Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/250

210 remained in his old home. In 1496, Michelangelo addressed a letter from Rome to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco, the only Medici who dared remain in Florence, under cover to Botticelli, bearing the piagnone motto—Christus! And in 1498, the year of Savonarola's execution, Sandro and his brother Simone, we learn from the registers, were living together in the Via Nuova, and owned a farm and vineyard outside the Porta San Frediano. Simone, who had lately returned from Naples, was a zealous piagnone, who was present at the trial by fire, and left a curious chronicle of contemporary events which has been lately discovered in the Vatican. One incident which he records is that of a conversation held on the evening of All Souls, 1499, in Sandro's workshop, which he describes as being at that time an Academy of unemployed painters, who met there often and disputed much about Savonarola. That evening as they gathered round the fire, about eight o'clock, and argued after their wont, Sandro solemnly adjured Doffo Spini, a leading partisan of the Medici, who had been present at Fra Girolamo's trial, to tell him what they found in the saintly man to deserve so vile an end. Doffo replied: "Sandro, must I speak the truth? We never found in him any venial sin, much less any mortal sin." Then Sandro asked: "Why did you make him die so vilely?" And Doffo replied: "It was not I, but Benozzo Federighi who was the cause of the prophet's death. But in truth, if he had been set free and sent back to San Marco, the people would have sacked our houses and cut us all to pieces."

This curious narrative throws light on two of