A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume III

This reached Florence March 13 and excited a violent discussion. We have seen that an interdict inflicted by the pope might be not merely a deprivation of spiritual privileges, but that it might comprehend segregation from the outside world and seizure of person and property wherever found, which was ruin to a commercial community. The merchants and bankers of Florence received from their Roman correspondents the most alarming accounts of the papal wrath and of his intention to expose their property to pillage. Fear took possession of the city, as rumors spread from day to day that the dreaded interdict had been proclaimed. It shows the immense influence still wielded by Savonarola that, after earnest discussions and various devices, the Signoria could only bring itself, March 17, to send to him five citizens at night to beg him to suspend preaching for the time. He had promised that, while he would not obey the pope, he would respect the wishes of the civil power, but when this request reached him he replied that he must first seek the will of Him who had ordered him to preach. The next day, from the pulpit of San Marco, he gave his answer—“Listen, for this is what the Lord saith: In asking this Frate to give up preaching it is to Me that the request is made, and not to him, for it is I who preach; it is I who grant the request and who do not grant it. The Lord assents as regards the preaching, but not as regards your salvation.”[234]

It was impossible to yield more awkwardly or in a manner more convincing of self-deception, and Savonarola’s enemies grew correspondingly bold. The Franciscans thundered triumphantly from the pulpits at their command; the disorderly elements, wearied with the rule of righteousness, commenced to agitate for the license which they could see was soon to be theirs. Profane scoffers commenced to ridicule the Frate openly in the streets, and within a week placards were posted on the walls urging the burning of the palaces of Francesco Valori and Paolo Antonio Soderini, two of his leading supporters. The agents of the Duke of Milan were not far wrong when they exultingly wrote to him predicting the speedy downfall of the Frate, by fair means or foul.[235]

Just at this juncture there came to light a desperate expedient to which Savonarola had recourse. After giving Alexander fair warning, March 13, to look to his safety, for there could no longer be truce between them, Savonarola appealed to the sovereigns of Christendom, in letters purporting to be written under the direct command of God and in his name, calling upon the monarchs to convoke a general council for the reformation of the Church. It was diseased, from the highest to the lowest, and on account of its intolerable stench God had not permitted it to have a lawful head. Alexander VI. was not pope and was not eligible to the papacy, not only by reason of the simony through which he had bought the tiara, and the wickedness which, when exposed, would excite universal execration, but also because he was not a Christian, and not even a believer in God. All this Savonarola offered to prove by evidence and by miracles which God would execute to convince the most sceptical. This portentous epistle, with trifling variants, was to be addressed to the Kings of France, Spain, England, and Hungary, and to the emperor. A preliminary missive from Domenico Mazzinghi to Giovanni Guasconi, Florentine Ambassador in France, happened to be intercepted by the Duke of Milan, who was hostile to Savonarola, and who promptly forwarded it to the pope.[236]

Alexander’s wrath can easily be conceived. It was not so much the personal accusations, which he was ready to dismiss with cynical indifference, as the effort to bring about the convocation of a council which, since those of Constance and Basle, had ever been the cry of the reformer and the terror of the papacy. In the existing discontent of Christendom it was an ever-present danger. So recently as 1482 the half-crazy Andreas, Archbishop of Krain, had set all Europe in an uproar by convoking from Basle a council on his own responsibility, and defying for six months, under the protection of the magistrates, the efforts of Sixtus IV. and the anathemas of the inquisitor, Henry Institoris, until Frederic III., after balancing awhile, had him thrown into jail. In the same year, 1482, Ferdinand and Isabella, by the threat of calling a council, brought Sixtus to renounce the claim of filling the sees of Spain with his own creatures. In 1495 a rumor was current that the emperor was about to cite the pope to a council to be held in Florence. Some years earlier the rebellious Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who had fled to France, persistently urged Charles VIII. to assemble a general council; in 1497 Charles submitted the question to the University of Paris, and the University pronounced in its favor. Wild as was Savonarola’s notion that he could, single-handed, stimulate the princes to such action, it was, nevertheless, a dart aimed at the mortal spot of the papacy, and the combat thereafter was one in which no quarter could be given.[237]

The end, in fact, was inevitable, but it came sooner and more dramatically than the shrewdest observer could have anticipated. It is impossible, amid the conflicting statements of friends and foes, to determine with positiveness the successive steps leading to the strange Sperimento del Fuoco which was the proximate occasion of the catastrophe, but it probably occurred in this wise: Frà Girolamo being silenced, Domenico da Pescia took his place. Matters were clearly growing desperate, and in his indiscreet zeal Domenico offered to prove the truth of his master’s cause by throwing himself from the roof of the Palazzo de’ Signori, by casting himself into the river, or by entering fire. Probably this was only a rhetorical flourish without settled purpose, but the Franciscan, Francesco della Puglia, who was preaching with much effect at the Church of Santa-Croce, took it up and offered to share the ordeal with Frà Girolamo. The latter, however, refused to undertake it unless a papal legate and ambassadors from all Christian princes could be present, so that it might be made the commencement of a general reform in the Church. Frà Domenico then accepted the challenge, and on March 27 or 28 he caused to be affixed to the portal of Santa-Croce a paper in which he offered to prove, by argument or miracle, these propositions:

VII. There is no sin in not observing the excommunication. Frà Francesco reasonably enough said that most of these propositions were incapable of argument, but, as a demonstration was desired, he would enter fire with Frà Domenico, although he fully expected to be burned; still, he was willing to make the sacrifice in order to liberate the Florentines from their false idol.[238]

Passions were fierce on both sides, and eager partisans kept the city in an uproar. To prevent an outbreak the Signoria sent for both disputants and caused them to enter into a written agreement, March 30, to undergo this strange trial. Three hundred years earlier it would have seemed reasonable enough, but the Council of Lateran, in 1215, had reprobated ordeals of all kinds, and they had been definitely marked with the ban of the Church. When it came to the point Frà Francesco said that he had no quarrel with Domenico; that if Savonarola would undergo the trial, he was ready to share it, but with any one else he would only produce a champion—and one was readily found in the person of Frà Giuliano Rondinelli, a noble Florentine of the Order. On the other side, all the friars of San Marco, nearly three hundred in number, signed the agreement pledging to submit themselves to the ordeal, and Savonarola declared that in such a cause any one could do so without risk. So great was the enthusiasm that when, on the day before the trial, he preached on the subject in San-Marco, all the audience rose in mass, and offered to take Domenico’s place in vindicating the truth. The conditions prescribed by the Signoria were, that if the Dominican champion perished, whether alone or with his rival, Savonarola should leave the city until officially recalled; if the Franciscan alone succumbed, then Frà Francesco should do likewise; and the same was decreed for either side that should decline the ordeal at the last moment.[239]

The Signoria appointed ten citizens to conduct the trial, and fixed it for April 6, but postponed it for a day in hopes of receiving from the pope a negative answer to an application for permission—a refusal which came, but came too late, possibly delayed on purpose. On April 7, accordingly, the preparations were completed. In the Piazza de’ Signori a huge pile of dry wood was built the height of a man’s eyes, with a central gangway through which the champions were to pass. It was plentifully supplied with gunpowder, oil, sulphur, and spirits, to insure the rapid spread of the flames, and when lighted at one end the contestants were to enter at the other, which was to be set on fire behind them, so as to cut off all retreat. An immense mass of earnest spectators filled the piazza, and every window and house-top was crowded. These were mostly partisans of Savonarola, and the Franciscans were cowed until cheered by the arrival of the Compagnacci, the young nobles fully armed on their war-horses, and each accompanied by eight or ten retainers—some five hundred in all, with Doffo Spini at their head.[240]

First came on the scene the Franciscans, anxious and terrified. Then marched in procession the Dominicans, about two hundred in number, chanting psalms. Both parties went before the Signoria, when the Franciscans, professing fear of magic arts, demanded that Domenico should change his garments. Although this was promptly acceded to, and both champions were clothed anew, considerable time was consumed in the details. The Dominicans claimed that Domenico should be allowed to carry a crucifix in his right hand and a consecrated wafer in his left. An objection being made to the crucifix he agreed to abandon it, but was unmoved by the cry of horror with which the proposition as to the host was received. Savonarola was firm. It had been revealed to Frà Salvestro that the sacrament was indispensable, and the matter was hotly disputed until the shades of evening fell, when the Signoria announced that the ordeal was abandoned, and the Franciscans withdrew, followed by the Dominicans. The crowd which had patiently waited through torrents of rain, and a storm in which the air seemed filled with howling demons, were enraged at the loss of the promised spectacle, and a heavy armed escort was necessary to convey the Dominicans in safety back to San Marco.

Had the matter been one with which reason had anything to do, we might perhaps wonder that it was regarded as a triumph for the Franciscans; but Savonarola had so confidently promised a miracle, and had been so implicitly believed by his followers, that they accepted the drawn battle as a defeat, and as a confession that he could not rely on the interposition of God. Their faith in their prophet was shaken, while the exultant Compagnacci lavished abuse on him, and they had not a word to utter in his defence.[241]

His enemies were prompt in following up their advantage. The next day was Palm Sunday. The streets were full of triumphant Arrabbiati, and such Piagnoni as showed themselves were pursued with jeers and pelted with stones. At vespers, the Dominican Mariano de’ Ughi attempted to preach in the Duomo, which was crowded, but the Compagnacci were there in force, interrupted the sermon, ordered the audience to disperse, and those who resisted were assailed and wounded. Then arose the cry, “To San Marco!” and the crowd hurried thither. Already the doors of the Dominican church had been surrounded by boys whose cries disturbed the service within, and who, when ordered to be silent, had replied with showers of stones which compelled the entrance to be closed. As the crowd surged around, the worshippers were glad to escape with their lives through the cloisters. Francesco Valori and Paolo Antonio Soderini were there in consultation with Savonarola. Soderini made good his exit from the city; Valori was seized while skirting the walls, and carried in front of his palace, which had already been attacked by the Compagnacci. Before his eyes, his wife, who was pleading with the assailants from a window, was slain with a missile, one of his children and a female servant were wounded, and the palace was sacked and burned, after which he was struck from behind and killed by his enemies of the families Tornabuoni and Ridolfi. Two other houses of Savonarola’s partisans were likewise pillaged and burned.[242]

In the midst of the uproar there came forth successive proclamations from the Signoria ordering Savonarola to quit the Florentine territories within twelve hours, and all laymen to leave the church of San Marco within one hour. Although these were followed by others threatening death to any one entering the church, they virtually legalized the riot, showing what had doubtless been the secret springs that set it in motion. The assault on San Marco then became a regular siege. Matters had for some time looked so threatening that during the past fortnight the friars had been secretly providing themselves with arms. These they and their friends used gallantly, even against the express commands of Savonarola, and a melée occurred in which more than a hundred on both sides were killed and wounded. At last the Signoria sent guards to capture Savonarola and his principal aids, Domenico and Salvestro, with a pledge that no harm should be done to them. Resistance ceased; the two former were found in the library, but Salvestro had hidden himself, and was not captured till the next day. The prisoners were ironed hand and foot and carried through the streets, where their guards could not protect them from kicks and buffets by the raging mob.[243]

The next day there was comparative quiet. The revolution in which the aristocracy had allied itself with the dangerous classes was complete. The Piagnoni were thoroughly cowed. Opprobrious epithets were freely lavished on Savonarola by the victors, and any one daring to utter a word in his defence would have been slain on the spot. To render the triumph permanent, however, it was necessary first to discredit him utterly with the people and then to despatch him. No time was lost in preparing to give a judicial appearance to the foregone conclusion. During the day a tribunal of seventeen members selected from among his special enemies, such as Doffo Spini, was nominated, which set promptly to work on April 10, although its formal commission, including power to use torture, was not made out until the 11th. Papal authority to disregard the clerical immunity of the prisoners was applied for, but the proceedings were not delayed by waiting for the answer, which, of course, was favorable, and two papal commissioners were adjoined to the tribunal. Savonarola and his companions, still ironed hand and foot, were carried to the Bargello. The official account states that he was first interrogated kindly, but as he would not confess he was threatened with torture, and this proving ineffectual he was subjected to three and a half tratti di fune.

This was a customary form of torture, known as the strappado, which consisted in tying the prisoner’s hands behind his back, then hoisting him by a rope fastened to his wrists, letting him drop from a height and arresting him with a jerk before his feet reached the floor. Sometimes heavy weights were attached to the feet to render the operation more severe. Officially it is stated that this first application was sufficient to lead him to confess freely, but the general belief at the time was that it was repeated with extreme severity.[244]

Be this as it may, Savonarola’s nervous organization was too sensitive for him to endure agony which he knew would be indefinitely prolonged by those determined to effect a predestined result. He entreated to be released from the torture and promised to reveal everything. His examination lasted until April 18, but even in his complying frame of mind the resultant confession required to be manipulated before it could be made public. For this infamous piece of work a fitting instrument was at hand. Ser Ceccone was an old partisan of the Medici whose life had been saved by Savonarola’s secretly giving him refuge in San Marco, and who now repaid the benefit by sacrificing his benefactor. As a notary he was familiar with such work, and under his skilful hands the incoherent answers of Savonarola were moulded into a narrative which is the most abject of self-accusations and most compromising to all his friends.[245]

He is made to represent himself as being from the first a conscious impostor, whose sole object was to gain power by deceiving the people. If his project of convoking a council had resulted in his being chosen pope he would not have refused the position, but if not he would at all events have become the foremost man in the world. For his own purposes he had arrayed the citizens against each other and caused a rupture between the city and the Holy See, striving to erect a government on the Venetian model, with Francesco Valori as perpetual doge. The animus of the trial is clearly revealed in the scant attention paid to his spiritual aberrations, which were the sole offences for which he could be convicted, and the immense detail devoted to his political activity, and to his relations with all obnoxious citizens whom it was desired to involve in his ruin. Had there been any pretence of observing ordinary judicial forms, the completeness with which he was represented as abasing himself would have overreached its purpose. In forcing him to confess that he was no prophet, and that he had always secretly believed the papal excommunication to be valid, he was relieved from the charge of persistent heresy, and he could legally be only sentenced to penance; but, as there was no intention of being restricted to legal rules, the first object was to discredit him with the people, after which he could be judicially murdered with impunity.[246]

The object was thoroughly attained. On April 19, in the great hall of the council, the confession was publicly read in the presence of all who might see fit to attend. The effect produced is well described by the honest Luca Landucci, who had been an earnest and devout, though timid, follower of Frà Girolamo, and who now grieved bitterly at the disappearance of his illusions, and at the shattering of the gorgeous day-dreams in which the disciples had nursed themselves. Deep was his anguish as he listened to the confession of one “whom we believed to be a prophet and who now confessed that he was no prophet, and that what he preached was not revealed to him by God. I was stupefied and my very soul was filled with grief to see the destruction of such an edifice, which crumbled because it was founded on a lie. I had expected to see Florence a new Jerusalem, whence should issue the laws and the splendor and the example of the holy life; to see the renovation of the Church, the conversion of the infidel, and the rejoicing of the good. I found the reverse of all this, and I swallowed the dose”—a natural enough metaphor, seeing that Landucci was an apothecary.[247]

Yet even with this the Signoria was not satisfied. On April 21 a new trial was ordered; Savonarola was tortured again, and further avowals of his political action were wrung from him,[248] while a general arrest was made of those who were compromised by his confessions, and those of Domenico and Salvestro, creating a terror so widespread that large numbers of his followers fled from the city. On the 27th the prisoners were taken to the Bargello and so tortured that during the whole of the afternoon their shrieks were heard by the passers-by, but nothing was wrung from them to incriminate Savonarola. The officials in power had but a short time for action, as their term of office ended with the month, although by arbitrary and illegal devices they secured successors of their own party. Their last official act, on the 30th, was the exile of ten of the accused citizens, and the imposition on twenty-three of various fines, amounting in all to twelve thousand florins.[249]

The new government which came in power May 1 at once discharged the imprisoned citizens, but kept Savonarola and his companions. These, as Dominicans, were not justiciable by the civil power, but the Signoria immediately applied to Alexander for authority to condemn and execute them. He refused, and ordered them to be delivered to him for judgment, as he had already done when the news reached him of Savonarola’s capture. To this the republic demurred, doubtless for the reason privately alleged to the ambassador, that Savonarola was privy to too many state secrets to be intrusted to the Roman curia; but it suggested that the pope might send commissioners to Florence to conduct the proceedings in his name. To this he assented. In a brief of May 11 the Bishop of Vaison, the suffragan of the Archbishop of Florence, is instructed to degrade the culprits from holy orders, at the requisition of the commissioners who had been empowered to conduct the examination and trial to final sentence. In the selection of these commissioners the Inquisition does not appear. Even had it not fallen too low in popular estimation to be intrusted with an affair of so much moment, in Tuscany it was Franciscan, and to have given special authority to the existing inquisitor, Frà Francesco da Montalcino, would have been injudicious in view of the part taken by the Franciscans in the downfall of Savonarola. Alexander showed his customary shrewdness in selecting for the miserable work the Dominican general, Giovacchino Torriani, who bore the reputation of a kind-hearted and humane man.

He was but a stalking-horse, however, for the real actor was his associate, Francesco Romolino, a clerk of Lerida, whose zeal in the infamous business was rewarded with the cardinalate and archbishopric of Palermo. After all, their duties were only ministerial and not judicial, for the matter had been prejudged at Rome. Romolino openly boasted, “We shall have a fine bonfire, for I bring the sentence with me,”[250]

The commissioners reached Florence May 19, and lost no time in accomplishing their object. The only result of the papal intervention was to subject the victims to a surplusage of agony and shame. For form’s sake, the papal judges could not accept the proceedings already had, but must inflict on Savonarola a third trial. Brought before Romolino on the 20th, he retracted his confession as extorted by torture, and asserted that he was an envoy of God. Under the inquisitorial formulas this retraction of confession rendered him a relapsed heretic, who could be burned without further ceremony, but his judges wanted to obtain information desired by Alexander, and again the sufferer was repeatedly subjected to the strappado, when he withdrew his retraction. Special inquiries were directed to ascertain whether the Cardinal of Naples had been privy to the design of convoking a general council, and under the stress of reiterated torture Savonarola was brought to admit this on the 21st, but on the 22d he withdrew the assertion, and the whole confession, although manipulated by the skilful hand of Ser Ceccone, was so nearly a repetition of the previous one that it was never given to the public. This mattered little, however, for the whole proceedings were a barefaced mockery of justice. From some oversight Domenico da Pescia’s name had not been included in the papal commission.

He was an individual of no personal importance, but some zealous Florentine warned Romolino that there might be danger in sparing him, when the commissioner carelessly replied “A frataccio more or less makes no difference,” and his name was added to the sentence. He was an impenitent heretic, for with heroic firmness he had borne the most excruciating torture without retracting his faith in his beloved prophet.[251]

The accused were at least spared the torment of suspense. On the 22d judgment was pronounced. They were condemned as heretics and schismatics, rebels from the Church, sowers of tares and revealers of confessions, and were sentenced to be abandoned to the secular arm. To justify relaxation, it was requisite that the culprit should be a relapsed or a defiant heretic, and Savonarola was not regarded as coming under either category. He had always declared his readiness to retract anything which Rome might define as erroneous. He had confessed all that had been required of him, nor was his retraction when removed from torture treated as a relapse, for he and his companions were admitted to communion before execution, without undergoing the ceremony of abjuration, which shows that they were not considered as heretics, nor cut off from the Church. In fact, as though to complete the irregularity of the whole transaction, Savonarola himself was allowed to act as the celebrant, and to perform the sacred mysteries on the morning of the execution. All this went for nothing, however, when a Borgia was eager for revenge. On the previous evening a great pile had been built in the piazza. The next morning, May 23, the ceremony of degradation from holy orders was performed in public, after which the convicts were handed over to the secular magistrates. Was it hypocrisy or remorse that led Romolino at this moment to give to his victims, in the name of Alexander, plenary indulgence of their sins, thus restoring them to a state of primal innocence?

The utmost care was taken that the bodies should be utterly consumed, after which every fragment of ashes was scrupulously gathered up and thrown into the Arno, in order to prevent the preservation of relics. Yet, at the risk of their lives, some earnest disciples secretly managed to secure a few floating coals, as well as some fragments of garments, which were treasured and venerated even to recent times. Though many of the believers, like honest Landucci, were disillusioned, many were persistent in the faith, and for a long while lived in the daily expectation of Savonarola’s advent, like a new Messiah, to work out the renovation of Christianity and the conversion of the infidel—the realization of the splendid promises with which he had beguiled himself and them. So profound and lasting was the impression made by his terrible fate that for more than two centuries, until 1703, the place of execution was secretly strewed with flowers on the night of the anniversary, May 23.[253]

The papal commissioners reaped a harvest by summoning to Rome the followers of Savonarola, and then speculating on their fears by selling them exemptions. Florence itself was not long in realizing the strength of the reaction against the puritanic methods which Savonarola had enforced. The streets again became filled with reckless desperadoes, quarrels and murders were frequent, gambling was unchecked, and license reigned supreme. Nardi tells us that it seemed as if decency and virtue had been prohibited by law, and the common remark was, that since the coming of Mahomet no such scandal had been inflicted upon the Church of God. As Landucci says, it seemed as if hell had broken loose. As though in very wantonness to show the Church what were the allies whom it had sought in the effort to crush unwelcome reform, on the following Christmas eve a horse was brought into the Duomo, and deliberately tortured to death, goats were let loose in San Marco, and in all the churches assafœtida was placed in the censers; nor does it seem that any punishment was visited upon the perpetrators of these public sacrileges. The Church had used the sceptics to gain her ends, and could not complain of the manner in which they repaid her for her assistance in the unholy alliance.[254]

Savonarola had built his house upon the sand, and was swept away by the waters. Yet, in spite of his execution as a heretic, the Church has tacitly confessed its own crime by admitting that he was no heretic, but rather a saint, and the most convenient evasion of responsibility was devoutly to refer the whole matter, as Luke Wadding does, to the mysterious judgment of God. Even Torriani and Romolino, after burning him, when they ordered, May 27, under pain of excommunication, all his writings to be delivered up to them for examination, were unable to discover any heretical opinions, and were obliged to return them without erasures. Perhaps it might have been as well to do this before condemning him. Paul III. declared that he would hold as a heretic any one who should assail the memory of Frà Girolamo; and Paul IV. had his works rigorously examined by a special congregation, which declared that they contained no heresy. Fifteen of his sermons, denunciatory of ecclesiastical abuses, and his treatise De Veritate Prophetica, were placed upon the index as unfitted for general reading, donec corrigantur, but not as heretical. Benedict XIV., in his great work, De Servorum Dei Beatificatione, includes Savonarola’s name in a list of the saints and men illustrious for sanctity. Images of him graced with the nimbus of sanctity were allowed to be publicly sold, and St. Filippo Neri kept one of these constantly by him. St. Francesco di Paola held him to be a saint. St.

Catarina Ricci used to invoke him as a saint, and considered his suffrage peculiarly efficacious; when she was canonized, her action with regard to this was brought before the consistory, and was thoroughly discussed. Prospero Lambertini, afterwards Benedict XIV., was the Promotor fidei, and investigated the matter carefully, coming to the conclusion that this in no degree detracted from the merits of St. Catarina. Benedict XIII. also examined the case thoroughly, and, dreading a renewal of the old controversy as to the justice of Savonarola’s sentence, ordered the discussion to cease and the proceedings to continue without reference to it, which was a virtual decision in favor of the martyr’s saintliness. In S. Maria Novella and S. Marco he is pictured as a saint, and in the frescos of the Vatican Raphael included him among the doctors of the Church. The Dominicans long cherished his memory, and were greatly disposed to regard him as a genuine prophet and uncanonized saint. When Clement VIII., in 1598, hoped to acquire Ferrara, he is said to have made a vow that if successful he would canonize Savonarola, and the hopes of the Dominicans grew so sanguine that they composed a litany for him in advance. In fact, in many of the Dominican convents of Italy during the sixteenth century, on the anniversary of his execution an office was sung to him as to a martyr.

His marvellous career thus furnishes the exact antithesis of that of his Ferrarese compatriot, Armanno Pongilupo—the one was venerated as a saint and then burned as a heretic, the other was burned as a heretic and then venerated as a saint.[255]