Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 08.djvu/308

LEFT SAVONABOLA 262 SAVONAROLA first tinged with religious asceticism, and in 1474 he formally withdrew from secu- lar affairs and entered the Dominican Or- der at Bologna. Having completed his novitiate and the studies of the order, he seems to have made his first public ap- pearance as a preacher in 1482, at Flor- ence, where he had entered the celebrated convent of his order, San Marco, and where he preached the Lent in that year. His first trial, however, was a failure. His voice was harsh and he failed to in- terest. He was later sent to a convent in Brescia, where his zeal began to attract notice, and the disadvantages of manner and address ceased to be felt under the influence of his sterling genius and irre- sistible enthusiasm. In 1489 he was once more recalled to the convent of San Marco in Florence. His second appearance in the pulpit of San Marco was a complete success. The great subject of his declamation was the sinfulness and apostasy of the time and denunciation of the vices and crimes of his age. Under the rule of the great head of the Medici family, Lorenzo the Magnifi- cent, art, literature, and philosophy had all followed the common direction of that elegant but semi-pagan revival which the scholars of the 15th century had inaugu- rated; and the whole spirit of the social as well as intellectual movement of which Florence, under the Medici, was the cen- ter, was utterly at variance with the lofty Christian spirituality and severe asceti- cism in which Savonarola placed the very first conditions of the restoration of true religion and morality. His preaching, therefore, in its spirit, as well as in its direct allusions, was no less antagonistic to the established system of the govern- ment than to the worldly and irreligious manners of the age. Up to this time Savonarola's relations with the Church were, if not of harmony, at least not of antagonism; and when, in the year 1493, a reform of the Dominican Order in Tuscany was proposed under his auspices, it was approved by the Pope, and Savonarola was named the first vicar- general. About this date, however, his preaching had assumed a directly politi- cal character, and the predictions and de- nunciations which formed the staple of many of his discourses pointed plainly to a political revolution in Florence and in Italy as the divinely ordained means for the regeneration of religion and morality. In one of his discourses he pointed plainly to the advent of the French under Charles VIII.; and when this prediction was ful- filled by the triumphant appearance of the French expedition, Savonarola was one of a deputation of Florentines sent to welcome Charles VIII. as the savior of Italy, and to invite him to Florence. Very soon, however, the French were compelled to leave Florence, and a republic was es- tablished, of which Savonarola became, though without political functions, the guiding and animating spirit, his party, who were popularly called Piagnoni, or "Weepers," from the penitential character which they professed, being completely in the ascendant. It was during this brief tenure of in- fluence that Savonarola displayed to the fullest extent both the extraordinary pow- ers of his genius and the full extrava- gance of the theories to which his en- thusiastic asceticism impelled him. The republic of Florence was to be the model of a Christian commonwealth, of which God Himself was the chief ruler, and His Gospel the sovereign law; and thus the most stringent enactments were made for the repression of vice, and of all the sinful follies by which it is fomented and main- tained. The extremes of his rigorism; the vio- lence of his denunciations, which did not spare even the Pope himself (Alexander VI.) ; the assumption by him, or attribu- tion to him, of a supernatural gift of prophecy; and the extravagant interpre- tation of the Scriptures, and especially of the Apocalypse, by which he sought to maintain his views, drew on him the dis- pleasure of Rome. He was cited, in the year 1495, to answer a charge of heresy at Rome; and, on his failing to appear, he was forbidden to preach; the brief by which the Florentine branch of his order had been made independent was revoked ; he was offered a cardinal's hat on condi- tion of his changing his style of preach- ing — an offer he indignantly refused ; and he was again forbidden to preach. Once again Savonarola disregarded this order. But his difficulties at home now began to deepen. The measures of the new repub- lic proved impracticable. The party of the Medici, called "Arrabbiati" ("En- raged"), began to recover ground. A conspiracy for the recall of the exiled house was formed; and though, for the time, it failed of success, and five of the conspirators were condemned and execut- ed, yet this very rigor served to hasten the reaction. At the critical point of the struggle of parties came, in 1497, a sentence of ex- communication from Rome against Savo- narola. Savonarola openly declared the censure invalid, because unjust, and re- fused to hold himself bound by it. Dur- ing the plague Savonarola, precluded by the excommunication from administering the sacred offices, devoted himself zeal- ously to ministering to the sick monks. A second "bonfire of vanities" in 1498 led to riots. In the same year, when the new elections took place, the party opposed to