Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/229

 SAVONAROLA. 213 gaws and vanities of female attire, the mirrors, the musical instru- ments, the books of divination, astrology, and magic, which went to make up the total. We can understand the sacrifice of copies of Boccaccio, but Petrarch might have escaped even Savonarola's severity of virtue. In this ruthless auto defe, the value of the objects was such that a Venetian merchant offered the Signoria twenty thousand scudi for them, which was answered by taking the would-be chapman's portrait and placing it on top of the pyre. We cannot wonder that the pile had to be surrounded the night before by armed guards to prevent the tiepidi from robbing it.* Had Savonarola's lot been cast under the rigid institutions of feudalism he would probably have exercised a more lasting influ- ence on the moral and religious character of the age. It was his misfortune that in a republic such as Florence the temptation to take part in politics was irresistible. We cannot wonder that he eagerly embraced what seemed to be an opportunity of regener- ating a powerful state, through which he might not unreasonably hope to influence all Italy, and thus effect a reform in Church and State which would renovate Christendom. This, as he was assured by the prophetic voice within him, would be followed by the con- version of the infidel, and the reign of Christian charity and love would commence throughout the world. Misled by these dazzling day-dreams, he had no scruple in making a practical use of the almost boundless influence which he had acquired over the populace of Florence. His teachings led to the revolution which in 1494 expelled the Medici, and he humanely averted the pitiless bloodshed which commonly accompanied such movements in the Italian cities. During the Neapolitan expedi- tion of Charles VIII., in 1494, he did much to cement the alliance of the republic with that monarch, whom he regarded as the instrument destined by God to bring about the reform of Italy. In the reconstruction of the republic in the same year he had, per- haps, more to do than any one else, both in framing its structure and dictating its laws ; and when he induced the people to pro- claim Jesus Christ as the King of Florence, he perhaps himself hardly recognized how, as the mouthpiece of God, he was inevi- tably assuming the position of a dictator. It was not only in the
 * Landucci, p. 163.— Burlamacchi, pp. 558-9.— Nardi, Lib. n. pp. 56-7.