For there was another spirit, too, moving secretly through the ways of
the city, among the crowds that gathered round the Cantastoria of the
Mercato Vecchio, or mingled with the wild procession of the carnival, a
spirit not of life, but of denial, a little forgetful as yet that the
days of the Middle Age were over: and even as one day that joy in the
earth and the beauty of world was to pass almost into Paganism, so this
mysticism, that was at first like some marvellous fore-taste of heaven,
fell into just Puritanism, a brutal political and schismatic hatred in
the fanaticism of--let us be thankful for that--a foreigner. "If I am
deceived, Christ, thou hast deceived me," Savonarola will come to say;
and amid his cursing and prophecies it is perhaps difficult to catch the
words of Pico--"We may rather love God than either know Him or by speech
utter Him." But in Cosimo's day men had no fear, the day was at the
dawn: who could have thought by sunset life would be so disastrous?
[Illustration: CHIOSTRO DI S. MARCO]
Cosimo de' Medici had a villa near the convent of S. Domenico at
Fiesole, where, as it is said, he would often go when Careggi was too
far, and the summer had turned the city into a furnace. Here, as we may
think, he may well have talked with Fra Angelico, for he would often
walk in the cloisters in the evening with the friars, and must have seen
and praised the frescoes there. These Dominicans at Fiesole had already
sent a colony to Florence, for in June 1435 they had obtained from
Pope Eugenius iv, who was then at S. Maria Novella the little church of
S. Giorgio across Arno. Seeing the order and comeliness of that convent
at Fiesole, Cosimo, on behalf of the magistrates of Florence, presented
a petition to the Pope about this time, praying that since he was
engaged on a reform of the Religious Orders, which, partly owing to the
schism and partly to the plague, were much relaxed, he would suppress
the Sylvestrians who dwelt in the old convent of S. Marco, and give it
to the Dominicans of Fiesole, who in exchange would give up their
convent of S. Giorgio, for in the centre of the city numerous and
zealous ministers were needed. Eugenius very gladly agreed to this, and
in a Bull of January 1436, S. Marco was given to the Dominican
Friars.[97] So they came down from Fiesole in procession, and went
through the city accompanied by three bishops, all the clergy, and an
immense concourse of people, and Fra Cipriano took possession of S.
Marco "in the name of his congregation." The convent at this time would
seem to have been in a deplorable state: in the previous year a fire had
destroyed much of it, and the church even was without a roof, so that
the friars were obliged to build themselves wooden cells to live in, and
to roof the church with timber. When Cosimo heard this he prepared at
once to rebuild the convent, and sent Michelozzo to see what could be
done. Michelozzo first pulled down the old cloister, leaving only the
church and the refectory; and in 1437 began to build the beautiful
convent we see to-day, completing it in 1443, at a cost of 36,000
ducats. The church which was then restored has suffered many violations
since, and is very different to-day from what it was at the end of the
fifteenth century. It was consecrated in 1442, on the feast of the
Epiphany, by Pope Eugenius in the presence of his Cardinals. The
library, Vasari tells us, was built later. It was vaulted above and
below, and had sixty-four bookcases of cypress wood filled with most
valuable books, among them later the famous collection of Niccolò
Niccoli, whose debts Cosimo paid on condition that he might dispose
freely of his books, which were arranged here by Thomas of Sarzana,
afterwards Nicholas v. The convent thus completed is "believed to be,"
says Vasari, "the most perfectly arranged, the most beautiful and most
convenient building of its kind that can be found in Italy, thanks to
the skill and industry of Michelozzo."
Fra Angelico was nearly fifty years old when his Order took possession
of S. Marco. Already he had painted three choir books, which Cosimo so
loved that he wished nothing else to be used in the convent, for, as
Vasari tells us, their beauty was such that no words can do justice to
it. Born in 1387, he had entered the Order of S. Dominic in 1408 at
Fiesole. The convent into which he had come had only been founded in
1406, and as with S. Marco later, so with S. Domenico, many disputes as
to the property had to be encountered, so that he had early been a
traveller, going with the brethren to Foligno and later to Cortona,
returning to Fiesole in 1418. Who amid these misfortunes could have been
his master? It might seem that in the silence of the sunny cloister in
the long summer days of Umbria some angel passing up the long valleys
stayed for a moment beside him, so that for ever after he could not
forget that vision. And then, who knows what awaits even us too, in that
valley where Blessed Angela heard Christ say, "I love thee more than any
other woman in the valley of Spoleto"? It is certainly some divinity
that we find in those clouds of saints and angels, those marvellously
sweet Madonnas, those majestic and touching crucifixions, that with a
simplicity and sincerity beyond praise, Angelico has left up and down
Italy, and not least in the convent of S. Marco.
Yes, it is a divine world he has dreamed of, peopled by saints and
martyrs, where the flowers are quickly woven into crowns and the light
streams from the gates of Paradise, and every breeze whispers the sweet
sibilant name of Jesus, and there, on the bare but beautiful roads,
Christ meets His disciples, or at the convent gate welcomes a
traveller, and if He be not there He has but just passed by, and if He
has not just passed by He is to come. It is for Him the sun is darkened;
to lighten His footsteps the moon shall rise; because His love has
lightened the world men go happily, and because He is here the world is
a garden. In all that convent of S. Marco you cannot turn a corner but
Christ is awaiting you, or enter a room but His smile changes your
heart, or linger on the threshold but He bids you enter in, or eat at
midday but you see Him on the Cross, and hear, "Take, eat; this is My
Body, which was given for you."
You enter the cloister, and the first word is Silence; St. Peter Martyr,
with finger on lip, seems to utter the first indispensable word of the
heavenly life. The second you see over the door of the chapter-house,
Discipline and the denial of the body; St. Dominic with a scourge of
nine cords is about to give you the difficult book of heavenly wisdom.
The third is spoken by Christ Himself; Faith, for He points to the wound
in His side. And the fourth Christ speaks too, for none other may utter
it; Love, for as a pilgrim He is welcomed by two pilgrims, two Dominican
brothers, to their home. Pass into the Refectory and He is there; go
into the Capitolo and He is there also, the Prince of life between two
malefactors, hanging on a cross for love of the world, and in His face
all the beauty and sweetness of the earth have been gathered and purged
of their dross, and between His arms is the kingdom of Heaven. In that
room the name of Jesus continually vibrates with an intense and
passionate life, more wonderful, more beautiful, and more terrible than
the tremor of all the sea. And it has brought together in adoration not
the world, which cannot hear its music, but those who above the tumult
of their hearts have caught some faint far echo of that supernal concord
which has bound together this whispering universe: for there beneath the
Cross of Jesus are none but saints, Madonna and the two SS. Maries, St.
John the Baptist and St. John the Divine, and beside them kneel the
founders of the Religious Orders St. Dominic, the founder of the
preaching friars, St. Jerome the father of monasticism, St. Francis the
little poor man, St. Bernard who spoke with Madonna, S. Giovanni
Gualberto the founder of Vallombrosa, St. Peter Martyr who was wounded
for Christ's sake. Above him stands St. Thomas Aquinas the angelic
doctor, St. Romuald the founder of Camaldoli St. Benedict who overthrew
the temples, St. Augustine who has spoken of the City of God, S. Alberto
di Vercelli the founder of the Carmelites. And on the other side, beside
St. John Baptist, St. Mark the patron of the convent kneels with his
open Gospel, St. Laurence stands with his gridiron, and behind him come
the two other Medici saints, S. Cosmo and S. Damiano.
Pass into the dormitories, and in every cell you enter Jesus is there
before you; on the threshold the angel announces His advent, and little
by little, scene by scene, you are involved in the beauty and the
tragedy of His life. You see Him transfigured (No. 6), you see Him
buffeted (No. 7), you see Him rise from the tomb (No. 8), and you see
Him in glory crowning Madonna (No. 9), or as a youth presented in the
Temple (No. 11). Many times you come upon Him crucified (15-23), once
John baptizes Him in Jordan (24), or Madonna and St. John the Divine
weep over Him dead (26). Here He bears His Cross (28), there descends
into Hades (31), preaches to the people (32), is betrayed by Judas (33),
agonises in the Garden (34), gives us His Body to eat, His Blood to
drink (35), is nailed to the Cross (36); crucified (37), and again
adored as a Child by the Magi (38), speaks with Mary in the garden (1),
is buried (2); the angel announces His birth (3), He is crucified (4),
and born in Bethlehem (5). It is the rosary of Jesus that we tell,
consisting of the glorious and sorrowful mysteries of His life and
death. It is the spirit of Christianity that we see here, blossoming
everywhere, haphazard like the wild flowers that are the armies of
spring. As Benozzo Gozzoli has expressed with an immense good fortune,
the very spirit of the Renaissance at its birth almost, the spirit and
the joy of youth, so Angelico with as simple an eagerness and a more
sure sincerity has expressed here the very spirit of Christianity,--He
that loseth his life shall gain it: take no thought for your life.
[Illustration: THE CRUCIFIXION
_By Fra Angelica. S. Marco, Florence_
_Alinari_]
It was here, then, amid all this mystical and heavenly beauty, that
first S. Antonino and later Savonarola sought to oppose the "new
religion of love and beauty" which had already filled Florence with a
new joy. At first, certainly, that new joy seemed not unfriendly to the
mysterious and heavenly beauty of the Christian ideal. It is not till
later, when both have been a little spoiled by love, that there seems to
have been any antagonism between them. It is true that it was only with
reluctance that S. Antonino accepted the Arch-bishopric of Florence, but
this seems rather to have been owing to humility, the most beautiful
characteristic of a beautiful nature, than to any perception that he
might have to oppose that new spirit fostered so carefully, and indeed
so unwittingly, by Cosimo de' Medici, his benefactor. Born of Florentine
parents in 1389, the son of a notary, Antonino, at the age of sixteen,
had entered the convent of S. Domenico at Fiesole, not without a severe
test of his steadfastness, for Fra Domenico made him learn the whole of
Gratian's decree by heart before he would admit him to the Order. Later,
he became priest, wrote his _Summa Theologicae_, and was called by
Eugenius, who loved him, to the General Council in Florence in 1439;
while there he was made Prior of the Convent of S. Marco. Having set his
Congregation in order, and, as such a man was bound to do, endeared
himself to the Florentines, he set out for other convents, not in
Tuscany only, but in Naples, which needed his presence. He was absent
for two years. During that time the See of Florence became vacant, and
Eugenius, to the great joy of the city, appointed Antonino Archbishop.
Surprised and troubled that he should have been thought of for such a
dignity, he set out to hide himself in Sardinia, but, being prevented,
came at last to Siena, whence he wrote to the Pope begging him to change
his mind, saying that he was old, sick and unworthy. How little he knew
Eugenius, the on altogether inflexible will in all that time, so full of
trouble for the Church! The Pope sent him to S. Domenico at Fiesole and
told the Florentines their Archbishop was at their gates. So, with
Cosimo de' Medici at their head, they went out to meet him, but he
refused to enter the city till Eugenius threatened him with
excommunication. He was consecrated Archbishop of Florence in March 1446
borne in procession from S. Piero down Borgo degli Albizzi to the
Duomo.[98] As a boy, it is said, he would pray before the Madonna of Or
San Michele, and, indeed, in his Chronicle he defends his Order against
the charges of scepticism as to the miracles worked there, with a
certain eloquence. Many are the stories told of him, and Poccetti has
painted the story of his life round the first cloister of S. Marco,
where he was buried in May 1459. S. Antonino was a saint and a
theologian, not a politician or an historian. Certainly he did not
foresee the tragedy that was already opening, and that was to end, not
in the lenten fires of Piazza Signoria, nor even in the death of
Savonarola, but in the siege of Florence, the establishment of the House
of Medici, the tombs of S. Lorenzo. How often in those days Cosimo would
walk with him and Fra Angelico in the cloisters on a summer night, after
listening may be to Marsilio Ficino or to the vague and wonderful
promises of Argyropolis. "To serve God is to reign," Antonino told him,
not without a certain understanding of those restless ambitions which at
that time seemed to promise the city nothing but good. And then, was it
not Cosimo who had rebuilt the convent, was it not Cosimo who had built
S. Lorenzo and S. Spirito too, by the hand of Michelozzo?
Antonino was not a politician; the _Chronicon Domini Antonini
Archipraesulis Florentini_ is the work rather of a theologian than of an
historian: the friend of Leonardo Bruni, or at least well acquainted
with his work, he cared rather for charity than for learning; and it was
as the father of the poor that Florence loved him. He lived by love. An
in those days of uncertain fortune, amid the swift political changes of
the time, there were many whom, doubtless, he saved from degradation or
suicide. I poveri vergognosi--the poor who are ashamed, it was these he
first took under his protection. We read of him sending for twelve men
of all classes and various crafts, and, laying the case before them,
refounded a charity--_Provveditori dei poveri vergognosi_, which soon
became in the mouth of Florence _I Buonomini di S. Martino_, the good
men of S. Martin, for the society had its headquarters in the Church S.
Martino; and, was not S. Martino himself, as it were, the first of this
company?
Born in Ferrara in 1452, the grandson of a famous doctor of Padua,
Girolamo Savonarola had entered the Dominican Order at Bologna when he
was twenty-two years old, finding the world but a wretched place, and
the wickedness of men more than he could bear. Something of this strange
and almost passionate pessimism remained with him his whole life long.
In 1481 he had been sent to the convent of S. Marco, in Florence, when
Lorenzo de' Medici had been at the head of affairs for some twelve
years. The Pazzi conspiracy, in which Giuliano de' Medici lost his life,
had come in 1478, and Lorenzo was fixed more firmly than ever in the
affections of the people. Simonetta had been borne like a dead goddess
through the streets of the city to burial; Lorenzo was already busy with
those carnival songs which, as some thought, were written to corrupt the
people: the Renaissance had come. "Gladius Domini super terram cite et
velociter," thought Savonarola, unable to understand that life from
which he had fled into the cloister. It was the first voice that had
been raised against the resurrection of the Gods, but at that moment
Martin Luther was lying in his mother's arms, while his father worked in
the mines at Eisleben: the Reaction was already born.
On a Latin city such as Florence was, Savonarola at first made little or
no impression; too often the friars had prophesied evil for no cause,
wandering through every little city in Italy denouncing the Signori. It
was in San Gemignano, even to-day the most medieval of Tuscan cities, a
place of towers and winding narrow ways, that Savonarola first won a
hearing; and so it was not till nine years after his first coming to her
that Florence seems to have listened to his prophecy, when, in August
1490, in S. Marco he began to preach on the Revelation of St. John the
Divine. It was a programme half political, half spiritual, that he
suggested to those who heard him, the reformation of the Church and the
fear of a God who had been forgotten but who would not forget. In the
spring of the year following, so great were the crowds who flocked to
hear his half-political discourses that he had to preach in the Duomo.
There unmistakably we are face to face with a political agitator. "God
intends to punish Lorenzo Magnifico,--yes, and his friends too"; and
when, a little later, he was made prior of S. Marco, he refused to
receive Lorenzo in the house his grandfather had built. In the following
year Lorenzo died; Savonarola, as the tale goes, refusing him absolution
unless he would restore liberty to the people of Florence. Consider the
position. How could Lorenzo restore that which he had never stolen away,
that which had, in truth, never had any real existence? He was without
office, without any technical right to government, merely the first
among the citizens of what, in name at least, was a Republic. If he was
a tyrant, he ruled by the will of the people, not by divine right, a
thing unknown among the Signori of Italy, nor by the will of the Pope,
nor by the will of the Emperor, but by the will of Florence. Yet
Savonarola, the Ferrarese, whether or no he refused him absolution, did
not hesitate to denounce him, with a wild flood of eloquence and fanatic
prophecy worthy of the eleventh century. "Leave the future alone,"
Lorenzo had counselled him kindly enough: it was just that he could not
do, since for him the present was too disastrous. And the future?--the
future was big with Charles VIII and his carnival army, gay with
prostitutes, bright with favours, and behind him loomed the fires of
Piazza della Signoria.
The peace of Italy is dead, the Pope told his Cardinals, when in the
spring of 1492 Lorenzo passed away at Careggi It was true. In September
1494, Charles VIII, on his way to Naples, came into Italy, was received
by Ludovico of Milan at Asti, while his Switzers sacked Rapallo. Was
this, then, the saviour of Savonarola's dreams? "It is the Lord who is
leading those armies," was the friar's announcement. Amid all the horror
that followed, it is not Savonarola that we see to-day as the hero of a
situation he had himself helped to create, but Piero Capponi, who, Piero
de' Medici having surrendered Pietrasanta and Sarzana, stood for the
Republic. On 9th November Piero and Giuliano his brother fled out of
Porta di S. Gallo, while Savonarola with other ambassadors went to meet
the King. A few days later, on 17th November 1494, at about four o'clock
in the afternoon, Pisa in the meantime having revolted, Charles entered
Florence[99] with Cardinal della Rovere, the soldier and future Pope,
and in his train came the splendour and chivalry of France, the Scotch
bowmen, the Gascons, and the Swiss. "Viva la Francia!" cried the people,
and Charles entered the Duomo at six o'clock in the evening, down a lane
of torches to the high altar. And coming out he was conducted to the
house of Piero de' Medici, the people crying still all the time "Viva la
Francia!" The days passed in feasting and splendour, Charles began to
talk of restoring the Medici, nor were riots infrequent in Borgo
Ognissanti; in Borgo S. Frediano the Switzers and French pillaged and
massacred, and were slain too in return. Florence, always ready for
street fighting, was, as we may think, too much for the barbarians. On
24th November the treaty was signed, an indemnity being paid by the
city, but the rioting did not cease. Landucci gives a very vivid account
of it. Even the King himself was not slow to pillage: he was
discontented with the indemnity offered, and threatened to loot the
city. "_Io farò dare nelle trombe_," said he; Piero Capponi was not slow
to answer, "_E noi faremo dare nello campane_"--and we will sound our
bells. The King gave in, and Florence was saved. On 26th November he
heard Mass for the last time in S. Maria del Fiore, and on the 28th he
departed--_si partì el Re di Firenze dopo desinare, e andò albergo alla
Certosa e tutta sua gente gli andò dietro e innanzi, che poche ce ne
rimase_, says Landucci thankfully.
Then the city, free from this rascal, who carried off what he could of
the treasures of Cosimo and Lorenzo, turned not to Piero Capponi but to
another foreigner, Girolamo Savonarola. The political eagerness of this
friar now came to the point of action. He set up a Greater Council,
which in its turn elected a Council of Eighty; he refused to call a
parliament, since he told them that "parliament had ever stolen the
sovereignty from the people." Then, on the 1st of April, he said that
the Virgin Mary had revealed to him that the city would be more
glorious, rich, and powerful than ever before, and, as Landucci says,
"_La maggiore parte del popolo gli credeva."_ He also said that the
Greater Council was the creation of God, and that whoever should attempt
to change it would be eternally damned. Nor was this all. If it were
right and splendid for Florence to be free, free as she always had been
from the domination of any other city, so it was for revolted Pisa. Yet
this fanatic Ferrarese told the people that he had had a vision in which
the Blessed Virgin had told him that Florence should make treaty with
France, and thus regain Pisa. This was on the return of the King from
Naples with Piero de' Medici in his train. However, he met the King at
Poggibonsi, told him Florence was his friend, that God desired him to
spare it, and with other tales succeeded in keeping Charles out of the
city. This, as it seems to me, is the one good deed Savonarola did for
Florence.
But the people still believed in him, though he turned the whole life of
the city into a sort of religious carnival. Now, if Lorenzo had kept the
people quiet with songs, Savonarola was equally successful with hymns.
"Viva Cristo e la Vergine Maria, nostra regina," shouted the
people,--merchants, friars, women, and children dancing before the
crucifix with olive boughs in their hands. "On 27th March 1496, which
was Palm Sunday, Fra Girolamo made a procession of children with olive
branches in their hands and crowns of olive on their heads and all
bore, too, a red cross. There were some five thousand boys, and a great
number of girls all dressed in white, then after came all the Ufici, and
all the guilds, and then all the men, and after all the women of the
city. There never was so great a procession," says Landucci. Indeed,
there was not a man nor a woman who did not join the company. "It was a
holy time, but it was short," says Landucci again, whose own children
were among "these holy and blessed companies."
Short indeed! The Italian League had been formed against France; only
Florence and Ferrara remained outside. If it were politics that had
taken Savonarola so high, it was to them he owed his fall. He denounced
all Italy, and not least Alexander VI, the vicious but very capable
Pope. When he began to denounce Rome he signed his own death; her hour
was not yet come. "I announce to you, Italy and Rome, the Lord will come
out of His place.... I tell you, Italy and Rome, the Lord will tread you
down. I have commanded penance, yet you are worse and worse.... Soon all
priests, friars, bishops, cardinals, and great masters shall be trampled
down." It was a brave denunciation, and if it were unjust, what was
justice to one who had made Jesus King of Florence and established
himself as His Vicegerent.
The Pope excommunicated him: the factions in Florence--the Arrabbiati,
the Compagnacci, the Palleschi--rejoiced; yet the people he had led so
long seemed inclined to support him. Then came the plague, and then the
discovery of a plot to bring back Piero. Well, Savonarola began to
preach again; but he was beaten. Many would not go to hear him, of whom
Landucci was one, because of the excommunication.[100] And at last
Savonarola himself seems to have seen the end. "If I am deceived, Christ
Thou hast deceived me," he says and at last he challenged the fire to
prove it. It was too much for the Signoria; they agreed. It was the
Franciscans he had to meet; whether or no they meant to persist with the
"trial by fire" we shall never know, but when, on 7th April 1498, the
fire was lighted in Piazza della Signoria, it was Savonarola who
refused. A few minutes later, amid the uproar, a deluge of rain put out
the flames. Savonarola's last chance was gone. The people hounded him
back to S. Marco, and but for the Guards of the Signoria he would have
been torn in pieces. On 8th April, which was Palm Sunday, in the
evening, the attack that had been threatening all day began: through the
church, through the cloisters the fight raged, while the whole city was
in the streets. At last Savonarola and Fra Domenico, his friend, gave
themselves up to the guard, really for protection, and were lodged in
Palazzo Vecchio. There the Signoria tortured them, with another friar,
Silvestro, and at last from Savonarola even they seem to have dragged
some sort of admission. What such a confession was worth, drawn from the
poor mangled body of a broken man, one can well imagine; but that
mattered nothing to the wild beasts he had taught to roar, who now had
him at their mercy. The effect of this on the city seems to have been
very great. "We had thought him to be a prophet," writes Luca Landucci
simply, "and he confessed he was not a prophet, that he had not from God
the things he preached.... And I was by when this was read, and I was
astonished, bewildered, amazed.... Ah, I expected Florence to be, as it
were, a New Jerusalem, ... and I heard the very contrary."
The Signoria which tortured Savonarola was presently replaced by
another; and though, like its predecessor, it too refused to send him to
Rome, it went about to compass his death. Again they tortured him; then
on the 23rd May, the gallows having been built over night in the Piazza,
they killed him with his companions, afterwards burning their bodies.
"They wish to crucify them,"[101] cried one in the crowd; and indeed,
the scaffold seems to have resembled a cross. Was it Florence herself
perhaps who hung there?