Savonarola Executed

Today’s installment concludes Savonarola’s Career,
the name of our combined selection from Pasquale Villari and Jean C. L. Sismondi. The concluding installment, by Jean C. L. Sismondi from Histoire des républiques italiennes du Moyen Âge, was published in 1818.

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Previously in Savonarola’s Career.

Time: 1490-1498
Place: Florence

This alliance, however, ranged the Florentines among the enemies of Pope Alexander VI, one of the founders of the league which had driven the French out of Italy. He accused them of being traitors to the Church and to their country for their attachment to a foreign prince. Alexander, equally offended by the projects of reform and by the politics of Savonarola, denounced him to the Church as a heretic, and interdicted him from preaching. The monk at first obeyed, and procured the appointment of his friend and disciple the Dominican friar, Buonvicino of Pescia, as his successor in the Church of St. Mark; but on Christmas Day, 1497, he declared from the pulpit that God had revealed to him that he ought not to submit to a corrupt tribunal; he then openly took the sacrament with the monks of St. Mark, and afterward continued to preach. In the course of his sermons he more than once held up to reprobation the scandalous conduct of the Pope, whom the public voice accused of every vice and every crime to be expected in a libertine so depraved — a man so ambitious, perfidious, and cruel — a monarch and a priest intoxicated with absolute power.

In the meantime the rivalry encouraged by the court of Rome between the religious orders soon procured the Pope a champion eager to combat Savonarola; he was a Dominican — the general of the Augustines, that Order whence Martin Luther was soon to issue. Friar Mariano di Ghinazzano signalized himself by his zeal in opposing Savonarola. He presented to the Pope Friar Francis of Apulia, of the order of Minor Observantines, who was sent to Florence to preach against the Florentine monks, in the Church of Santa Croce. This preacher declared to his audience that he knew Savonarola pretended to support his doctrine by a miracle. “For me,” said he, “I am a sinner; I have not the presumption to perform miracles; nevertheless, let a fire be lighted, and I am ready to enter it with him. I am certain of perishing, but Christian charity teaches me not to withhold my life if in sacrificing it I might precipitate into hell a heresiarch, who has already drawn into it so many souls.”

This strange proposition was rejected by Savonarola; but his friend and disciple, Friar Dominic Buonvicino, eagerly accepted it. Francis of Apulia declared that he would risk his life against Savonarola only. Meanwhile a crowd of monks, of the Dominican and Franciscan orders, rivalled each other in their offers to prove by the ordeal of fire, on one side the truth, on the other the falsehood, of the new doctrine. Enthusiasm spread beyond the two convents; many priests and seculars, and even women and children, more especially on the side of Savonarola, earnestly requested to be admitted to the proof. The Pope warmly testified his gratitude to the Franciscans for their devotion. The Seigniory of Florence consented that two monks only should devote themselves for their respective orders and directed the pile to be prepared. The whole population of the town and country, to which a signal miracle was promised, received the announcement with transports of joy.

On April 17, 1498, a scaffold, dreadful to look on, was erected in the public square of Florence; two piles of large pieces of wood, mixed with fagots and broom, which should quickly take fire, extended each eighty feet long, four feet thick, and five feet high; they were separated by a narrow space of two feet, to serve as a passage by which the two priests were to enter and pass the whole length of the piles during the fire.

Every window was full; every roof was covered with spectators; almost the whole population of the republic was collected round the place. The portico called the Loggia dei Lanzi, divided in two by a partition, was assigned to the two orders of monks. The Dominicans arrived at their station chanting canticles and bearing the holy sacrament. The Franciscans immediately declared that they would not permit the host to be carried amid flames. They insisted that the friar Buonvicino should enter the fire, as their own champion was prepared to do, without this divine safeguard. The Dominicans answered that “they would not separate themselves from their God at the moment when they implored his aid.” The dispute upon this point grew warm.

Several hours passed away. The multitude, which had waited long and began to feel hunger and thirst, lost patience; a deluge of rain suddenly fell upon the city and descended in torrents from the roofs of the houses; all present were drenched. The piles were so wet that they could no longer be lighted; and the crowd, disappointed of a miracle so impatiently looked for, separated, with the notion of having been unworthily trifled with. Savonarola lost all his credit; he was henceforth rather looked on as an impostor.

Next day his convent was besieged by the Arabbiati, eager to profit by the inconstancy of the multitude; he was arrested with his two friends, Domenico Buonvicino and Silvestro Marruffi, and led to prison. The Piagnoni, his partisans, were exposed to every outrage from the populace; two of them were killed, their rivals and old enemies exciting the general ferment for their destruction. Even in the seigniory the majority was against them and yielded to the pressing demands of the Pope. The three imprisoned monks were subjected to a criminal prosecution.

Alexander VI dispatched judges from Rome with orders to condemn the accused to death. Conformably with the laws of the Church, the trial opened with the torture. Savonarola was too weak and nervous to support it; he vowed in his agony all that was imputed to him, and, with his two disciples, was condemned to death. The three monks were burned alive, May 23, 1498, in the same square where, six weeks before, a pile had been raised to prepare them a triumph.

This ends our selections on Savonarola’s Career by two of the most important authorities of this topic:

• History of Girolamo Savonarola by Pasquale Villari published in 1861.
• Histoire des républiques italiennes du Moyen Âge by Jean C. L. Sismondi published in 1818.

Pasquale Villari began here. Jean C. L. Sismondi began here.

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