned Charles VIII that God would chastise him if he did not act as ‘God’s scourge’ and invade Italy once more. Now another of his prophecies had come true, but no one in Florence rejoiced at this fulfilment of his word: Florence was left alone, facing enemies on all sides, and some of its citizens were beginning to tire of these ‘prophecies’.

Savonarola’s enemies amongst the Arrabbiati and the Medici supporters immediately seized upon this opportunity to try and stir up feeling against the ‘little friar’. Had he not written just a year ago in his ‘Compendium of Revelations’ that the Virgin Mary had told him how ‘The City of Florence shall become more glorious, more powerful and more wealthy than it has ever been. All the territory that it has lost shall be restored, and its borders will be extended further than ever before.’ What of this prophecy? Florentine commerce was all but at a standstill, and the city could not even retake Pisa.

Savonarola replied to such criticisms in the sermon that he preached in the cathedral on 28 October. Far from being repentant about the lack of fulfilment of these prophecies, instead he berated his congregation. Florence was not worthy of such fortune until the city was purified. The citizens of Florence were being punished for their lack of repentance. There was still too much evil in the ‘City of God’. The congregation listened, fearfully, but for how much longer would they be willing to place their faith in the Holy Spirit?

Alexander VI was overjoyed when he heard that the French reinvasion had been cancelled, and immediately ordered the papal troops to march north and take Florence. These troops were joined by a contingent from Siena. As this combined force moved towards Florence, the Florentine mercenaries abandoned the siege of Pisa and marched to cut them off. The two forces met at Cascina, in the Po valley east of Pisa. The Florentine mercenaries soon put the papal troops to flight, and then ran amok, raping and pillaging their way through a number of hillside villages before returning to besiege the city of Pisa. Yet this only brought temporary relief for the Florentines. The Venetian fleet now began a concerted blockade of Livorno, causing a French fleet bringing grain from Marseilles to turn back. At the same time the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I disembarked with further troops at Pisa.

Ranged up against Florence were the combined forces of Venice, Milan and the imperial troops of Maximilian I, with Alexander VI and Naples remaining in the background as declared aggressors. At the same time Piero de’ Medici and his brother Cardinal Giovanni were making plans to raise a mercenary army to march on Florence. Ironically, it was the arrival of Maximilian I in Pisa that soon led to a division amongst the allies, when it became clear that he had in mind retaining Pisa for himself. This antagonised both the Venetians and the Milanese, who both had similar secret plans of their own; while Piero de’ Medici was adamant that Pisa should remain a Florentine possession.

Even so, Florence now effectively had no allies, and internally the situation was no better. The administration had run up a huge public debt in continuing to finance its mercenary army; and regardless of the Savonarolan reforms, the government was becoming increasingly unpopular, especially amongst the moneyed classes, who were required to continue propping up the increasingly desperate military situation. Despite the victory at Cascina, the prospects looked grim.

^fn1 Two years later Floridi would be arrested by Alexander VI on a charge of forging papal Briefs. As a result, he would be stripped of office and flung into the papal dungeons of Castel Sant’ Angelo on a starvation diet of bread and water, which would soon bring about his death.

^fn2 The movingly named early-Renaissance building (literally ‘Hospital for the Innocents’) was in fact the city orphanage, where unwanted babies and abandoned children were taken in and taught a trade.

^fn3 A weavers’ village two miles east of the city walls up the Arno valley. Landucci’s ‘corn’ is, of course, wheat and other types of grain, rather than maize.

^fn4 The plague that recurred in many Italian and European cities several times during this period was not as virulent as the Black Death (or bubonic plague) that had swept through Europe around 150 years previously, killing as much as one-third of the entire population. These later plague outbreaks in Florence (and other cities) usually proved fatal for those who caught the disease, but seldom spread much beyond several cases in the immediate vicinity. After some months the disease was liable to vanish as suddenly and mysteriously as it had arrived. All this suggests that these later plagues may have been the less common septicaemic (blood infection) or pneumonic (attacking the lungs) variant of the disease. Significantly, as Landucci seems to indicate, the plague at that time in Florence, and the ‘French boils’, were widely regarded as two distinct diseases.

^fn5 The titular head of the order. Cardinal Caraffa, as Vicar General, was the executive head in charge of the everyday running of the order.

^fn6 In some aspects, however, the hall would remain incomplete for some time, at least partly owing to economic reasons. Not until eight years later would Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo be commissioned to cover the two great side walls with murals depicting historic Florentine victories.

^fn7 Maximilian I, who ruled over territories in Austria, Germany and Burgundy, was opposed to France. He was also keen to be seen supporting Alexander VI, and had joined the Holy League. His ambition was to be officially crowned as emperor by the pope, a tradition dating back to Charlemagne’s time, which had fallen into abeyance.

^fn8 The lasting affection of Florence for Capponi can be seen in the fact that he still has a street named after him, north of the city centre near the former site of the Porta San Gallo.