Savonarola, the Republic, and the Fall of the Medici in Florence

The Prophet

The advantage of hereditary government is its continuity; and the price it pays is the accession to power of mediocre and colorless individuals. Piero di Lorenzo inherited his father's power without difficulty, but his personality and poor judgment undermined the popularity upon which the Medici family's rule was based. Piero was by nature of a harsh temperament, of average mind, of unstable will, and of commendable intentions. He continued Lorenzo's generosity toward artists and men of letters, but his insight and discernment were less than his father's. He had a strong physique, excelled in athletic contests, and when placed at the head of a shaky government, participated more frequently and openly in sports than Florence deemed reasonable.

Among his misfortunes was the fact that Lorenzo's transactions and extravagances had emptied the city's treasury; competition from English textile factories had caused an economic slump in Florence; Piero's wife, from the Orsini family, looked upon the Florentines with contempt as a nation of shopkeepers; the collateral branch of the Medici family descending from Lorenzo the Elder, brother of Cosimo, now quarreled with Cosimo's descendants and, in the name of supporting liberty, led an opposition party against them. What completed Piero's misfortune was that he was contemporary with Charles VIII, King of France—who invaded Italy—and with Savonarola—who proposed that the rule of Jesus Christ should replace the Medici family. Piero was not made to endure so many problems.

The Savonarola family came to Ferrara around 1440 when Niccolò III d'Este invited Michele Savonarola to become his court physician. He was a pious man—an uncommon trait in a physician. He generally reproached the people of Ferrara for preferring love stories to religious matters. His son Niccolò was also a mediocre physician, but his wife Elena Bonacossi was a woman of strong character and lofty ideals. Girolamo was the third of their seven children. He too was assigned to the study of medicine, but the works and thoughts of Thomas Aquinas seemed more interesting to him than anatomy, and he found solitude with his books more pleasant than the sports of youth.

At the University of Bologna he was horrified that he saw no student so poor as to be bound by moral virtues, and he wrote that “here, for a man to be considered a man, he must pollute his tongue with the filthiest, most savage, and most terrifying blasphemous words. ... If he devotes himself to the study of philosophy and the fine arts, he will be called a dreamer; if he lives with chastity and humility, a fool; if he is pious, a hypocrite; and if he believes in God, a madman.” He left the university and returned to his mother and solitude. He knew himself and suffered in contemplating hell and the sins of men. His first known work was a poem in which he reproached the wicked people of Italy, including the popes, and bound himself with an oath to reform his country and his church.

He spent long hours in prayer and fasted with such zeal and fervor that his father and mother were always in fear of his weakness and frailty. In 1474 the Lenten sermons of Fra Michele encouraged him to even stricter asceticism and devotion, and when he saw that many people of Ferrara brought masks, false hair, playing cards, obscene pictures, and other worldly instruments to throw them on a blazing pile of wood in the city market, he rejoiced. The following year, at the age of thirty-three, he secretly fled from home and joined the Dominican friars in Bologna.

He wrote an affectionate letter to his father and mother asking their forgiveness for having disappointed them, failed to fulfill their expectations, and made no progress in the world. When his parents urgently begged him to return, he replied angrily: “O blind ones, why do you continue to weep and lament? You hinder me from my path, whereas you should be glad ... If you continue to weep, what can I say except that you are my sworn enemies and opponents of virtue? If so, I tell you to leave me alone; all your actions are devilish!” Savonarola spent six years in the Bologna monastery, proudly requesting that the lowliest tasks be assigned to him; the monastery recognized his genius as a preacher and entrusted him with the work of preaching and oratory. In 1481 he was transferred to the monastery of San Marco in Florence and commissioned to preach in the church of San Lorenzo. The people did not welcome his sermons, for his words were too dry and theological for a city accustomed to the eloquence and rhetoric of the humanists; his preaching sessions declined in attendance week by week, and the prior of the monastery assigned him to teach those newly converted to the faith.

It was probably during the next five years that his final personality took shape. The more his emotions and ideals surged, the more they appeared in his face: a furrowed and wrinkled forehead, thick lips firmly pressed together, a large nose with such a curve that it seemed to want to encompass the world, a gloomy and serious face expressing the power to accept infinite love and hatred; and a small, compact body containing dreamy imaginations, frustrated inspirations, and inner turmoil. He wrote to his father and mother: “I too am still only a handful of flesh and bone like you, and my feelings disobey reason. Therefore I must make a hard effort so that the devil does not dominate me.” He fasted and practiced mortification to tame what he believed were the corrupting temptations inherent in human nature. If he considered the promptings of the self and pride as devilish voices, then he could just as easily hear the warnings of a purer existence. He would sit alone in his cell and, by contemplating his own being as a battlefield of spirits flying above his head for pure intentions, give glory to his solitude. Finally the idea came to him that the archangels spoke to him. He accepted their words as divine revelation and suddenly spoke to the people of the world like a prophet chosen as God's messenger. He eagerly immersed himself in the revelations attributed to the Apostle John and became heir to the eschatological theories of the visionary Joachim of Fiore. Like Joachim he declared that the reign of the Antichrist had appeared; Satan had the world in his grasp; Christ would soon appear and begin his earthly rule; and divine vengeance would seize the tyrants, fornicators, and atheists who apparently dominated Italy.

When the prior of the monastery sent Savonarola to preach in Lombardy (1486), he set aside the didactic style of his youth and in his sermons turned to denouncing moral corruption, prophesying the day of resurrection, and calling for repentance and contrition. Thousands of people who could not accept his earlier discussions now listened with fear and awe to the eloquent, fresh, and stirring words of a man who seemed to speak with the power of the prophets. Pico della Mirandola heard reports of this friar's success; he asked Lorenzo to suggest to the prior of the monastery that Savonarola be brought back to Florence. Savonarola returned to Florence (1490), two years later was elected prior of San Marco, and Lorenzo saw in his face the image of an enemy more insolent and powerful than any other foe who had appeared in his life.

The people of Florence were astonished to see that this dark-skinned preacher, who ten years earlier had bored them with his discussions, could now terrify them with his visions filled with dreadful revelations, and with his exciting description of paganism, corruption, and moral decay could elevate their souls with repentance and sublime hope, and revive that absolute faith that had inspired and terrified them in their youth.

O women who pride yourselves on your adornment, your hair, and your hands, I tell you that you are all ugly. Do you want to see true beauty? Look at a pious man or woman in whom the spirit dominates the body; when he prays, when the ray of divine beauty shines upon him, and when his prayer ends, look at him; you will see the radiance of divine beauty in his face, and you will gaze upon his countenance as upon the face of an angel.

The people marveled at his courage, for he criticized the clergy and popes more than the laity, and princes more than common people, and his allusions to radical political theories warmed the hearts of the poor:

In this age, no grace or gift of the Holy Spirit remains that is not bought and sold. On the other hand, the poor suffer under the heavy burden of oppression and tyranny; and while sums beyond their means are demanded from them, the rich cry out over them: “Give me the rest.” Those whose income is fifty (florins a year) pay taxes equivalent to the income of one hundred florins, whereas the rich pay only a small tax, for the tax laws have been made in their favor. Think well, O rich, for calamity awaits you. This is no longer called Florence; here is the lair of thieves, scoundrels, and murderers. Then you will all be afflicted with poverty and misery ... and your name, O priests, will turn to terror.

After the priests came the bankers:

You have found many ways to accumulate wealth, and the business of exchange, which you call legitimate, is the most unjust of trades, and you have corrupted the city's officials and judges. No one can convince you that usury (discounting) is a sin; you defend it even at the cost of your life. No one is ashamed of usury; no, those who do otherwise seem fools to you. ... Your faces are like the faces of harlots, and you do not blush with shame. You say that happy and blessed life lies in profit; but Jesus Christ says that the poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

And a word to Lorenzo:

Tyrannical rulers are incorrigible because they are proud, because they love flattery, and because they do not turn away from ill-gotten gains. ... They do not listen to the voice of the poor, nor do they condemn the rich. ... They corrupt voters and impose taxes to make the burden on the people heavier. ... The tyrannical ruler is accustomed to occupying the minds of the people with spectacles and festivals, with the intention of keeping them busy thinking about their own amusement instead of reflecting on his actions, and when they have grown unfamiliar with the public interest, his rule will remain in his hands.

And such a dictatorial government cannot justify its actions on the claim of financial assistance to promote literature and art. Savonarola said that literature and art are manifestations of irreligion; the humanists only pretend to be Christians; those ancient writers whose works they discover and edit with great effort and praise are alien to Christ and the virtues of Christianity, and their art is the worship of the gods of pagan times or the shameless display of nude women and men.

Lorenzo became alarmed. His grandfather had founded and enriched the monastery of San Marco, and he himself had not stinted in his donations to it. Now it seemed unreasonable to him that a friar who had little knowledge of the problems of statecraft—and who harbored the idea of a kind of liberty according to which the strong could not bring the weak into their service without any legal obstacle—should undermine from a family shrine of the Medici the foundations of the people's support for his family's political power. At first he tried to calm the friar with moderation; he attended mass at the monastery of San Marco and sent valuable gifts to the monastery. Savonarola mocked him and in the next sermon declared that a faithful dog does not stop barking in defense of its master because of a bone thrown before it. When a large sum of gold was found in the alms box of the monastery, believing it had been donated by Lorenzo, he gave it to another monastery and said that silver was sufficient to meet the needs of his brothers. Lorenzo sent five leading personalities of Florence to him to prove that his seditious sermons might lead to fruitless violence and disturb the order and peace of Florence. Savonarola replied that they should suggest to Lorenzo that he repent of his sins. A friar of the Franciscan order, famous for his eloquence, was urged to deliver popular sermons and disperse the people from the Dominican friar's preaching sessions. This action also failed; instead, larger groups turned to San Marco, so that the church no longer had room. In 1491 Savonarola was forced to use the pulpit of the cathedral for the Lenten sermons, and although the building of this church was constructed to hold all the people of the city, whenever Savonarola preached there it was filled with crowds. The ailing Lorenzo no longer tried to stop Savonarola's preaching.

After Lorenzo's death, the weakness of his son Piero caused Savonarola to become the most powerful personality in Florence. With the reluctant consent of the new pope, Alexander VI, Savonarola separated his monastery from the Lombard Congregation (the community of Dominican monasteries) of which it was a part and effectively took independent leadership of his own religious community. He carried out reforms in the monastery's regulations and raised the moral and intellectual level of the friars. Then new followers joined their community, and most of its 250 members developed such love and loyalty toward him that they followed him unquestioningly in all matters except that final ordeal. Savonarola became bolder in his criticism of the laity and the moral corruption of the clergy of that day. He, who had unconsciously inherited the anti-clerical theories of the heretical Waldensian and Patarine sects still lurking in corners of northern Italy and central Europe, condemned the worldly wealth of the clergy and the pomp of church ceremonies and “the great prelates with their magnificent miters made of gold and precious stones ... and beautiful robes and gold-embroidered bands.” He compared this luxury and extravagance with the simplicity of the priests of the early Church and said: “They had fewer golden crowns and chalices, for the few chalices they had they broke and cut into pieces to meet the needs of the poor; whereas our bishops, in order to obtain chalices of wine, even rob the only means of livelihood of the poor.” In addition to these criticisms, Savonarola also predicted their grim fate. He had prophesied that Lorenzo and Pope Innocent VIII would die in 1492—and so they did. Now he also prophesied that the sinners of Italy, the tyrannical rulers, and the clergy of this country would pay the penalty for their sins with a terrible catastrophe; and afterward Christ would lead the nation toward glorious reforms; and he himself, Savonarola, would die an unnatural death. In early 1494 he prophesied that Charles VIII would invade Italy, and he welcomed this invasion as a divine punishment that would cleanse impurities. His sermons, according to one of his contemporaries, were at this time “so filled with terror and warning and lamentation and wailing that those who heard his words wandered about the city speechless and half-dead, as it were.”

The Statesman

On December 2, 1494, the people of the city were summoned by the great bell of the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio to a “parlamento.” The president of the city council sought and obtained permission to appoint a committee of twenty to nominate a new president of the council and other new officials for a one-year term, and all government offices were to be assigned by lot to those chosen by the vote of nearly three thousand men entitled to vote. These twenty removed the members of the council and the representatives who had been responsible for government affairs during the Medici regime and divided the various duties among themselves. But because they lacked sufficient experience in the duties they had assumed and family rivalries also disrupted their work, the new governmental machinery disintegrated and anarchy threatened to bring the city to collapse; commercial and industrial activities declined, people were dismissed from work, and angry crowds gathered in the streets. Piero Capponi persuaded the committee of twenty that only by inviting Savonarola and consulting him could they restore calm to the city.

The friar summoned them to his monastery and presented a comprehensive program for establishing political, economic, and moral laws. The committee of twenty, under his leadership and that of Piero Soderini, drafted a new constitution for Florence that was partly based on the law that had successfully given stability to Venice. It was then decreed that a Great Council, composed of those who themselves or whose ancestors in the past three generations had held important offices in the government, should be formed; and these principal members would each year elect twenty-eight additional advisory members. The executive organs of government remained as in the time of the Medici family: a council composed of eight leaders and a Gonfaloniere, elected by the Great Council for a two-month term, and various other committees—of sixteen, ten, and eight—for administrative, tax, and war affairs. Complete democracy, given its impracticality in a society where most individuals were still illiterate and captive to surges of passion and emotion, was postponed; but the “Great Council” with about three thousand members remained as a representative body. Since none of the rooms in the Palazzo Vecchio could accommodate such a large assembly, Simone Pollaiuolo—il Cronaca—was commissioned to redesign and build part of the interior of the building as the “Hall of the Five Hundred,” so that groups of council members could meet there each time. It was here that, eight years later, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were commissioned to compete with each other by painting famous murals on two opposite walls. The proposed constitution, thanks to Savonarola's influence and eloquence, met with warm popular approval, and the new republic began to function on June 10, 1495.

The new republic began with a general amnesty for all supporters of the fallen Medici regime and, with generosity, abolished all taxes except a ten percent tax on income from real estate and land; thus the merchants who dominated the council exempted trade from taxation and placed the tax burden exclusively on the shoulders of the landed nobility and the impoverished peasants who cultivated the land. At Savonarola's insistence, the government established an organization for granting state loans at five to seven percent interest, freeing the poor from dependence on private moneylenders who charged up to thirty percent interest on money. Also, at the suggestion of this same friar, the council attempted to enact laws for the moral purification of the public. Horse races, unseemly carnival songs, disrespect for religious sanctities, and gambling were prohibited. Servants were encouraged to report if their employers gambled, and offenders were punished with torture. The tongues of blasphemers were pierced, and sodomites were punished with ruthless penalties. To help advance these reforms, Savonarola organized the youth of his community as a moral police force. These youths pledged to attend church regularly, to avoid races, spectacles, acrobatic games, licentious associations, the study of immoral literature, dancing, and music schools, and to keep their hair short. These “bands of hope” patrolled the city, collected alms for the church, dispersed groups gathered for gambling, and tore the clothing of women whom they considered immodest.

The people of the city accepted these reforms for a time; many women enthusiastically supported them, adopted modest behavior, wore simple clothing, and set aside their jewelry and ornaments. The moral revolution transformed the cheerful city of Florence in the days of the Medici family. Instead of Bacchic love poems, the people sang religious hymns in the streets. Churches filled, and the amount of donations had no precedent. Some bankers and merchants returned the ill-gotten profits they had accumulated. Savonarola urged all the city's inhabitants, rich and poor, to refrain from idleness and luxury, to work actively, and to present an exemplary model of a good and moral life. He told them: “You must first reform yourselves spiritually ... your worldly good should serve the moral and religious welfare upon which it depends; and if you have heard it said that ‘one cannot govern with prayers and hymns,’ know that by government they mean the government of tyrants ... government is tyranny over the city, not its liberty. If you want good government, you must entrust it to the Lord.” He then suggested that Florence should think of its government as having an invisible king—Jesus Christ Himself; and under such a religious government he envisioned a utopian city: “O Florence! Then you will become rich in spiritual and material wealth; then you will succeed in reforming Rome, Italy, and all countries; and your greatness will spread over the whole world under its wings.” In truth, Florence had rarely been so happy before. This event was a shining moment in the turbulent history of virtue.

But human nature remained the same. Humans are not naturally virtuous, and the social order exists precariously amid the open and hidden struggles of self-interests, families, classes, races, and beliefs. There was still a powerful element in Florentine society that planted in hearts the temptation to turn to taverns, brothels, and gambling houses as an outlet for satisfying their instincts or as sources of profit. The Pazzi, Nerli, Capponi families, the young generation of the Medici family, and other nobles who themselves had been effective in Piero's overthrow were angry at seeing the city's government fall into the hands of a friar. There were still some supporters of Piero left, seeking an opportunity to restore his power and their own wealth. The Franciscan friars took religiously fanatical actions against the Dominican Savonarola, and a small group of skeptics wished that calamity would befall both. The various enemies of the new social order agreed to mock its supporters by calling them Piagnoni or “the Weeping Ones” (since many burst into tears at Savonarola's pulpit), Colli torti or “Twisted Necks,” Strozzapreti or “Priest-stranglers,” and Masticapaternostri or “Rosary-chewers.” The bearers of these titles in turn called their opponents, out of anger and hatred, Arrabbiati or “the Mad Dogs.” In early 1496 the “Mad Dogs” succeeded in electing their candidate Filippo Corbizzi as Gonfaloniere. After forming an ecclesiastical council in the Palazzo Vecchio, he summoned Savonarola and accused him of political activities unbecoming a friar; and several church clerics, including one from the Dominican order, confirmed this accusation. Savonarola replied: “Now the word of God has taken on flesh: the sons of my mother have risen against me. Participation in worldly affairs ... is not treason for a friar unless he involves himself in it without a higher purpose and without regard for advancing religious motives.” He was asked to answer whether his sermons were inspired by God or not; he refused to answer and returned to his cell more depressed than before.

If external affairs had assisted Savonarola, he might well have prevailed over his enemies. The Florentines who themselves praised liberty were angered that the people of Pisa demanded liberty and its preservation. Even Savonarola did not dare to side with the Pisan revolt, and one of the canons of the Florence cathedral who said that the people of Pisa also had the right to be free was severely punished by order of the president of the “Weeping Ones” council. Savonarola promised to restore Pisa to Florence and boldly claimed that Pisa was in his grasp. But as Machiavelli sarcastically said, Savonarola was an unarmed prophet. When Charles VIII was driven from Italy, Pisa made an alliance with Milan and Venice and strengthened its independence; the people of Florence were deeply regretful that Savonarola had linked their fate to the waning star of Charles's fortune and that only they had no share in the glory of driving the French from Italy. The French commanders, before leaving the former Florentine fortresses of Sarzana and Pietrasanta, had sold one to Genoa and the other to Lucca. In Montepulciano, Arezzo, Volterra, and other Florentine possessions, waves of independence movements had arisen; a city that had once been powerful and proud now seemed on the verge of losing all its extensive possessions, the trade routes along the Arno River and the Adriatic Sea, and the roads leading to Milan and Rome. Commercial activities stagnated, and tax revenues declined. The city council tried to forcibly borrow from wealthy citizens in exchange for government-guaranteed securities to cover the costs of the war with Pisa; but as the government neared bankruptcy, the value of these securities fell to eighty, seventy, and ten percent of their true value. In 1496 the state treasury was completely empty, and the government, imitating Lorenzo's method, borrowed from the funds it held for providing dowries for poor girls. In the administration of the state's financial machinery, whether by the “Mad Dogs” or by the “Weeping Ones,” corruption and incompetence spread and grew. Francesco Valori, who was appointed Gonfaloniere by the majority vote of the “Weeping Ones” in the council (January 1497), expelled the “Mad Dogs” from government offices; he deprived them of membership in the council if they evaded paying taxes; he restricted the right to speak in the council to the “Weeping Ones”; he exiled every Franciscan friar who spoke against Savonarola; and thus made the “Mad Dogs” even madder. For eleven months in 1496 it rained almost every day, destroying the grain of Florence's limited farmlands. In 1497 people fell in the city streets from hunger and died; the government opened soup kitchens to provide food for the poor, where women died under the feet and hands of hungry invaders. Medici supporters plotted to restore Piero; but five leaders of the plot were caught and condemned to death (1497); the council ignored their appeal, which was a legal right under the constitution; and they were executed a few hours after sentencing; many people of Florence began to compare the factions, violence, and severity of the republican government with the order and peace of Lorenzo's time. Opposition groups repeatedly demonstrated in front of Savonarola's monastery. The “Weeping Ones” and the “Mad Dogs” repeatedly threw stones at each other in the streets. When Savonarola was preaching on Ascension Day in 1497, his sermon was interrupted by rebels, and his enemies attempted to kidnap him, but his supporters drove them back. The city's Gonfaloniere suggested to the council president that, to calm the people, Savonarola should be exiled from Florence, but this proposal failed by one vote. Savonarola, in the midst of this bitter and painful collapse of his dreams, stood face to face with Italy's strongest power and rose to fight it.

The Martyr

Pope Alexander VI was not greatly disturbed by Savonarola's criticisms of the behavior of the clergy and moral corruption in Rome. He had heard similar criticisms before; hundreds of clerics for several centuries had complained that the lives of many priests were contrary to morality, and that popes loved wealth and power more than befitted the successors of Christ. Alexander had a mild temperament and attached little importance to minor criticism as long as it did not endanger the papal throne. What disturbed him about Savonarola were the friar's political maneuvers. The pope was also unhappy with the semi-democratic nature of the new constitution. Alexander had no special attachment to the Medici family and perhaps preferred a weak democracy in Florence to a stronger dictatorship. Alexander feared a renewed French invasion and had participated in forming a league of Italian governments to drive Charles VIII from Italy and dissuade the French from a second attack. He was angry that Florence had agreed to ally with France and suspected Savonarola of being the power behind the scenes and responsible for this alliance, believing he had secretly corresponded with the French government. At the same time Savonarola wrote three letters to Charles in which he supported Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere's proposal that the king should form a general council of clerics and statesmen to reform the Church and depose Alexander as a “traitor and heretic.” Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, Milan's representative at the papal court, urged Alexander to put an end to Savonarola's sermons and influence.

On June 21, 1495, Alexander wrote a short note to Savonarola:

Greetings and the blessing of the Church upon you, our dear son. We have heard that you are the most zealous among the workers in the Lord's vineyard, for which we are deeply pleased and give thanks to Almighty God. We have also heard that you have declared that your prophecies are inspired not by yourself but by God. We are interested, in accordance with our ecclesiastical office, to discuss these matters with you so that with greater knowledge of God's will we may better fulfill His intentions. In view of the above, and in view of the oath you have taken to obey the sacred things, we decree that without delay you come to see us, and we will receive you with affection and kindness.

This letter was a victory for Savonarola's enemies, for it placed him in a position where he must either end his success as a reformer or openly disobey the pope's command. Savonarola feared that if he went to the papal court he would never be allowed to return to Florence and would end his life in the dungeon of Sant'Angelo; and if he did not return to Florence, his supporters would be destroyed. On the advice of his supporters, he replied to Alexander that he was seriously ill and could not travel to Rome. That the pope's motives were political became clear when on September 8 he wrote a letter to the president of the Florentine council protesting the continuation of Florence's alliance with France and advising the Florentines not to endure the disgrace of being the only Italians allied with Italy's enemy. At the same time he ordered Savonarola to cease preaching, to submit to the general of the Dominican order in Lombardy, and to go wherever the general sent him. Savonarola replied (September 29) that his followers were unwilling to obey the general of the Dominican order, but he would refrain from preaching. Alexander, in a conciliatory reply (October 16), repeated the prohibition on his preaching and expressed the hope that when his health permitted he would travel to Rome and be assured of being received “with open arms and a paternal spirit.” Alexander left the problem in this state for a year.

Meanwhile the friar's supporters had again occupied the seats of the city council. Secret representatives of the government in Rome, claiming that Florence needed Savonarola's morally stirring exhortations during Lent, asked the pope to withdraw the order banning his sermons. Apparently Alexander orally agreed to their request, for Savonarola resumed his sermons in the cathedral on February 17, 1496. Around this time Alexander commissioned a learned bishop from the Dominican order to study Savonarola's published sermons and the possibility of heretical statements in them. The bishop reported: “Holy Father, this friar utters no unreasonable or false speech; he speaks against the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices and the corruption of priests, which is indeed very common. He respects official doctrines and the authority of the Church to the point that I am willing to befriend him—if necessary, I would place the purple cardinal's robe on his shoulders and entrust him with the cardinalate.” Alexander, with goodwill and humility, sent one of the members of the Dominican order to Florence to present him with the red hat. The friar was not only not pleased by this but was startled; in his view this was nothing but an example of the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices. He replied to the pope's representative: “Attend my next sermon and you will hear my answer.”

Savonarola resumed his struggle with the pope in his first sermon of the new year. This sermon is itself an important event in the history of Florence. Half the excited people of the city longed to hear the friar's words, and even the vast hall of the church could not hold all those interested; although the crowd in the hall was packed so tightly that no one could move in place, a group of armed companions escorted the friar to the cathedral. He began his sermon with an explanation of the reason for his long absence from the pulpit and emphasized his complete loyalty to the teachings of the Church. But then he expressed the reasons for his bold struggle with the pope as follows:

My superior should not issue a command contrary to the regulations of my order; the pope should not give a command contrary to charity or the “Gospel” of Christ. I do not believe the pope would ever do such a thing; but if he does, I will reply to him, “You are not that shepherd, you are not that Church of Rome; you are walking the wrong path.” ... Whenever it is clearly seen that a superior's command is contrary to God's commandments, and especially whenever the superior's command is contrary to the commandments of charity, no one is bound to obey in such cases. ... When I clearly see that if I leave the city it will lead to the spiritual and worldly ruin of the people, I will not obey any living man who commands me to leave the city ... for as soon as I submit to his obedience I disobey the commandments of God.

In his sermon on the second Sunday of Lent, Savonarola criticized the moral condition of the capital of the Christian world in harsh terms: “One thousand, ten thousand, and fourteen thousand harlots are too few for Rome, for there both women and men have been raised as harlots.” These sermons, thanks to the wonderful new phenomenon of the printing press, were published throughout Europe and read everywhere, even by the Ottoman sultan, sparking a competition in the publication of pamphlets and treatises inside and outside Florence in some of which Savonarola was accused of heresy and disorder, and in others praised as a prophet and saint.

Alexander thought of finding an indirect way out of open war and in November 1496 ordered that all Dominican monasteries in Tuscany be placed under the direct supervision and authority of Padre Giacomo da Sicilia in a new union called the Tuscan-Roman Congregation. Padre Giacomo was favorably inclined toward Savonarola but apparently accepted the pope's proposal to transfer the friar to another environment. Savonarola refused to obey the union's orders and, instead of raising the dispute with the pope, shared it with all the people in a treatise called the Defense of the Brothers of San Marco. In this treatise he noted: “The formation of this union is impossible, unreasonable, and harmful, and the brothers of San Marco cannot agree to it, for superiors should not issue commands contrary to the rules and regulations of the order or contrary to the laws of charity or the peace of our spirit.” All religious communities were technically directly subject to the pope; and the pope could even force them to merge against their will. Savonarola himself in 1493 had approved Alexander's command to merge the Dominican community of the monastery of Santa Caterina in Pisa with Savonarola's community in the monastery of San Marco, against the will of the members of the Pisa monastery. Nevertheless, Alexander showed no reaction and took no immediate action. Savonarola continued to preach and published letters to the people in which he defended his motive for fighting the pope.

With the arrival of the Lenten season of 1497, the Arrabbiati or “Mad Dogs” prepared themselves to hold a carnival with festivals, spectacles, and songs that were customary in the days of the Medici. To counter this carnival, one of Savonarola's faithful companions, Fra Domenico, taught the children of the community to organize completely different celebrations. During Carnival Week—before Lent—these boys and girls went in groups through the city, knocked on house doors, and asked the people—sometimes forcing them—to surrender what they called “vanities” or sacrilegious objects—immoral pictures, love songs, carnival masks and costumes, false hair, flashy clothing, playing cards, backgammon dice, musical instruments, cosmetics, profane books like the Decameron or Morgante Maggiore, and ... . On the last day of Carnival, February 7, Savonarola's more staunch followers, singing religious hymns, set out in an orderly and mournful procession following a statue of the “Child Jesus” made by Donatello and carried by four children dressed as angels, heading toward the square of the city council. There a large pyramid twenty meters high with a circumference and base of eighty meters had been erected from combustible materials, and on its seven levels were placed or thrown the “vanities” that had been collected during the week or were now brought to the altar, among which were also valuable manuscripts and works of art. Then the pyramid was set on fire from all four sides, and the bells of the Palazzo Vecchio rang to announce the first “bonfire of vanities” by Savonarola.¹

Savonarola's Lenten sermons of 1497 carried the war to Rome. While accepting the principle that the Church should possess some worldly property and land, he argued over the point that the Church's wealth would lead it to corruption and destruction. Now his outbursts knew no bounds.

The earth is filled with blood and bloodshed, but the priests pay no attention to it; on the contrary, with their evil example they bring a spiritual death upon everyone. They have turned away from God, and their piety consists of staying up at night with harlots. ... They say that God pays no attention to worldly affairs, and whatever happens is accidental; they do not believe in the presence of Christ in the sacred rites. ... Listen, O harlot Church, God says: I gave you beautiful garments, but you have made idols from them. You have dedicated the sacred vessels to your vain pride and made the religious ceremonies a means of buying and selling ecclesiastical offices. You have become a shameless harlot with your lusts; you are lower than an animal; you are a monster of abominations. Once you were ashamed of your sins, but now you are no longer ashamed. Once the anointed priests called their sons nephews, but now they call them their own children ... ² And thus, O harlot Church, you have displayed your impurity to all the world and your stench has filled the heavens.

Savonarola knew that such harsh and bold words would cause him to be excommunicated. But he welcomed this excommunication with open arms:

Many of you say that an excommunication will be issued. ... I myself beg you, O Lord, that this be done as soon as possible. ... Raise this excommunication on a high spear, open the roads to it! I will answer it, and if I do not astonish you, then say whatever you wish. ... O God, I seek only your cross! Let me suffer, I ask this favor of you, do not let me die in bed, let my blood be shed for you, just as you yourself sacrificed yourself for me.

These passionate words aroused anger among the people throughout Italy. People came from distant cities to hear his words; even the Duke of Ferrara came there in disguise. The cathedral overflowed with the dense crowd and even filled the square, and every stirring sentence was passed mouth to mouth from the crowd inside the church to the crowd outside. In Rome the people all rose against Savonarola and demanded his punishment. In April 1497 the “Mad Dogs” gained control in the council and—on the pretext of preventing the danger of a plague outbreak—prohibited any preaching in the churches after the fifth of May. Alexander, urged by the Roman representatives of the “Mad Dogs,” issued the excommunication order against the friar (May 13); but he also included in the excommunication decree that if Savonarola obeyed the command and went to Rome, the excommunication would be lifted. The friar, fearing he would be imprisoned in Rome, continued to refuse to go there, but remained quiet for six months. Then, on the occasion of Christmas, he celebrated mass in the chapel of San Marco and left the performance of the sacred rites to the other friars, and he himself led a calm demonstration with them around the square. Many people expressed disgust at such rites being performed by an excommunicated friar, but Alexander himself made no protest; instead, he hinted that if Florence joined the league to counter a second French attack, he would withdraw the excommunication. The city council, gambling on a French victory, rejected the proposal. On February 11, 1498, Savonarola perfected his defiance by preaching in the chapel of San Marco. He declared the excommunication unjust and invalid and accused those who supported it of error. Finally, he himself issued an excommunication:

Therefore, cursed be whoever issues commands contrary to alms and charity. If these commands are proclaimed by an angel, or even by the Virgin Mary and all the saints (which is certainly impossible), cursed be them too. ... And if any pope speaks contrary to this, he must be excommunicated.

On the last day before the Lenten season, Savonarola performed the prayer of the mass in the square of the cathedral of San Marco and prayed before a large crowd: “O God, if my actions are not sincere, if my words are not inspired by you, grant me death in this very moment.” In the afternoon of the same day, his followers held the second bonfire of “vanities.”

Alexander informed the Florentine city council that if they did not stop Savonarola's speeches, he would ban the performance of ecclesiastical duties in Florence. The council, although now strongly opposed to Savonarola, refused to call him to silence, preferring that the responsibility for this opposition to preaching remain with the pope. Besides, to fight a pope who had made the Papal States so powerful that he endangered the security of his neighbors, such an eloquent friar was useful. Savonarola continued to preach, but only in the chapel of his own monastery. The Florentine ambassador in Rome reported that feelings against Savonarola in Rome were so intense that they endangered the security of Florentines residing in the city, and he feared that if the pope carried out his threat to interdict Florence, all Florentine merchants in Rome would be imprisoned. The council yielded and ordered Savonarola to cease his sermons (March 17). Savonarola obeyed but predicted terrible disasters for Florence. Fra Domenico went to the pulpit as the voice of his leader and performed his duty. Meanwhile Savonarola wrote letters to the leaders of France, Spain, Germany, and Hungary asking them to form a general council to reform the Church:

The moment of vengeance has come. God commands me to reveal new secrets and to inform the world of the dangers that, due to your long neglect, threaten the see of the Apostle Peter. The Church is steeped in filth from head to foot. Yet you not only think of no remedy for it but honor the cause of the calamities that have polluted it. Therefore God is greatly angered and has long left the Church without a shepherd. ... Therefore I testify ... that this Alexander is not the pope and is not worthy of this office, and even if we overlook the mortal sin of simony by which he bought the papal throne, and also the daily sale of ecclesiastical revenues to the highest bidder, and his other open evils, I still declare that he is not a Christian and believes in no God.

Savonarola also added that if the kings formed a council, he would appear before it and provide reasons for all these accusations. One of Milan's agents obtained one of these letters and sent it to Alexander.

On March 25, 1498, a Franciscan friar, by preaching in the church of Santa Croce, bought disaster and challenged Savonarola to an ordeal by fire. He cursed Savonarola as a heretic and false prophet and suggested that if Savonarola was also willing to do so, both should step into the fire. He said he expected both to burn in the fire but hoped that by sacrificing himself he would save Florence from the chaos that had gripped it due to the defiance of one member of the Dominican order against the pope's orders. Savonarola rejected this proposal; Domenico accepted it. The city council, opposed to Savonarola, seized the opportunity to discredit the friar whom it considered a demagogic agitator; thus it agreed to carry out this medieval custom and decreed that on April 7 Fra Giuliano Rondinelli of the Franciscan order and Fra Domenico da Pescia would step into the flames of fire in the city council square.

On the appointed day the large square was filled with a dense crowd eager to enjoy the occurrence of a miracle or the sight of human suffering; all the windows and roofs overlooking the square were occupied by spectators; in the middle of the square, in an area sixty centimeters wide, two piles of wood soaked in tar, oil, resin, and gunpowder—sure to ignite blazing flames—were erected. The Franciscan friars waited in the “Hall of the Spearmen” and the Dominican friars advanced from the opposite side. Fra Domenico held a consecrated host in his hand and Savonarola carried a cross. The Franciscans complained that Fra Domenico's red hat might be a talisman against burning in the fire and insisted that he must remove his hat; Domenico refused; the crowd urged him with shouts to submit and he accepted. The Franciscans again asked him to remove his other clothes, which they believed were enchanted. Domenico agreed and went into the city council palace and exchanged his clothes with those of another friar. The Franciscans insisted that he should not approach Savonarola lest he enchant him; Domenico agreed that members of the Franciscan order should surround him. They protested that he had no right to take a cross or a consecrated host with him into the fire; Domenico handed over the cross but kept the host, and a long religious debate arose between Savonarola and the Franciscans over whether Christ would allow himself to be burned in the fire by showing the host. Meanwhile the Franciscan champion remained in the palace and begged the president of the city council to save him from death by any trick. The friars agreed that their debate would continue until sunset and then announced that the ordeal could no longer be carried out. The spectators, thirsty for blood, rushed to the palace but were stopped. A group of “Mad Dogs” tried to arrest Savonarola but his guards protected him. The Dominicans returned to San Marco amid the mockery of the people, although apparently the main cause of the delay in the test was the Franciscans themselves. Many people complained why Savonarola, who claimed to be inspired by God and that God would protect him, instead of facing the fire himself, appointed Domenico as his representative in the ordeal. These thoughts spread in the city and almost overnight the friar's followers vanished and disappeared.

The next day, Palm Sunday, a crowd of “Mad Dogs” along with others participated in a procession to attack the monastery of San Marco and on their way killed a group of “Weeping Ones,” including Francesco Valori. They also killed Valori's wife, who had come to the window upon hearing his cries, by throwing a spear, looted and burned his house, and strangled one of his grandsons. The bell of the monastery of San Marco rang to call the “Weeping Ones” to help, but no one came. The monastery friars prepared to defend themselves with swords and clubs. Savonarola in vain asked them to lay down their weapons and stood unarmed at the threshold of the altar waiting for death. The friars fought bravely; Fra Enrico swung his sword with great zeal and with every blow uttered a fervent cry: “O God, save your servants!” But the number of the opposing crowd was more than the friars could resist; Savonarola finally persuaded them to lay down their weapons, and when the order for the arrest of Savonarola and Domenico was issued by the city council, both surrendered; they were led through the crowd, who mocked them, beat them, trampled them, and spat on them, to the cells of the Palazzo Vecchio. The next day Fra Silvestro was also imprisoned.

The city council sent a report of the course of the ordeal and the arrests to the pope and, because of the insult to the dignity of one of the Church's clerics, asked for pardon and requested that he approve the proposal to try the prisoners in court and, if necessary, torture them. The pope insisted that all three friars be sent to Rome to be tried in an ecclesiastical court. The city council objected, and the pope finally reluctantly agreed that two of his court representatives should be present and observe the trial of the accused. The city council condemned Savonarola to death. The council believed that as long as he was alive his supporters would also be alive, and only with his death would the strife between the various factions end—a strife that had so divided the city and its government that friendship and alliance with Florence had become worthless to any foreign power and had thus exposed Florence to internal conspiracy and external attacks.

Following the customary methods of the Inquisition, the interrogators tortured all three friars at various times from April 9 to May 22. Silvestro could not endure the torture and confessed so quickly in the first moments that the interrogators wished his confessions were not in a way that could not be relied upon. Domenico showed endurance to the end, was tortured to the point of death, and continued to say openly that Savonarola was a saint free from treason or sin. Savonarola, whose nerves were shattered under torture, quickly collapsed and gave whatever answers they wanted. Shortly afterward, when his condition improved, he denied all the confessions. He was tortured again and again submitted and confessed. After three tortures his spirit broke and he signed a confused confession stating that: nothing had been revealed to him from God, he considered himself guilty because of his pride and ambition, he had urged infidel foreign powers to form a general council of clerics, and he had participated in a plot to overthrow the pope. All three friars were condemned to death by the state and the Church on charges of creating schism and heresy, revealing the secrets of confessors as their own opinions and prophecies, and creating chaos and disorder. The generous pope prayed for the forgiveness of their souls.

On May 23, 1498, the patricidal republic executed its founder and two of his companions and led them, without their religious habits and barefoot, to the square of the city council, that is, to the same place where they themselves had twice burned “vanities” and “profane” objects. Like those days, and just as the friars were to be tested in the ordeal, a dense crowd gathered to watch. This time the government also provided food and drink for the spectators. A priest asked Savonarola: “How do you accept martyrdom?” He replied: “God endured much suffering for me.” Then he kissed the cross he held in his hand and said no more. The friars bravely stepped toward the gallows. Domenico almost joyfully murmured the hymn of thanksgiving “Te Deum” under his breath as a sign of gratitude for the grace of martyrdom. All three men were hanged on the gallows, and while they were dying, boys threw stones at them. Then a large fire was lit under their feet and the bodies were burned and their ashes were thrown into the Arno River so that no trace of them would remain and they might later be worshiped as relics of saints. A group of “Weeping Ones,” without fear of accusation, knelt in the square, wept, and prayed. Until 1703, every year on the morning of May 23, the spot where the warm blood of the friars had been shed was adorned with flowers. Today a plaque installed on the pavement there marks with a sign the site of the most famous crime in the history of Florence.

Savonarola himself was a medieval figure who survived into the Renaissance, and the Renaissance destroyed him. He saw the moral corruption of Italy, which had arisen from the influence of wealth and the decline of religious beliefs, and bravely and fanatically, but without result, stood against the sensual and skeptical spirit of the age. Savonarola had inherited the moral zeal and mental simplicity of the medieval saints and seemed a patch out of place in a world that had sung praises for the rediscovery of pagan Greece. Because of his intellectual limitations and his forgivable but annoying self-righteousness, he failed; he exaggerated his own enlightenment and talent and underestimated the task of fighting at once against the power of the pope and human natures out of simple-mindedness. He was shocked by Alexander's moral standards but was excessive in fault-finding and rigid in political policy. Only in that he wanted to bring about reforms in the Church can he be considered a Protestant before Luther; of course only from this aspect that he desired reforms in the Church, otherwise he had no similarity with Luther in any of the doctrinal differences and inconsistencies regarding theological issues. Nevertheless, his memory had a great influence on the emergence of Protestant ideas, and Luther called him a saint. Savonarola left little influence in literature, for literature was in the hands of realists and skeptics like Machiavelli and Guicciardini. On the other hand, his influence on art was very profound. Fra Bartolommeo wrote under the portrait he painted of him: “The face of Girolamo of Ferrara, prophet and messenger of God.” Botticelli, under the influence of his sermons, turned from irreligion to theism. Michelangelo loved to hear what was said about Savonarola and read his sermons with interest and devotion; it was also under the influence of Savonarola's spirit that he moved his brush on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and painted the terrifying image of the Last Judgment on the wall behind the altar.

Savonarola's greatness lies in his effort to create a moral revolution and to make people noble, good, and upright. We know that this is the most difficult of revolutions and we are not surprised that Savonarola failed; for even Jesus Christ could only influence a tiny minority. But we also know that this is the only revolution that brings real improvement to human life, and we also know that the bloody transformations of history, compared to such a revolution, are spectacular, transient, and ineffective displays that change everything except man.

The Republic and the Medici: 1498–1534

The anarchy that had rendered the government impotent in the last years of Savonarola's rise did not diminish with his death. The short two-month term of service of the council and the gonfaloniere in the executive bodies created a dangerous fragmentation and inclined government leaders toward corruption and irresponsibility. In 1502 the city council, under the domination of the ruling oligarchy of the wealthy, decided to overcome part of these problems by electing a gonfaloniere for life, so that he, obeying the council and its president, with equal powers, could confront popes and non-religious rulers of Italy. The first to achieve this honor was the millionaire Piero Soderini, a friend of the people and an honorable patriot who did not have such a strong and outstanding force of thought and will as to threaten Florence with enduring another dictatorship. He included Machiavelli among his advisers, governed with prudence and economy, and devoted his personal wealth to the advancement of art, which had been interrupted during Savonarola's rule. With his help, Machiavelli replaced the mercenary soldiers of Florence with a regular popular army that finally forced Pisa to submit again in 1508 and come under Florence's “guardianship.”

But in 1512 the foreign policy of the Florentine Republic brought about disasters that Alexander VI had predicted. Despite all the efforts of the “Holy League,” composed of Venice, Milan, Naples, and Rome, to drive the French invaders from Italy, Florence continued to insist on allying with France. When the league triumphed, it sought revenge on Florence and sent its forces to overthrow the oligarchic republic and replace it with a Medici dictatorship. Florence resisted, and Machiavelli worked hard to organize the defensive forces. But the invaders captured and sacked the fortress of the guards of Prato. Machiavelli's army retreated and fled before the league's trained and mercenary soldiers. Soderini resigned to prevent further bloodshed. Giuliano de' Medici, son of Lorenzo, who had contributed 10,000 ducats (250,000 dollars) to the league, entered the city of Florence with the support of Spanish, German, and Italian troops, and his brother Cardinal Giovanni soon joined him; Savonarola's constitution was abolished, and the Medici family once again dominated the government (1512).

Giuliano and Giovanni exercised moderation, and the people of the city, who were now weary of strife, accepted the change willingly. When Giovanni ascended the papal throne as Leo X (1513), Giuliano, who had shown himself too mild to be a successful ruler, entrusted the government of Florence to his nephew Lorenzo. This ambitious youth died after six years of bold rule. Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, son of Giuliano who himself had been killed in the Pazzi conspiracy, came to power and administered the affairs of the government of Florence excellently, and after ascending the papal throne as Clement VII (1521) also ruled the city from the papal seat. Florence took advantage of Clement's troubles and expelled his representatives from the city (1527) and again enjoyed the tests of liberty for four years. But Clement showed coolness in the face of defeat with prudence and used the soldiers of Charles V to take revenge on those who had driven out his relatives. An army of Spanish and German soldiers attacked Florence (1529) and the event of 1512 was repeated; the people's resistance was heroic but futile, and Alessandro de' Medici began a rule of tyranny, violence, and debauchery that had no precedent in the history of the Medici dynasty (1531). Three more centuries would have to pass before Florence again recognized liberty.

Art in the Time of Revolution

An era of political unrest usually provides an incentive for literature; and later we will study the lives of two of the leading writers of this era—Machiavelli and Guicciardini. But a society that is always on the verge of bankruptcy and involved in almost constant revolution pays little attention to art—especially the art of architecture. A few of the wealthy who had skillfully survived the whirlpool of events still indulged in building magnificent palaces; thus Giovanni Francesco and Aristotile da Sangallo, from plans drawn by Raphael, erected a splendid palace for the Pandolfini family. Michelangelo in the years 1520–1524 built a new treasury for Cardinal Giulio de' Medici in the church of San Lorenzo—a simple quadrangle with a moderate dome that the world knows as the house of Michelangelo's most beautiful statues and the tomb of the Medici family.

Among Michelangelo's rivals was a sculptor named Pietro Torrigiano who worked with him in Lorenzo's sculpture garden and in a quarrel broke Michelangelo's nose; Lorenzo was so angered by this violent act that Torrigiano was forced to flee to Rome. There he joined Cesare Borgia's army as a soldier and fought bravely in several battles; then he went to England, where he designed one of England's architectural masterpieces, the tomb of Henry VII, in Westminster Abbey (1519). Then he hastily went to Spain and carved a statue of the Virgin and Child for the Duke of Arcos; the duke did not pay him the full fee; the sculptor broke and shattered the statue. The vengeful duke handed him over to the Inquisition as a heretic and Torrigiano was condemned to hard labor. But he deceived his enemies and committed suicide by gradual starvation.

Florence never had so many great artists at one time as in 1492. But many of them fled the city's troubled conditions and gained fame elsewhere. Leonardo went to Milan, Michelangelo to Bologna, and Andrea Sansovino to Lisbon. Sansovino took his title from Monte San Savino and made this name so famous that the world forgot his real name, Andrea di Domenico Contucci. Andrea was born into a poor working family and developed a passionate interest in design and modeling with clay; a kind Florentine sent him to Antonio Pollaiuolo's workshop. He, who matured quickly, built the Sacramento Chapel in the church of Santo Spirito and adorned it with statues and reliefs, according to Vasari, “so powerfully and excellently that the least flaw is seen in them,” and made a bronze grille in front of it whose beauty enchants the viewer. John II, King of Portugal, asked Lorenzo to send the young artist to him. Andrea went to Portugal and worked there in architecture and sculpture for nine years. When he longed for his homeland, he returned to Florence (1500), but it was not long before he went to Genoa and finally to Rome. In Santa Maria del Popolo—for Cardinal Sforza and Cardinal Basso della Rovere—he built two marble tombs (1505–1507) that in a city then full of geniuses met with great admiration. Pope Leo X sent him to Loreto and Andrea in this city so beautifully adorned the church of Santa Maria with a series of reliefs from the life of the Virgin Mary (1523–1528) that the angel of the Annunciation panel in it is, in Vasari's opinion, “not of marble but of heavenly materials.” Shortly afterward Andrea retired to a farm near his birthplace, Monte San Savino, and continued to live with great activity in the guise of a peasant and died in 1529 at the age of sixty-eight.

Meanwhile the della Robbia family faithfully and skillfully continued Luca's work in the field of glazing pottery and ceramics. Andrea della Robbia, whose lifespan was even longer than that of his eighty-five-year-old uncle, had enough time to teach the art of pottery to his three sons—Giovanni, Luca, and Girolamo. Andrea's ceramic works have such a transparent color and such a delicate feeling that they dazzle the eye of the museum visitor and stop his feet from moving. One of the rooms in the Bargello Palace is full of his works, and the “Hospital of the Innocents” is famous for its lunette decorations of the Annunciation by him. The works of Giovanni della Robbia, which can be seen in the Bargello Palace and the Louvre Museum, compete in artistic excellence with those of his father Andrea. Almost all the works of all members of the della Robbia family over three generations were limited to religious subjects, and all were among the most fanatical supporters of Savonarola. Two of Andrea's sons joined the brothers of the San Marco monastery to achieve salvation alongside its friar.

The painters deeply felt Savonarola's influence. Lorenzo di Credi learned art from Verrocchio, imitated the painting style of his fellow student Leonardo, and derived the delicacy of religious images from the spirituality resulting from destiny and the eloquence of Savonarola's speech. He spent half his life drawing panels of the face of the Virgin Mary, which we see almost everywhere—Rome, Florence, Turin, Avignon, and Cleveland; the faces are weak and the clothes luxurious, and perhaps the best of them is the Annunciation panel in the Uffizi Gallery. Lorenzo at the age of eighty-two, feeling that he must attend to the hereafter, went to the friars of the monastery of Santa Maria Nuova, lived with them, and died there six years later.

Piero di Cosimo took his title from the name of his master Cosimo Rosselli, for he believed that “he who teaches man ability and promotes good living is like man's true father.” Cosimo concluded that his pupil had surpassed him in painting; when Pope Sixtus IV invited him to decorate the Sistine Chapel, he took Piero with him there; and Piero there painted the panel of the destruction of Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea with a dark seascape, rocks, and a cloudy sky. Two excellent images of his remain for us, both in The Hague. The face of Giuliano da Sangallo and the face of Francesco da Sangallo. Piero devoted all his life's time to art, had little interest in social circles or friends, and loved nature and solitude that is visible in his panels. He died alone, without receiving the sacrament of confession, and bequeathed his art to his two pupils Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea del Sarto, both of whom, following him, surpassed their masters.

Baccio della Porta took his full name from the San Piero gate near which he lived; when he entered the order of friars, he chose the name Fra Bartolommeo. He, who had studied with Cosimo Rosselli and Piero di Cosimo, set up a workshop with Mariotto Albertinelli and painted many panels with his collaboration and maintained an intimate friendship with him until the end of his life. The young Bartolommeo was humble, eager to learn, and receptive to everything penetrating. For a time he strove to learn Leonardo's delicate style in creating chiaroscuro; when Raphael came to Florence, Baccio learned from him the principles of perspective and better color composition; later he visited Raphael in Rome and painted with him the original panel of Saint Peter the Apostle. Finally he fell in love with Michelangelo's majestic style but lacked the terrifying attraction of that angry genius; and when he set to work on a large panel, because he wanted to expand and develop his simple ideas, he lost the special charm of his work—namely the richness of depth, the soft chiaroscuro of colors, the magnificent symmetry of composition, and the piety and feeling of the subjects.

Savonarola's sermons deeply affected him: he took all his nude paintings to the bonfire of “vanities.” When Savonarola's enemies attacked the monastery of San Marco (1498), he joined the defenders of the monastery and in the hand-to-hand combat swore that if he survived he would become a friar himself. He remained faithful to his oath and in 1500 joined the Dominican friars in the monastery of Prato. For five years he set aside painting and devoted himself to religious practices and duties; after being transferred to the monastery of San Marco, he added masterpieces in blue, red, and black colors to Fra Angelico's floral patterns. In the refectory there, panels of the Virgin and Child and the Last Judgment; in the corridor, the panel of Saint Sebastian; and in Savonarola's cell, a terrifying portrait of him in the guise of the martyred Apostle Peter. The panel of Saint Sebastian is the only nude image he painted after becoming a friar. This panel was originally in the chapel of the monastery of San Marco; but the panel was so beautiful that some women confessed that upon seeing it they were aroused by devilish states, and so the friar sold it to a Florentine who sent the image to the King of France. Fra Bartolommeo continued painting until 1517; from this year onward, due to a kind of illness, his hands became so paralyzed that he could no longer hold a brush. He died in the same year at the age of forty-five.

His only rival in artistic excellence among the Italian painters of this period was another pupil of Piero di Cosimo. Andrea Domenico d'Agnolo di Francesco Vanucci we know as Andrea del Sarto. His father was a tailor. He too, like most Renaissance artists, matured quickly and began his apprenticeship at the age of seven. Piero was astonished by the boy's skill in design; on a holiday when the gallery was closed, with much approval and encouragement, he observed how Andrea spent his time drawing the designs that Leonardo and Michelangelo had sketched as famous models for the “Hall of the Five Hundred” in the Palazzo Vecchio. When his master Piero became ill-tempered and unbearable in old age, Andrea and his fellow student Franciabigio set up a workshop for themselves and worked together for a time. Andrea apparently began his independent artistic activity by painting five panels from the life of San Filippo Benizzi, one of Florence's nobles who had founded the Servite order for the special worship of the Virgin Mary, in the forecourt of the Annunziata church (1509). These frescoes, although severely damaged by the passage of time and lack of protection, are so outstanding in terms of design and composition, vitality of subject, and the gentle blending of warm and harmonious colors that this portico in front of the church is now one of Florence's prominent sights for visitors of art works. For depicting the feminine face, Andrea chose a woman as a model who eventually became his wife during the painting of these panels—Lucrezia del Fede, a rebellious and beautiful sensual woman whose memory of her dark face and shiny black hair enchanted him throughout his life except the last days of his life.

In 1515 Andrea and Franciabigio undertook the work of painting a series of frescoes in the corridors of the Scalzo brotherhood monastery and chose the life of John the Baptist as the subject of their work; but undoubtedly it was Andrea's hand that in several images showed his mastery in depicting the female breast in its perfect beauty. In 1518, at the invitation of Francis I, he went to France; there he painted the figure of “Charity,” which is now in the Louvre Museum. But his wife, who had remained in Florence, asked him to return to Italy. The king, taking his promise to return, agreed to his departure and gave him a large sum of money to buy works of art for him in Italy. Andrea built a house for himself in Florence with the king's money and never returned to France. Nevertheless, when he faced bankruptcy, he resumed painting and created a masterpiece in the corridors of the Annunziata church, which according to Vasari “in terms of design, delicacy, perfection of coloring, vitality and prominence, shows him far superior to his predecessors.” This panel, wrongly called the panel of the Virgin with the Sack—because Mary and Joseph lean against a sack in it—has now deteriorated and faded and no longer has its former beauty and brilliance of coloring; but its perfect composition, soft undertone, and presentation of the calm state of a family—with Joseph who has suddenly become literate and is reading a book—has made it one of the greatest paintings of the Renaissance era.

Andrea in the refectory of the Salvi monastery, with the Last Supper panel (1526) and by choosing the same moment and theme of Christ's saying that “one of you will betray me,” competed with Leonardo. Although Andrea painted Christ's face more boldly than Leonardo, even he could not convey the spiritual depth and understandable dignity that we attribute to Christ. But the apostles are prominently individual and distinct, the event is alive, and the coloring of the panel is rich, soft, and complete, and when viewed from the entrance to the refectory, it irresistibly conveys the illusion of a scene from real life to the viewer.

Andrea, like most Italian Renaissance artists, was interested in the subject of the Virgin Mother. He painted Mary's face again and again in “Holy Family” panels; like the panels seen in the Borghese Gallery in Rome or the Metropolitan Museum in New York. In one of the treasures of the Uffizi Gallery he depicted her as the Virgin of the Harpies.¹ This is the most beautiful image of the chaste Lucrezia, and the face of Christ in his childhood is the most delicate example of Italian art. On the other side of the Arno River, in the Pitti Gallery, the Ascension of the Virgin panel is seen, in which apostles and holy women look up with wonder and admiration while cherubs raise the praying Mary—again in the guise of Lucrezia—to heaven.

In Andrea del Sarto's works, lofty thought is rarely seen. In these works there is neither Michelangelo's grandeur, nor Leonardo's subtle changes in coloring, nor Raphael's perfected polish, nor the variety and power of the great Venetian painters' works. Nevertheless, among the artists of Florence he is the only one who competes with the Venetians in coloring and with Correggio in delicacy; and his mastery in coloring—in depth, tone proportion, and transparency—has a clear superiority over the extreme coloring of Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese. Variety is rarely seen in Andrea's works, and his panels are limited in a very narrow circle in terms of subject and feeling. The approximately one hundred images he painted of the Virgin Mary are all the same face of a young and beautiful Italian mother: modest and lovable, and ultimately kind. But no one surpasses him in composition, and only a few have surpassed him in anatomy, composition, and design. Michelangelo said to Raphael: “There is a little man in Florence who, if he turns to great works, will make sweat break out on your forehead.”

Andrea did not live long enough to reach full maturity. The conquering Germans captured Florence in 1530 and infected it with a plague of which Andrea was one of the victims. His wife, who had aroused in him all the heartaches of jealousy that beauty creates in married life, had closed the door of the artist's feverish last days in his room, and the artist, who had given her an almost immortal life, died at the age of forty-four with no one by his side. Around 1570 Jacopo da Empoli went to the forecourt of the Annunziata church to copy Andrea del Sarto's Nativity of Christ panel. An elderly woman who had come to the church to perform religious rites stood beside Jacopo and pointed to a face in the foreground of the panel and said, “That is me.” Lucrezia was still alive forty years after those days.

The few artists we have mentioned here are not all the artists of that era but only representatives of the geniuses of visual and graphic art of that period. There were other sculptors and painters in those days whose works are still visible in museums—Benedetto da Rovezzano, Franciabigio, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, and hundreds of other artists. There were also semi-reclusive, monastery-dwelling, and non-religious artists who were still engaged in the delicate art of illuminating manuscripts, such as Fra Eustachio and Antonio di Girolamo. There were calligraphers whose beauty of handwriting excused Federico, Duke of Urbino, from the invention of the printing press; mosaicists who despised painting as a perishable art; engravers like Baccio d'Agnolo whose inlaid chairs, tables, cupboards, and beds were a source of pride for the houses of Florence; and also other nameless workers who were engaged in more minor arts. Florence was so artistically rich that it was able to resist the plunder of the world, bishops, and millionaires from the time of Charles VIII to our day and still possesses those delicate works made by human hands that no one has ever been able to estimate all the treasures kept in one city during two centuries of the Renaissance—or perhaps it can be said during one century, for the flourishing period of Florentine art began with Cosimo's return from exile in 1434 and ended with the death of Andrea del Sarto in 1530. Internal struggles, Savonarola's purifying system, siege, defeat, and plague had ruined the cheerful spirit of Lorenzo's time and broken the delicate strings of art.

But the sensitive strings of the played harp and its melody had echoed throughout the Italian peninsula. From other cities of Italy, even from France, Spain, Hungary, Germany, and Turkey, orders came to Florentine artists. Thousands of artists flocked to Florence to learn its knowledge and benefit from the styles of its artists—Piero della Francesca, Perugino, and Raphael. ... From Florence about a hundred artists took the principles of art to about fifty cities of Italy and foreign lands. In these fifty cities, the spirit and taste of the time, the generosity of the wealthy, and the heritage of artistic technique blended with Florentine motives and were put to use. It was not long before all Italy, from the Alps to Calabria, became busy with such creative zeal in painting, engraving, building, composing, and singing that it seemed in that hasty fever they knew that soon wealth would be destroyed in war; Italy's pride would fall into humiliation under the tyrannical rule of foreigners, and the gates of the prison of dogmatism would again close on the gracious and sublime thought of Renaissance man.