18

‘On suspicion of heresy’

JUST SIX DAYS after the failure of Piero de’ Medici’s ‘invasion’, Savonarola was due to deliver the Ascension Day sermon on 4 May 1497 at the cathedral. But Landucci records how:

a number of Savonarola’s sworn enemies set a vicious trap for him. On the night before he was due to deliver his sermon, they had forced their way into the church, breaking open the door beside the belfry, and entered the pulpit, which they covered with dirt.¹

Burlamacchi confirms this, rather more explicitly informing how the intruders smeared the pulpit with excrement and covered it with a putrefying donkey hide, together with its stinking innards. They also hammered nails up under the lectern, so that if Savonarola made one of his familiar gestures, emphasising his point by banging his fist down on the pulpit, these would stab through his skin. (This latter attempt at sabotage could well have backfired: the self-flagellating Savonarola would certainly not have been distracted from preaching on account of such minor pain, and the sight of his gesticulating hands dripping blood would doubtless have caused a sensation, prompting the more gullible members of the congregation to believe that they were witnessing a miracle – bleeding stigmata, or some such.)

However, the desecration was discovered next morning and cleared up. Savonarola was adamant that his sermon should go ahead, despite rumours that had begun circulating through the city that he would be assassinated. This was his last chance to preach in public, for the Signoria had issued a decree banning all sermons from 5 May. The increasingly precarious political situation, so easily inflamed, doubtless influenced this decision as much as any anti-Savonarolan members amongst the Signoria. The authorities also had another pressing reason for banning public gatherings. Further isolated cases of the plague had been reported in the slum quarters during the winter, an indication that a more serious epidemic might well break out with the coming of the hot months of summer.

Savonarola’s Ascension Day sermon saw a packed cathedral, drawing his supporters from all over the city. The event was not to pass off without serious incident. Landucci described the scene that he witnessed:

about two-thirds of the way through his sermon, there was a noise from over by the choir, like someone banging a stick on a box. We believe that it was done on purpose by those same men who had desecrated the pulpit. Immediately, there was a commotion with everyone crying: ‘Jesu!’ because the people were excited, and just waiting for these bad men to cause a disturbance. Not long after the people had settled down again, there was another cry of ‘Jesu!’ because of a disturbance near to the pulpit, where there were some secretly armed men ready to defend the Frate. They now caught sight of some of the men they suspected, and as these approached the pulpit a man by the name of Lando Sassolini struck another called Bartolomeo Guigni with the flat of his sword.

Whereupon a riot broke out amongst the congregation. The great doors of the cathedral were swung open and the terrified crowd ran out into the piazza. Some of Savonarola’s supporters hurried to nearby houses, returning with arms, and joined the others gathered around the pulpit, determined to protect him against his armed enemies. Meanwhile Savonarola remained in the pulpit on his knees, praying. Eventually his would-be assassins retreated out of the cathedral, melting away through the streets. The throng of Savonarola’s armed supporters then hurried him on the ten-minute journey up the Via del Cocomero back to the safety of San Marco.

This event would appear to indicate that a majority of the citizens of Florence still supported Savonarola, and that any attempt to ‘displace’ him would result in a violent civil war. As a result of the latest elections for the Signoria and the leading councils, at the beginning of May the more extreme Arrabbiati had replaced the Bigi as the most influential faction in the government. Even so, the leading Arrabbiati were determined at all costs to avoid civil conflict, an outbreak that might easily spell the end of Florence as an independent republic. Other hotheads amongst the Bigi and the Arrabbiati (who did not call themselves the ‘Enraged Ones’ for nothing) were still inclined to give vent to their feelings, and the situation remained tense, with a number of violent incidents taking place. On the feast of Corpus Christi, Savonarola’s boys once again marched through the streets carrying red crosses in their hands, but as their procession passed over the Ponte Santa Trinità towards Oltrarno, someone ran out from the crowd, snatched the cross from the leader’s hands, ‘broke it and then threw it into the river, as if he was some kind of infidel’.²

Just a week after the riot in Florence Cathedral, Alexander VI finally decided to act against Savonarola. Previously he had held back, expecting the entire situation to be resolved by Piero de’ Medici’s restoration, followed by Florence joining the Holy League. But now Piero had failed, and Savonarola continued to defy Alexander VI, to the point where things were getting out of hand and the pope saw no alternative but to assert his authority. At last he took the ultimate step of officially excommunicating Savonarola ‘on suspicion of heresy’.³ This banned him from preaching, administering or taking Holy Communion, whilst at the same instructing that ‘all people are forbidden to assist him in any way, either to speak to him or to approve of anything he does or says, or they too will be excommunicated’. However, in order to take effect, the pope’s Brief of Excommunication had to be delivered from Rome to Florence, a task that Alexander VI was aware might involve some difficulty. Significantly, this was entrusted to the learned theological scholar Gianvittorio da Camerino, who just two months earlier had delivered a sermon in Florence vehemently attacking Savonarola. Despite the Signoria’s Arrabbiati sympathies, they had viewed da Camerino’s sermon as a flagrant incitement to civil disorder and had expelled him from the city, a sentence that put him in line for the death-penalty if he returned. The choice of da Camerino was almost certainly influenced by the pope’s advisers, notably Genazzano, and was intended as a direct provocation with the aim of bringing matters to a head.

Da Camerino set out at once from Rome for Florence, but on entering Tuscan territory he became mindful of the fact that, despite his position as the pope’s emissary, this might not in fact grant him full diplomatic immunity from the Signoria’s decree. In consequence, he quietly withdrew to the safety of Siena, where he sent a message ahead to the Signoria in Florence requesting a letter granting him safe conduct so that he could fulfil his papal mission. There was no immediate reply to this; indeed, after more than three weeks of waiting it became clear to da Camerino that his message was unlikely to receive acknowledgement of any kind. The Signoria was well aware of the purpose of da Camerino’s mission, and the effect upon the city that its successful accomplishment was liable to cause. Meanwhile in Rome the pope was unable to ascertain the whereabouts of da Camerino: his Brief of Excommunication appeared to have vanished into thin air. After almost a month of waiting, da Camerino decided to entrust copies of the papal Brief to an anonymous courier, who was instructed to deliver these to the five centres of clerical opposition to Savonarola in Florence for whom they were intended – most notably the Franciscan Church of Santa Croce, the Church of Santa Maria Novella (whose Dominicans remained loyal to the pope), as well as the Augustinian Church of Santo Spirito. And it was at these five churches, on 18 June, before their gathered Sunday congregations, that Savonarola’s excommunication by the pope was formally proclaimed with bell, book and candle.⁴ This time-honoured ritual involved the solemn tolling, as at a funeral (the bell), the closing of the Bible (the book) with the proclamation ‘We judge him damned, with the Devil and his angels, to the eternal fires of Hell’, and finally the snuffing out of the flame of a taper (the candle) to mark the exclusion of the excommunicated soul from the light of God. At Santo Spirito, this ritual was triumphantly performed by Savonarola’s enemy Fra Leonardo da Fivizzano, who had preached against him throughout the previous Lent.

Savonarola’s reply was soon in coming. The very next day he wrote, and had printed for distribution, a letter entitled Contro la escomunicazione surrettizia (‘Against surreptitious excommunication’). Indicatively, this was written not in scholarly Church Latin, but in Italian, the language of the people, and was addressed ‘To All Christians and those beloved of God’.⁵ In this letter, Savonarola defended himself against Rome, making it quite clear that he had no intention of accepting his excommunication and rallying his faithful flock around him, claiming: ‘God will vouchsafe us from all danger and grant us a great victory.’ Soon afterwards he would publish a second letter, in Latin, entitled Contra sententiam excommunicationis (‘Against sententious excommunications’). This was intended for the eyes of the theologians, together with other academics and learned authorities, and in it he brought the full power of his intellect and learning to bear on the matter of his excommunication. He had only been accused of ‘suspicion of heresy’: there had been no proof or evidence given, no charge had been brought against him, there had been no trial, and he had not been found guilty. In this more scholarly defence he quoted precedents where members of the clergy had been urged to defy wrongful excommunications. He even went so far as to recall the advice issued earlier in the century by Martin V, the much-admired pope whose election had brought an end to the Great Schism.^fn1 Martin V had pronounced that Christians were under no obligation to ignore anyone who had been excommunicated, unless explicit papal instructions had been issued to do so. Despite Alexander VI having done precisely this, Savonarola felt himself to be under no obligation to cease preaching. On 19 June, the very day after his excommunication by Alexander VI had been publicly read from the pulpits of five of Florence’s major churches, Savonarola preached a sermon at San Marco that attracted a large crowd of his admirers from throughout the city.

Yet by this time the atmosphere in Florence had undergone a transformation. The new Arrabbiati Signoria had begun relaxing many of the prohibitions put in place by earlier Signoria on the advice of Savonarola. On 11 June, Landucci recorded:

The palio^fn2 of Santa Barbara was held. This race has not been run for years in Florence, because of Savonarola’s sermons. This Signoria decided that it should be allowed to take place, ignoring Savonarola, saying: ‘Let’s cheer the people up a little; should we all behave like monks?’⁶

A week later, news of Savonarola’s excommunication had been greeted with outbreaks of public rejoicing – in part spontaneous, but certainly encouraged by the Bigi and the Arrabbiati. The less virulent Tiepidi and the secular liberal Bianchi also welcomed the apparent end of Savonarola’s rule. People danced in the piazzas and prostitutes reappeared overnight in the streets where they had traditionally been permitted. Public ballads ridiculing Savonarola, his monks and the Piagnoni were circulated and sung in the revived taverns, whilst crowds gathered outside San Marco to jeer at Savonarola and his followers, singing their ballads and yelling obscenities.

Yet these revelries took place against a background of public alarm, which may well have played a part in inspiring the devil-may-care attitude of the revellers. As many had feared, after the reports of isolated cases of the plague in the slums during the winter, the advent of summer – with the usual putrid smells and increased vermin pervading the streets – brought a more serious outbreak of the disease. Landucci’s diary makes grim reading, and what it recorded must have sent a chill through the heart of all Florentines, whether rejoicing or lamenting the rescinding of Savonarola’s puritan laws:

28th June. They say there were 60 deaths a day from fever.

30th June. The plague has struck in several houses in the city, and in

eight houses in the Borgo di Ricorboli^fn3 …

3rd July. Yet more houses infected with plague have been discovered, making everyone think of fleeing.

In the midst of all this, the pro-Savonarolan Domenico Bartoli was elected gonfaloniere and took up office on 1 July, and this fortuitous appointment may well have saved Savonarola’s life, preventing the Arrabbiati from taking things into their own hands.

*

Fresh supplies of corn were beginning to reach the city from the port of Livorno, and the new administration immediately took measures to alleviate the suffering of the Piagnoni. At one time the price of corn had risen to well over five lire (100 soldi). By 8 July the new administration had ensured sufficient reserves for Landucci to record: ‘The officials of the Abbondanza^fn4 fixed the price of corn at the corn market at 35 soldi.’ Even so, this was still over double the normal price.

Throughout July the situation remained conflicted, but not violently so, largely because of the depleted population. Landucci recorded:

29th July. There was an eclipse of the sun, and many people were dying of plague and fever, which caused the city to empty itself of its inhabitants, everyone who could going into the country.

Many of the superstitious, especially amongst the poor who were unable to retire to the country, saw the eclipse as an evil omen, whilst amongst the others who stayed behind in the city were a number who remained secretly determined to overthrow the government.

Back in Rome, Piero de’ Medici had finally fallen out with his close friend Lamberto dell’Antella, putting him in fear of his life. Although dell’Antella was exiled from Florence, he decided to travel to Siena, from where he wrote to various influential friends in Florence, imploring them to appeal to the Signoria on his behalf, begging for a pardon. If he was allowed to return, dell’Antella made it plain that he was willing to provide the Signoria with much vital information concerning the Medici and the activities of their supporters in Rome.

Following Piero de’ Medici’s abortive invasion, the Signoria had set up an elaborate spy network in the countryside surrounding the city, so that they could receive at once any information concerning the approach of travellers who might be reconnoitring for any future invasion. When dell’Antella became impatient with the lack of any reply from Florence, and decided to pay a clandestine visit to his family estate just four miles outside the city, the authorities were at once alerted of his movements. As he approached his estates he was arrested and taken to Florence under armed escort. Here he was immediately subjected to the usual treatment meted out to such prisoners: he was tortured by the traditional Florentine method known as the strappado. This involved the prisoner’s hands being bound behind his back and then hooked to a pulley, which was raised, hauling the prisoner into the air suspended by his wrists. The pulley was then released so that his body dropped until he was suspended just above the ground, his fall broken by the rope tied around his wrists. The pain was excruciating, and the drop was liable to dislocate the shoulders (which would then be manipulated back into place by an attendant surgeon, so that the procedure could continue). Prisoners would be subjected to several strappados, usually in the presence of members of the policing committee and some of the Signoria, so that they could hear at first hand his confession.

Dell’Antella’s motives for returning to Florence do not appear to have been entirely pure, for when he was arrested he was found to be carrying a number of secret messages. After several strappados dell’Antella produced the names of the people for whom these documents were intended, as well as confessing all that he knew about the activities of the Medici and their supporters in Rome.^fn5 Dell’Antella then named the leading citizens in Florence whom Piero de’ Medici had sworn to put to death on his return to power, and he also confessed a whole list of traitors within the city who were actively plotting to overthrow the government in favour of the return of Piero de’ Medici. Before fleeing into exile to join Piero de’ Medici, dell’Antella had accumulated several enemies amongst the influential families of Florence and certainly had several old scores to settle. As a result, many contemporaries (including those present at his confession) had certain doubts about the extensive list of ‘traitors’ that eventually emerged.

The Signoria immediately began making plans for the arrest of those on the list. Amongst these were several eminent figures and members of the city’s most distinguished families. They included Gino Capponi, Andrea de’ Medici (a relative of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco), Lorenzo Tornabuoni (from the family of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s wife), the leading Bigi member Niccolò Ridolfi, and even former gonfaloniere Bernardo del Nero, who had refused to open the city gates for Piero. The last three were so unsuspecting of their predicament that when they were invited to the Palazzo della Signoria they attended voluntarily, assuming that they were to be consulted for advice concerning the difficult situation in which dell’Antella’s confessions had placed the city. All three, including the seventy-two-year-old del Nero, were immediately arrested, marched off to the police headquarters at the Bargello and subjected to the strappado.

Just five days after dell’Antella’s arrest, Landucci recorded:

10 August. Everyone in the city was talking about what should be done with the prisoners; some said they were not guilty, others insisted they were guilty.⁷

These three, along with two others, were put on trial on 17 August. All five were quickly found guilty and sentenced to death, with their families banished into exile. In line with the reforms brought in at Savonarola’s suggestion, their defence counsel Messer Guidantonio Vespucci lodged an appeal. The city was soon filled with wild, conflicting rumours as to their fate. Were they in fact innocent? Would the Signoria dare to put to death such important citizens? If they were put to death would this inflame the situation, causing an outbreak of civil war? News now spread that Piero de’ Medici had bestirred himself from Rome and had travelled once more to Siena, hoping to recruit sufficient troops to march on Florence. This time his appearance at the city walls was bound to provoke an uprising of some sort. The appeal of the five men sentenced to death had to be dealt with as soon as possible.

A matter of such great importance could only be democratically decided by a meeting of the Great Council. Yet there was simply no time to summon sufficient members, as so many had left the city for their farms and villas in the countryside. This was very much the custom during the hot months of summer, but the outbreaks of the plague and fever had resulted in a particularly large exodus that year. Consequently, the idea of calling a meeting of the Great Council was dismissed, and instead on 21 August the pro-Savonarolan gonfaloniere Domenico Bartoli used his prerogative to summon the smaller council known as the Pratica. This consisted of around 200 men, including the Signoria, senior figures in the administration and others of experience in the city. They would debate the merits of the appeal by the five condemned men, which would then be decided by a vote of the Signoria. The condemned remained in their cells at the nearby Bargello and were not permitted to be present at their appeal, nor was their defence lawyer Messer Vespucci allowed to attend; Savonarola, who held no post in the administration, was of course also absent, though his views were certainly represented. From the outset, those present were bitterly divided. The meeting began in the morning, and would continue through the afternoon and on into the night. Soldiers patrolled the Piazza della Signoria outside, in order to prevent any public demonstrations, and at eleven o’clock that night they heard the raised voices of men shouting in anger, from the open windows of the palazzo above them where the meeting was taking place. The very nature of the republic, and its future course, was being argued out amidst the flames of the flickering candles. All five of the condemned were important citizens – members of ancient distinguished families, prosperous merchants, senior guild members, a former gonfaloniere. Despite their known pro-Medici sympathies, they were moderates. They were also respected, for the most part popular figures (even with many who favoured Savonarola), and few amongst the citizenry at large were convinced of their guilt. If such men could be summarily executed, their families stripped of their assets and despatched into exile, this would mark a serious transformation in the politics of the republic. Such a prospect stirred fierce passions, and by midnight the meeting to discuss the appeal had degenerated to the extent that:

the Palace that night was like a forge, or rather, a cavern of fury, and all the men present driven by contempt and as if by a mad rage, with weapons in hand, wounding words, and full of quarrels … so that a number of noblemen feared for their safety.⁸

Still the situation remained in deadlock. For the appeal to be successful, six of the eight Signoria had to vote in favour, but by now only four or five had been convinced. At one point the nobleman Carlo Strozzi advanced on the seated Signoria, seized Piero Guicciardini^fn6 and threatened to throw him from the opened window into the square below if he did not reverse his vote and come out against the appeal. This physical attack constituted a serious crime, but by now matters had progressed far beyond legal niceties. Indeed, the contemporary Cerretani goes so far as to claim that if the defence lawyer Vespucci had been present, and had begun putting forward arguments in favour of the defendants, he would certainly have been thrown out of the window.

At two in the morning the meeting was finally brought to a climax by Francesco Valori, the leader of the Piagnoni, who had also been appointed to a senior post in the administration. According to the historian Guicciardini (who doubtless heard a first-hand account from his father):

Francesco Valori at last leapt to his feet in a rage, seizing the ballot box in his hand and pounding loudly on the table before the Signoria, demanding that either justice be done or all hell would break loose. He then gave a fierce ultimatum, declaring that either he would die or the conspirators would die.^{9 fn7}

This particular confrontation caused one member of the Signoria, an artisan called Niccolò Zati, to fear for his own safety. As a result he decided to change his vote, casting it against the appeal, thus making up the required six votes. The death-penalty was confirmed. Immediately word was sent to the public executioner, and with undue haste the five condemned men were led out of their cells, one by one, barefoot and in chains, to the traditional place of execution, the courtyard of the Bargello. The executioner’s block was surrounded by a layer of hay, and after each beheading a further layer of hay was spread over this so as to prevent the condemned man from seeing the splattered blood of his predecessor. By four in the morning it was all over.

Despite this haste and secrecy, word quickly spread through the darkened city. Landucci recorded

Everyone was astonished that such a thing could be done; it was difficult to understand. They were put to death the same night, and I could not restrain myself from weeping as I saw young Lorenzo Tornabuoni carried past the Canto de’ Tornaquinci on a bier, shortly before dawn.¹¹

At that time of year dawn was between five and six, by which time Landucci, a mere apothecary, not only knew what had happened, but was waiting outside his corner shop at the Canto de’ Tornaquinci for the cortège to pass on its way to the neighbouring Palazzo Tornabuoni. He would not have been alone: the darkened street would have been lined with silent figures, some doubtless as moved as Landucci.

Savonarola’s behaviour during this period remains puzzling. As early as 9 July Landucci had recorded:

Plague broke out in San Marco, and many of the Frati left the monastery and went out into the country to the villas of their fathers and relatives and friends. Savonarola remained at San Marco, with only a few Frati. By now there were around thirty-four houses stricken with the plague in Florence, and there was also widespread fever.¹²

Such action was characteristic of Savonarola – determined to remain at his post, even if this endangered his life. He may have been forbidden to preach by the Signoria on account of the plague, to say nothing of his excommunication, but he was still able to consult in private, especially with powerful figures like Francesco Valori and other influential Piagnoni. Indeed, the Piagnoni constantly looked to the ‘little friar’ for guidance. And when the Tornabuoni family begged Savonarola to intercede on behalf of the amiable and popular young Lorenzo, Savonarola is said to have asked the Signoria to show mercy – though seemingly in a manner which made it plain that he was only going through the motions. In fact, there is no record of his intervention, and some even doubt that he did anything at all. In direct contrast to his plea for forgiveness amongst opposing citizens after the flight of Piero de’ Medici, Savonarola made no public appeal for clemency with regard to any of the condemned men. All we have is a letter he sent to Giovambattista Ridolfi, brother of the condemned Niccolò, on 19 August – that is, two days after the original trial had condemned him to death:

Thus, my Giovambattista, in this time of your adversity revive the virtue of faith and the greatness of your spirit and consider that the honours of this world, as well as its riches, vanish like the wind, and our time upon earth forever grows shorter … Perhaps God has ordained this penance for your brother’s salvation. Suffering can often save those who might otherwise be damned on account of their prosperity.¹³

Hardly consoling words for the brother of a man under sentence of death, and indicatively offering no hope of reprieve. Note too that Savonarola addressed him as ‘my Giovambattista’ (the original Italian, Giovambattista mio, gives the flavour more strongly). And so he should have done, for Giovambattista Ridolfi was one of his closest and most loyal followers – which makes this letter appear all the more inconsiderate, not to say heartless, although it was undeniably in accord with that unworldly facet of Savonarola’s nature.

Precisely how much Savonarola was adhering to that facet, and practising what he preached, during this period is open to question. He may have remained in isolation – both spiritual and medical – at San Marco, along with his few closest disciples, but this was also a period when he (or at least his followers) sought to consolidate his political power against the backlash that inevitably followed the five executions. Surprisingly, despite widespread sorrow (such as that of Landucci), this appears to have worked to such an extent that the Milanese envoy reported on 10 September: ‘For the time being it is undeniable that the Friar’s party are in complete control of the government, without any opposition.’¹⁴ Bartoli’s two-month term as gonfaloniere was followed in September by three further Piagnoni sympathisers in succession holding this office. Such was Savonarola’s popularity that during November the diarist Parenti recorded:

So great was the esteem in which Fra Girolamo was now held in the city that medals containing his portrait were cast in bronze. One side showed his head surrounded with the inscription Savonarola ordinis praedicatorum doctissimus [Savonarola of the succession of the greatest prophets], and the other showed Rome with a dagger suspended above it and the encircling words Gladius Domini super terram cito et velociter [The sword of the Lord, striking and swift].¹⁵

Savonarola spent his days and nights in seclusion in his cell writing what many consider to be his major literary legacy. From around July 1497 until early February 1498, he embarked upon a period of prodigious creative output, producing no fewer than two complete books in six months. One of these was virtually his spiritual testament, whilst the other was a summary of his political ideas. As if this were not enough, at the same time he also comprehensively revised and translated into Italian Disputiones adversus astrologiam divinatricem, the anti-astrological work that he had co-authored four years previously with Pico della Mirandola.

Triumphus Crucis (The Triumph of the Cross) contained a summation of Savonarola’s spiritual beliefs. Surprisingly, the work begins from a sceptical point of view, using words that would not have been out of place in the works of Descartes, the rationalist thinker who was to initiate modern philosophy well over a century later. ‘We will not rely upon any authority, and will proceed as if we reject the teachings of any man in the world, no matter how wise he might be. Instead, we will rely solely upon natural reason.’¹⁶He then goes on to analyse this bold assertion. ‘Reason proceeds from the seen to the unseen in the following manner. All our knowledge is derived from the senses, which perceive the outer world; the intellect, on the other hand, perceives the substance of things.’ This remarkable piece of philosophising prefigures both the empiricism and the rationalism of early modern philosophy. However, the ensuing sentences make it clear that Savonarola did not accept such enquiries for their own sake (as would Descartes and his contemporary, the early empiricist John Locke). Instead, Savonarola assumes that the passage from outer knowledge (the senses) to inner knowledge (reason) is a progress towards a specific end: ‘the knowledge of matter thus rises to the knowledge of the unseen and hence to God’. This is followed by the further assumption that ‘philosophers seek to find God in the marvels of visible nature’. He then compares this to the similar process of how ‘in the visible Church we seek and discover the invisible Church, whose supreme head is Jesus Christ’. All pretence to scepticism and rational argument are then replaced by Savonarola’s familiar apocalyptic visions, combining the awesome grandeur of the Old Testament with the simple faith of the New Testament. The mystic chariot of old passes across the heavens, bearing Christ the conqueror with his crown of thorns, and his bloodied wounds, illuminated by the celestial light from on high, ‘shining like a triple sun, representing the Blessed Trinity’.

The work continues in similar fashion through four books of fundamentalist argument, backed by the force of Savonarola’s considerable intellectual reasoning, along with metaphysical pronouncements and compelling visions such as were found in his sermons – the very combination that achieved the astonishing feat of simultaneously convincing both the finest and the simplest minds in Florence. However, somehow this testament lacks the force of his presence, which is so much easier to envisage in passages from the transcriptions of his sermons. It is these latter that best enable us to imagine the cowled figure in the pulpit beneath the high nave of Florence Cathedral, his mesmeric voice ringing out over the sea of rapt faces below, carrying on his personal dialogue with them, questioning and answering himself, conjuring up before them the frightful visions that had come to him in his solitary cell during his long vigils of agonising deprivation, self-laceration (and possibly the incapacitating pain of migraine-induced hallucinations).

Now, with Florence surrounded by her enemies, having been smitten by plague and fever, it was the memory of this charismatic figure that inspired the new gonfaloniere urgently to seek out Savonarola’s political advice. The man elected gonfaloniere at the turn of 1498 was the PiagnoneGiuliano Salviati, who along with his Signoria found himself at a loss when faced with the city’s seemingly insurmountable internal divisions and external threats. It was as if the children of Israel were awaiting Moses’ descent from the mountain with the Ten Commandments. Yet no such practical advice was forthcoming from Savonarola. This time there would be no suggestion of astute political reforms intended to unite the citizens in a patriotic political unit, nor did he elect to echo biblical tradition with thundering pronouncements as if writ in stone. It was as if Savonarola knew that the time had come for him to deliver himself of his entire testament, both sacred and secular – the accumulated wisdom of experience that he had gained with God’s guidance during his forty-five years on Earth.

So instead of coming to the aid of Florence once more in her time of need, Savonarola chose to remain in seclusion and write his political testament, Trattato circa il reggimento e il governo della città di Firenze (Treatise on the rule and government of the city of Florence). In this he summarises in more general terms much of the political advice he had given out in his sermons at earlier times of crisis. In place of the Old Testament prophet was the voice of guidance, specifically aimed at ‘the mutable, restless and ambitious character of the Florentine people which is best suited to a civil government, that is to say a republic’.¹⁷ Indeed, it is no idle claim to assert that Florentines, more than any other citizens of the time, were the most apt audience for such a work. Not since Ancient Greece had there been a city state in which the people (or at least a sizeable section of them) had become accustomed to having such a say in their government. Even when this freedom had been completely subverted by the Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent had well understood the necessity of making it appear as if the democratic processes were being observed.

Unlike some previous classics in political philosophy (such as Plato’s Republic) Savonarola’s treatise was to be no prescription for a heavenly utopia. This was a work of Renaissance political philosophy, written some fifteen years before Machiavelli’s The Prince, which is usually taken as the pioneering work in this field. (Indeed, The Prince contains credible evidence that Machiavelli had read Savonarola’s treatise.) Savonarola points out that man is a free agent and, as such, must submit to government of some sort. He examines the flaws and evils of tyranny, and warns against its opposite, popular anarchy. Instead, he proposes the best safeguard to human freedom to be a Great Council, on the Florentine model, which helps to guarantee the democratic nature of a society.

Savonarola’s Trattato was far in advance of its time, just as the republican government of Florence (which Savonarola had played such a large part in forming) was in many ways a forerunner of our modern Western political state. This is not to say that Florence was a popular liberal democracy such as we would recognise; nor that Savonarola’s treatise was a consistent prescription for such rule. On the contrary: at the outset Savonarola does in fact state that the finest form of government would undoubtedly be absolutist rule by a righteous man. However, he was forced to concede that both reason and experience indicated that ‘government of this sort is not practical for all types of people … especially Florentines’.

What is one to make of this? No one could possibly have coerced Savonarola into making such a statement. Yet it is precisely here that he pinpoints his own flaw. He believed in a free government for the Florentines, yet at the same time he insisted upon a strict morality being imposed upon these ‘mutable, restless and ambitious’ people. The man who sought to introduce a strong code of justice also sought to introduce a strong code of morality. Civil freedom should come at the expense of personal freedom. Such anomalous motives are frequently encountered in revolutionary leaders of all types (from Cromwell to Lenin). Yet justice and morality, by their very definition, are the concern not of one man but of the people, who for the most part do not see social justice and personal morality as identical matters. This particular political incongruity may remain unresolved to this day, but Savonarola was the first modern political philosopher to recognise it, even if it was at the expense of his own cherished beliefs.

^fn1 The Great Schism lasted from 1378 until 1417, during most of which time there were two popes, one in Rome and another in Avignon, neither of whom recognised the other’s authority.

^fn2 The traditional annual horse race, which had taken place over a mile-long course through the city streets, with the jockeys colourfully attired in the emblems of each of the city’s districts. The crowds lined the streets, cheering on the horse representing their district, and the day on which the race was run always had a festival air. Such universal light-hearted public enjoyment, combined as it was with widespread gambling, would have been anathema to Savonarola. A remnant of such races can be seen today in the annual palio that is still held in the central piazza of Siena.

^fn3 The suburb of poor fishermen’s shacks upstream by the city walls on the south bank of the Arno.

^fn4 Florence’s equivalent of a Ministry of Supply.

^fn5 It was this confession that produced the precise details of Piero de’ Medici’s daily round of debauchery.

^fn6 Father of the renowned Renaissance historian Francesco Guicciardini.

^fn7 Some sources place the violent Strozzi incident immediately after this. Martines, drawing as well on Cerretani and Parenti, makes a case for it happening ‘in the hours leading up to the final decision … in the midst of that furore’,¹⁰ which seems more likely under the circumstances described, despite the testimony of Guicciardini’s father.