23

Trial and Torture

LANDUCCI DESCRIBED THE atmosphere in Florence after day duly dawned on Monday 9 April 1498:

People laid down their weapons, but everyone continued talking about what had happened. It was as if hell had opened beneath our feet: everyone kept saying ladro e traditore (wretch and traitor), no one dared to say a word in support of Savonarola, or they would have been killed, and everyone jeered at the citizens, calling them Piagnoni and hypocrites.¹

The Compagnacci roamed the streets in triumph, displaying the weapons that had been discovered in San Marco, claiming them as evidence that Savonarola had intended to lead an armed insurrection against the government. He was not only a charlatan, but also a traitor. Middle-class Piagnonisympathisers fled for the countryside; others, secretly taking their families and any portable valuables, simply went into exile in fear of their lives.

Savonarola was brought down from the Alberghettino late on Monday morning, when he was probably subjected to some informal questioning by the Signoria. Having been taken into custody, he would now be subject to the due process of law. This would involve him being interrogated and tortured before a judicial commission set up to discover whichever laws he might have broken, and whether his claims to be a prophet and to have spoken with God were true.

Next day things began in earnest:

At the ninth hour in the evening [i.e. 5 p.m.] Savonarola was carried to the Bargello by two men on their crossed hands because his feet and hands were clapped in irons. Fra Domenico was brought there in a similar fashion. On arrival they were both seized: Fra Girolamo was put to the rack three times^fn1 and Fra Domenico four times; and Fra Girolamo said: ‘Take me down and I will write you my whole life.’ As you can imagine, when right-minded men who had faith in him heard that he had been tortured many were reduced to tears.²

By now the two accused had been joined by a third friar. Savonarola’s closest adviser, the ailing Fra Silvestro Maruffi, whom Savonarola had valued so much on account of his visions, had initially hidden himself when San Marco was overrun, but his presence had been betrayed by the turncoat Fra Malatesta, with the result that he too had been taken into the custody of the Signoria.

The man appointed to be Savonarola’s chief interrogator on the judicial commission was the notary Francesco de Ser Barone, usually known by his nickname ‘Ser Ceccone’. An unsavoury character, Ser Ceccone had been a close supporter of Piero de’ Medici, responsible for carrying out a number of his underhand deeds. Ironically, when Piero and his brother Cardinal Giovanni had fled the city, Ser Ceccone had sought sanctuary in San Marco, emerging only after Savonarola had guaranteed his safety by issuing from the pulpit the strongest warning against the taking of reprisals by either side. From then on Ser Ceccone had adopted the guise of a firm Piagnoni supporter, but had in fact been an informer, passing on his information directly to Doffo Spini at the Compagnacci dinners, which he continued to attend, whilst at the same time regularly attending all of Savonarola’s sermons at the cathedral.

Anomalously, as a mere notary he was not legally permitted to conduct any official investigation, but the Signoria had decided to overlook such niceties. Ser Ceccone could be relied upon to deliver a verdict that would ensure Savonarola’s conviction.

The judicial commisssion appointed by the Signoria consisted of seventeen citizens, fervently anti-Savonarola to a man. They included Doffo Spini, as well as a number of leading Compagnacci; another member was the diarist Piero Parenti, whose feelings were clear from his chronicle of day-to-day events; also present was Giovanni Manetti, the man who had been responsible for stirring up the crowd against Savonarola as they waited for the ordeal by fire. Manetti was recorded as asking for permission to conduct a public inspection of Savonarola’s genitals: rumours were circulating concerning an astrologer’s prediction that a hermaphrodite prophet would arrive in Italy, and Manetti wished to set his mind at rest that Savonarola was not the man fulfilling this role. Manetti was duly permitted his request, which was completed to the satisfaction of his fellow commissioners; such humiliation of the prior of San Marco was to be just the beginning.^fn2

Meanwhile the Signoria had set about dismantling any possible official opposition to their actions. Elections for the Great Council were called, with no Piagnoni supporters permitted to stand as candidates, and any even suspected of Piagnone sympathies were soon weeded out of the administration.

Savonarola’s interrogation would continue over the ensuing week until 17 April. (An indication of the seriousness and urgency of these proceedings can be judged from the fact that they were not even adjourned for Good Friday, 13 April, or Easter Sunday two days later, the holiest events in the Christian calendar.) The interrogation proceeded by means of the habitual Florentine method used in criminal investigations. Savonarola would first have been invited to confess to the charge of treason. If his subsequent confession was not considered adequate, he would have been reminded that further evidence could be extracted by means of the strappado. If, even after this warning, his confession still did not satisfy the commissioners, then his hands would be tied behind his back and he would be subjected to one drop after another of the strappado until he did ‘confess’.

The effect of all this on Savonarola, his body rendered frail from constant fasting, self-denial and frequent self-flagellation, can barely be imagined. The ingenious advantage of the strappado was that it was not fatal if judiciously administered. Moreover, the method did not numb the body, rendering it equally painful each time it was administered. Such interrogation was legal in Florence, as indeed ‘trial by ordeal’ of one sort or another remained an integral part of the judicial process throughout most of Europe, much as it had done during the medieval era. However, in this case, Savonarola’s entire trial was in fact illegal. Priests did not fall under the jurisdiction of the civil authorities and could only be tried by the Church courts.

This hardly mattered where Savonarola was concerned. By 12 April, within forty-eight hours of Savonarola having been carried in irons into the Bargello, news had reached Alexander VI of what had happened. That very day His Holiness conveyed his feelings to the Signoria in Florence:

It gave us the greatest pleasure when your ambassador informed us of the timely measures you have taken in order to crush the mad vindictiveness of that son of iniquity Fra Hieronymo Savonarola, who has not only inspired such heresies amongst the people with his deluded and empty prophecies, but has also disobeyed both your commands and our orders by force of arms. At last he is safely imprisoned, which causes us to give praise to our beloved Saviour, whose divine light sheds such truth upon our earthly state that He could not possibly have permitted your faithful city to have remained any longer in darkness.³

The Signoria was explicitly given permisssion to examine Savonarola under torture; however, Alexander VI made it quite plain that he should then be despatched to Rome, where he would be tried before the appropriate ecclesiastical tribunal. This would have involved more traditional methods of interrogation, such as the rack, branding irons and other devices of the Inquisition, which traditionally tried its victims on charges of heresy. Ironically, the Inquisition remained the preserve of Savonarola’s own order, the Dominicans. Such gruesome methods, in the hands of expert practitioners, were guaranteed to extract the last morsels of information from the hapless victim.^fn3

The Signoria were heartened by Alexander VI’s Brief, which not only allowed them to torture Savonarola with impunity, but also lifted from the city the threat of general excommunication. It even went so far as to give dispensation for those who had been guilty of attacking and desecrating Church property during the siege at San Marco. However, the Signoria were reluctant to comply with Alexander VI’s crucial request: Savonarola would not be despatched to Rome. This was more than just a matter of the city of Florence asserting its independence. Over the years during which Savonarola had been consulted by the Signoria, he had inevitably gained an intimate knowledge of the workings of the city government, its secret policies, as well as its methods of gathering intelligence. These would certainly have included sympathetic informants providing confidential intelligence from Rome, possibly even spies within the Vatican itself. Alexander VI would make sure that he extracted as much of this vital information as he could from Savonarola, which he would then use to pursue his own political ends: informants would be eliminated, Florentine strategy anticipated and thwarted, the city’s weaknesses exploited. For the good of the republic, Savonarola had to be kept in Florence, even if this displeased His Holiness – which it certainly did. This was one of the reasons why Savonarola’s trial was conducted with the maximum secrecy. None beyond the seventeen members of the inquisitorial commission, the surgeon and members of the Signoria were permitted to attend. Savonarola was not even allowed a defence counsel, on the grounds that as a priest he would not have been permitted one in the ecclesiastical court before which he should have been tried. The logic of this argument was to be typical of the conduct of Savonarola’s case.

On 13 April, probably the very day that Alexander VI’s Brief arrived in Florence, important news reached the city from another source. It was learned that on 7 April (that is, the very day on which the ordeal by fire was to have taken place), Charles VIII had cracked his head on the stone lintel of a doorway, rendering him unconscious, and despite all the efforts of his physicians the twenty-seven-year-old King had died within a matter of hours. The prophecy that Savonarola had solemnly pronounced just over a year previously had now been fulfilled. This news seems to have given many in Florence cause for thought, especially when it filtered down to those amongst the silent, sullen Piagnoni who remained Savonarola’s secret supporters. Yet it would have no effect upon Savonarola’s fate. The wheels had by now been set in motion: it would take more than the ‘miraculous’ fulfilment of his prophecy to stop them.

Sources differ as to how many ‘drops’ of the strappado Savonarola suffered. As we have seen, the gossip reaching Landucci claimed that he suffered three times. At the other extreme, Botticelli’s brother, the ardent Piagnone Simone Filipepi, claimed that Savonarola suffered fourteen drops in one day, which would definitely have rendered him incapable of confession of any sort and would almost certainly have proved fatal. Others go so far as to claim that burning coals were pressed to the soles of Savonarola’s bare feet as he hung suspended after the drop, though many dispute this as a hagiographic overelaboration of his suffering. With feelings so polarised, and the events taking place in secret, the truth is difficult to assess. At any rate, the modern judgement is that Savonarola’s frail body probably took at the most four drops before he broke and told his torturers: ‘Take me down and I will write you my whole life.’ But this was far from being enough. What the Signoria required was a number of specific admissions that would have proved Savonarola guilty of treason, thus allowing them to execute him. Ser Ceccone duly began interrogating Savonarola and taking down his answers.

The evidence suggests that Ser Ceccone’s record of these events was deliberately slanted to achieve the intended result. No original transcript exists, and all we have are the unsubstantiated printed texts that were released later in the year. Admittedly, in his broken state Savonarola would have confessed to many things, but it is highly unlikely that he did so as recorded in the printed version of Ser Ceccone’s transcript. Even so, the printed text is still worth examining for the simple reason that it was probably a biasedversion of the events that took place, as distinct from being a complete fabrication. Internal evidence supports this assessment: the problem lies in discerning where the truth tails off and falsehood takes over, and here the text provides us with a number of plausible clues. The picture it paints is hardly that of a skilled interrogation, yet it is this very muddle that hints at a basic underlying reality.

First of all, Savonarola was asked to confess that his prophecies were not the result of divine revelations, and that his claim that God spoke to him was false. According to Ser Ceccone’s record, Savonarola denied that he was a prophet. This was a serious confession, which he must have known would have profound consequences amongst his Piagnoni supporters – yet there is good reason to believe that he did make it. Admittedly, Savonarola had on a number of earlier occasions denied that he was a prophet – though equally incontestably, he had on many later occasions accepted the mantle of a prophet, both in name and in the manner in which he preached. His contemporary apologists such as Burlamacchi, Fra Benedetto Luschino and Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola (the biographer and nephew of the philosopher) accepted that Savonarola made this confession, yet at the same time defended his thinking on this point. And there is no doubt that they were close enough to Savonarola to have been conversant with his method of thought. Savonarola would have been well aware that prophets such as Amos and Zachariah had on occasion denied that they were prophets, as indeed had John the Baptist. According to the Gospel of St John, even Jesus himself had given an evasive answer on this question.^fn4

However, there is no denying that Savonarola did believe he was a prophet, and did indeed see many of his prophecies fulfilled. Some of them were ambiguous and open to wide interpretation (such as the arrival of the ‘scourge of God’), while others predicted highly probable events (the deaths of the tyrants, for instance); yet his wish-fulfilment-cum-prophecy concerning the death of Charles VIII, which was neither ambiguous nor probable, not only came true, but had no effect on the interrogators who had forced him to confess that he was not a prophet.

Savonarola’s confession was followed by a justification of his motives, which appears totally antithetical to his personality:

Regarding my aim, I say, truly, that it lay in the glory of the world, in having credit and reputation; and to attain this end, I sought to keep myself in credit and good standing in the city of Florence, for the said city seemed to me a good instrument for increasing this glory, and also for giving me name and reputation abroad.⁴

Even so, such cooked-up motives hardly constituted treason. Under further brutal interrogation, Savonarola went on to admit that he had always agreed with the formation of the new republic, from its very inception after the flight of Piero de’ Medici. However, the reasons he gave for this appear equally implausible, showing no evidence of the belief in social justice that had so inspired his sermons in favour of the new republic and the establishment of the more democratic Great Council. Instead, he had supported such things:

because it seemed to me to go best with my aims. I sought to shape it accordingly … I intended that those who called themselves my friends should rule more than the others, and this is why I favoured them as best I could.

Such a forced admission was edging him closer to dangerous ground. Yet once again, seeking political influence could hardly be labelled a capital offence, especially in Florence. Still Ser Ceccone pressed on, accusing Savonarola of fixing elections for the Signoria and the Great Council. But even in his broken state, Savonarola refused to confess to this. And according to the record, when he was asked if he had an alliance with Piero de’ Medici he replied, ‘I strongly opposed him.’⁵ This also has the ring of truth, further revealing the haphazard nature of Ser Ceccone’s doctored text: such a patriotic claim was unlikely to have been included in any complete fabrication intended to convict Savonarola of treason. When Ser Ceccone demanded to know if Savonarola had written to Charles VIII, he willingly admitted having done so. He had done this for the benefit of Florence, as was evident. Consequently, he also admitted that he had called for a Council of the Church, with the aim of ridding it of corruption – again, hardly a treasonable motive, at least where Florence was concerned. And besides, the attitude towards the behaviour of Alexander VI was all but universal. Yet when Savonarola was asked if he sought to become pope himself, he replied: ‘No, I did not wish to become pope – for if I had succeeded in my purpose I would have deemed myself above any cardinal or pope.’⁶ In other words, he had in mind higher spiritual aims, rather than Church office, although when pressed (probably after further torture), he allegedly went back on his earlier claim and did admit that if he had been elected, he would not have refused the office of pope.

It seems probable that Ser Ceccone was adhering to a list of questions that had previously been drawn up by the Signoria and the others in attendance, and that he was simply proceeding in consecutive order, with no real adversarial strategy in mind, other than discovering evidence of Savonarola’s treason. Yet no matter how inept such a method may have been, it was still capable of springing surprises to catch the fatigued and all-but-broken accused off-guard. How did Savonarola receive his excellent intelligence concerning what was going on in the city and beyond? Did he demand that his friars break the secret of the confessional by passing on to him certain vital information thus gleaned? Savonarola denied such charges.

Occasionally Savonarola was outwitted. When Ser Ceccone asked him whether he had been in favour of the ordeal by fire, Savonarola denied this; but he did consequently admit to allowing it to go ahead ‘for the sake of his reputation’.⁷ And here, for once, this may have been the truth. Savonarola had been manoeuvred into a situation where he felt bound to accept the challenge of the Franciscans. This may be the single occasion in Ser Ceccone’s report where Savonarola’s claim that he acted on account of his reputation was true. All the other claims – ‘I intended to rule …’,⁸‘my aim was … the glory of the world’, ‘to increase … my name and reputation abroad … my pride … my hypocrisy’, and so forth – which are repeated to the extent that they become a constant refrain, are unmistakably insertions by Ser Ceccone or others. This was not the language used by Savonarola: their very repetition after so many of Savonarola’s answers, as well as their uncharacteristic sentiments, is simply unbelievable.

Finally, on 18 April, after a week of interrogation (or processi – that is, trials, as they were officially designated), Ser Ceccone retired to ‘formalise and set in order’⁹ his transcription. When later that day this was read out to Savonarola, he objected to its obvious falsifications, promising Ser Ceccone: ‘If you publish this, you will die within six months’.^{10 fn5} Early next day, Savonarola was ordered to put his name to this document. Initially he refused, but after the threat of further strappado and other ‘encouragement’ he eventually signed.

Later that same day, Landucci recorded: ‘The protocol of Fra Girolamo, written in his own hand, was read out to the Council in the Great Hall.’¹¹ Although the deposition was doubtless announced as such, it cannot have been in Savonarola’s own hand. Only his signature would have been authentic. The printed version in Vallori’s biography, Document XXVI, extends over twenty-seven closely printed pages up to this point; the ‘protocol’ would have been a shorter summary. After undergoing the strappado, Savonarola’s ability to write would have been severely impaired, to say the least, to the extent that even if he had only written the protocol, it would still have taken him an unconscionable amount of time and effort to do so. With Alexander VI demanding Savonarola’s presence in Rome, and Florence remaining in a state of disarrary, the Signoria would have been in too much of a hurry to allow for such a time-wasting procedure. It is necessary to emphasise these points owing to the utter lack of material evidence, in order to build up the case for what necessarily remain suppositions concerning the original document. Savonarola was fighting for his life, whilst amongst themselves the authorities of the new republic abandoned all pretence at the justice whose restoration had been the justification for the overthrow of the Medici.

Landucci went on to record the devastating effect that Savonarola’s protocol had on him:

This very man whom we had regarded as a true prophet had now confessed that he was not a prophet at all, and that he had not received from God the things which he had preached. He confessed that many of the things which had taken place during the years when he had preached had not happened because he had prophesied them. I was present when this protocol was read out, and I was astonished, being utterly dumfounded with surprise. My heart was grieved to witness such a marvel collapse in ruins because it had been founded upon a lie. Florence had lived in the expectation of a new Jerusalem, where the laws would be just and the city would be such an example of righteous life that it would be a splendour upon this earth, and lead to the renovation of the Church, the conversion of unbelievers and the consolation of the righteous.

Landucci would not have been alone amongst the Piagnoni supporters who believed Savonarola to be a prophet, and he was certainly not the only one to be similarly devastated by the public reading of the protocol. The Piagnoni dream of a new Jerusalem where social justice prevailed was shattered: Florence was to be no ‘City of God’ after all.

However, the Signoria quickly came to the conclusion that Savonarola’s confession, even in its present corrupted state, was simply not enough. All this was hardly treason: he had confessed to no capital offence, and Alexander VI would soon be insisting once more that he be conveyed to Rome. Consequently, it was decided that Savonarola should undergo a second ‘trial’, which commenced under the same conditions of secrecy just two days after the public reading of the protocol from the first trial. Once again, the leading interrogator and recorder of evidence was Ser Ceccone, but this time – according to his printed report – the trial took place ‘without torture or any harm to the body’.¹² This was contradicted by rumours reaching Landucci, who just two days into the second trial recorded, ‘The Frate was tortured.’¹³ He also noted on the same day that several leadingPiagnoni supporters were arrested, including former gonfaloniere Domenico Mazzinghi.

The following day, 24 April, the trial approached its final stage, and Savonarola was asked to sign his ‘confession’. This time he appears to have written at least part of the document himself; however, there were also lines written and added by Ser Ceccone. This we know because Savonarola wrote, or was forced to write, that ‘in some places there are notes in the margin written by Ser Francesco di Ser Barone [Ser Ceccone]’.¹⁴ This gave Ser Ceccone carte blanche to add, at a later time, whatever he (or the Signoria and the others attending the trial) so wished. Evidence of such post-facto insertions can be seen in the astonishing admisssion allegedly made by Savonarola that, although as prior of San Marco he ‘consecrated the bread and wine every day for mass, and gave holy communion’,¹⁵ he ‘never went to confession’. He revealed:

my reason for not going to confesssion was that I did not wish to disclose my secret intentions to anyone, and because I could not have been absolved from these sins as I did not intend to give up my intentions. Yet I did not care about this, on account of the great end I had in mind. When a man has lost his faith and his soul, he can do whatever he wants and pursue every great thing. I hereby indeed confess to being a great sinner, and I want very much to do this correctly and for this I am willing to do a great penance.

It is extremely difficult to believe that Savonarola lost his faith in God whilst in pursuance of ‘the great end’ he had in mind – especially when this end was to establish Florence as the ‘City of God’. A master of logic like Savonarola, who had debated with a philosopher such as Pico della Mirandola, was hardly likely to contradict himself in such a manner. Indeed, despite Ser Ceccone’s ham-fisted methods, it is surprising that the Signoria or the dignitaries present, amongst whom were men of some intelligence, permitted such a blunder to pass. Presumably by this stage they were beyond caring, having the speedy despatch of their own ‘great end’ in mind.

Some parts of the printed document of Savonarola’s second trial do have a certain ring of truth. As we have seen, Savonarola had over the years developed considerable political acumen, and the printed version of his second trial would seem to confirm this. In it, he indicated that he well understood the only way for democracy to work in the Florentine republic:

My intention, as I have said in reply to other questions, was that the citizens who I had decided were good, should hold all positions of power, or at least govern with a majority of four to three, and that the others, who are known as the Arrabbiati – although in order to preserve my honour I did not call them by this name – should be kept out of government as much as possible.¹⁶

So far so good: but he knew that any workable democracy – especially under the conditions prevailing in Florence at the time – required an opposition of some sort, for even his supporters were not above political suspicion:

It was not my intention totally to exclude and drive out [all opposition], for I was very much in favour of having an obstacle against the leaders of our faction, having suspected that these same leading citizens would in the end become so predominant and hold such power that they would fashion a narrower form of government of their own and wreck the Great Council.¹⁷

Savonarola’s belief in the workings of the Great Council took into account the frailties of human nature. If such passages were not authentic, then it remains difficult to see any reason for Ser Ceccone or the Signoria to have made them up. And once again, such ideas were hardly a capital offence.

At the same time, Savonarola’s closest allies were also being subjected to interrogation. The fervently loyal Fra Domenico da Pescia, whose belief in his master had even extended to his willingness to undergo ordeal by fire, was to suffer horribly at the hands of the authorities. His inquisitors tried to persuade him that Savonarola had in fact confessed to all manner of sins, from being a false prophet to heresy, but Fra Domenico continued to insist, ‘In the certainty of my mind, I have always believed, and in the absence of any proof to the contrary, still firmly believe in the prophecies of Savonarola’.¹⁸ As well as being subjected to the strappado, Fra Domenico was also forced to endure the stanghetta.^fn6

After further agonies, Fra Domenica informed his inquisitors:

I have tried to be as precise to you as I would be at the hour of my death, and indeed I may well die if you torture me any further, for I am utterly broken, my arms have been destroyed, especially my left one, which your tortures have now dislocated for a second time.

Yet still they continued, and still he could not bring himself to lie, declaring, ‘I have always thought him an altogether upright and extraordinary man.’¹⁹ As with Savonarola’s trials, there is a question here over documentary sources. At the back of Villari’s biography, as Document XXVII, he includes the two different ‘original’ versions of the transcript that have come down to us. These are printed side by side for comparison. According to Villari, the version in the left column is ‘the true document written in his own hand’,²⁰ whilst the other is ‘the false document’. In the light of Fra Domenico’s claim that ‘my arms have been destroyed’ (ho guaste le braccia), it is difficult to see how he could actually have written this ‘true’ document. More likely, he dictated it, read it through and appended some sort of signature. Villari himself gives an eloquent defence of his conclusions:

When they read Fra Domenico’s confession, the authorities felt obliged to insert various alterations [in order to] efface the tone of heroism which was notable in every word … When I put together the two copies of these depositions, which I myself discovered, I found that the one which was altered by the Signoria was better assembled, more grammatical and had a better style than the true and genuine confession. This real version contains evidence of a sincere and natural eloquence that does not come from art, but is the spontaneous expression of an open soul. It is not possible to read this examination without being profoundly moved, it is as if we are transported into the very torture chamber itself, witnessing the pitiless wrenching of the limbs, hearing the grating of the bones, aware of the frail exhausted voice, so sublime and pure, of this heroic monk who welcomes death with the angelic smile of a martyr.²¹

Such sentiments may appear rather overblown in our secular age, yet something similar must certainly have taken place. Fra Domenico’s belief was indestructible; and, miraculously, he survived his tortures.

By contrast, the third member of the trio of monks arrested at San Marco, the sickly otherworldly Fra Silvestro Maruffi, whose visions had so inspired Savonarola, proved all too human. Having unsuccessfully tried to hide in San Marco, he now faced his inquisitors filled with terror. Once again Ser Ceccone conducted the proceedings. Fra Silvestro soon denounced Savonarola, as well as all the claims he had made, before giving a complete list of all the citizens who regularly visited Savonarola at San Marco. Even so, when questioned about Savonarola’s interference in affairs of state, he could offer no evidence. He also unwittingly contradicted the ‘admission’ that Savonarola had made in his signed legal document that he ‘never went to confession’. Fra Silvestro explained how:

on twenty or twenty-five occasions, when he was about to deliver a sermon, he would come to my cell and tell me, ‘I do not know what to preach. Pray to God for me, because I fear that he has abandoned me because of my sins.’ And he would then say that he wished to unburden himself of his sins, and would make confession to me. Afterwards he would go away and preach a beautiful sermon. The last time that he did this was when he preached in San Marco on the Saturday before the last Sunday of Lent. Finally I say that he has deceived us.²²

Again, the abrupt break in style and tone suggests that this last sentence was inserted by Ser Ceccone. Yet even Fra Silvestro’s abject confession was not sufficient to condemn Savonarola to death.

The friars of San Marco proved to be of similar frailty to Fra Silvestro. As a result of their violent resistance during the siege of San Marco they had been excommunicated by Alexander VI. In an attempt to redeem themselves and have this sentence annulled, on 21 April they composed a collective letter to the pope, which was signed by almost all the friars in the community. This letter has been vilified as an abject surrender to the pope, as well as a grovelling betrayal of their beloved prior, and indeed it is both of these. However, it is possible to read this document as a letter addressed to the pope, in his office as ruler of the Church and as the occupant of St Peter’s throne, rather than to Alexander VI himself, whom Savonarola had so passionately castigated. The distinction is subtle, but real in this case: they were not prostrating themselves before the degenerate monster who sat on St Peter’s throne, but before God’s representative on Earth. This distinction becomes clear and significant when the letter describes how the friars themselves felt with regard to Savonarola:

Not only ourselves, but men of much greater wisdom, were persuaded by Fra Girolamo’s cunning. The sheer power and quality of his preaching, his exemplary life, the holiness of his behaviour, what appeared to us as his devotion, and the effect it had in purging the city of its immorality, usury and all manner of vices, as well as the events which appeared to confirm his prophecies in a way beyond any human power or imagining, and were so numerous and of such a nature that if he had not retracted his claims, and confessed that his words were not the words of God, we would never have been able to renounce our belief in him. For so great was our faith in him that all of us were ready to go through fire in order to support his doctrine.²³

This revelatory admission would seem to be an accurate and succinct summary of the entire Savonarola ‘phenomenon’ and its effect upon those who came into contact with him. It certainly accords with the way many modern commentators view what took place in Florence during these years: a collective delusion, which was almost certainly shared by Savonarola himself. The impressionable friars, many of whom were young, educated, of good families, and were genuinely appalled at the humanism that had been adopted by so many of the city’s intellectuals, as well as by what they saw as the lax morals that accompanied this renaissance of classical values, had quickly fallen under the spell cast by the charismatic ‘little friar’. His influence had proved both intellectually radical and powerfully inspirational, whilst its prophetic religious manner included a heady mix of fundamentalism and passion bordering on fanatic hysteria.

The bewildered young friars of San Marco believed in Savonarola; amidst a world of profound change, they longed for the certainty of which he preached. This was the truth, and it would be realised if only the people could be induced to adopt the virtue and purity necessary for Florence to become the ‘City of God’. The evidence given in the letter by the monks of San Marco is the most concise and clear insight we have into the faith that Savonarola infused in his believers – which, as we have seen, ranged through all classes. At some point this may even have touched Lorenzo the Magnificent himself – after all, it was he who had invited Savonarola back to Florence, and he who had called for the prior of San Marco to visit him on his deathbed. Others, from Pico della Mirandola, through the monks of San Marco, to the lowest Piagnoni, eventually embraced his ideas. This was the faith that had inspired Fra Domenico under torture, to the verge of martyrdom.

The Arrabbiati now decided to take matters into their own hands. They knew that many Piagnoni, more obdurate than Landucci, had not been convinced by the public reading of Savonarola’s confession, and that for as long as Savonarola lived they would have a figurehead to rally around. He needed to be discredited, once and for all, and it was clear that forged evidence would never do this. Only genuine and utterly convincing evidence would now suffice. So on 27 April the Arrabbiati launched a round-up of people known, or suspected, of remaining Piagnoni sympathisers. Their intentions were twofold: first, they wished to uncover convincing incriminating evidence of a plot which would ensure that Savonarola was executed for treason; and second, they wished to launch a lightning reign of terror, which would permanently destroy the Piagnoni movement. Landucci recorded the events of that day: ‘All the citizens arrested for this cause were scourged, so that from 15 in the morning [11 a.m.] till the evening there were unending howls of agony coming from the Bargello.’²⁴ Yet despite all the cries of terror and abject confessions, still no convincing evidence against Savonarola emerged, and on 1 May, ‘All citizens were sent back home; and only the three poor Frati remained.’

By this stage the Arrabbiati were becoming desperate, and on 5 May the new gonfaloniere and the Signoria, now exclusively composed of Arrabbiati, called a Pratica to decided what to do. Alexander VI was still insisting that all three friars should be transported to Rome to be tried by the Church courts, as was their due. It was suggested that the only way to prevent this was for the friars to be tried yet again in Florence, in the hope that this time genuine incriminating evidence would be obtained from at least one of them. Summoning all his authority as the former gonfaloniere, Popoleschi protested against this:

both on account of the way in which the previous examinations were conducted, and for the sake of peace and public order in the city. If we proceed to examine them in the same way as before this will only give rise to a scandal, as we have already been informed by the diplomatic representatives of every state in Italy.²⁵

The ‘examinations’ may have been held in the privacy of the Bargello, but word of the way in which they had been conducted had by now spread throughout Italy, where it provoked widespread public revulsion. That a civilised republic like Florence could behave in such a manner towards men of the cloth was nothing less than a disgrace to the entire country. On top of this, the French ambassador Giovanni Guasconi, who was known to be a close friend of the new king Louis XII, had made plain his sympathy for Savonarola and the Piagnoni. The support of Florence’s ally was at stake.

In the end, the Pratica decide to send a despatch to ambassador Bonsi in Rome. He was instructed to inform Alexander VI that the Signoria wished to make an example of Savonarola and his two friars in Florence, where the execution would be witnessed by his remaining supporters, who would realise once and for all that their cause was now futile. On the other hand, if Alexander VI insisted upon further examination of the friars concerning religious matters, he was welcome to despatch a Papal Commission to Florence for this purpose.

^fn1 The original Italian refers to tratti di fune (pulls on the rope) – in other words, they were subjected to the traditional Florentine strappado, rather than the customary conception of the rack.

^fn2 Rumours of the arrival of such a prophet may also well have prompted the Franciscans’ insistence upon inspecting Fra Domenico’s genitals for any ‘supernatural signs’ before the ordeal by fire.

^fn3 Where the Inquisition was concerned, torture was in practice frequently inflicted for its own sake. Then, as now, the ‘truth’ extracted by such extreme methods was always liable to conform with what the victim thought the torturer required of him, and this method was thus not always reliable as a method of extracting trustworthy information.

^fn4 ‘Art thou that prophet? And he saith, I am not.’ John, Ch. 1, v.21.

^fn5 This improbable prophecy, which almost certainly fell into the same psychological category as that concerning Charles VIII, would also be fulfilled. However, the only source for this prophecy is the fervently pro-Savonarolan Burlamacchi.

^fn6 More widely known as the Spanish Boot or Iron Boot, this was a widespread instrument of torture in medieval Europe. It usually consisted of iron plates, which would be strapped to encase the foot so that iron wedges could be hammered between the casing into the flesh. Sometimes the ‘boot’ would consist of two casings with inner iron spikes, which could be strapped tighter and tighter. Or it could be larger and sealed, so that water could be poured over the foot inside, which could then be held over a fire until it gradually boiled.