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If he did take his clothes off, it would be a toss-up whether he found more life or lost what he's got. That's all wrong, don't you see. That's what ails all these delightful, prosperous people. They're swimming with life-belts." "You'll be saying next," said Peter, disgusted, "that you admire Savonarola and his bonfire." "I do, of course.
A Friar and a Sacristan come on and talk about him. By the time they've finished, perhaps he'll be alive. But they won't have finished yet. Not that they're going to say very much. But I write slowly. I remember the mild thrill I had when, one evening, he took me aside and said in an undertone, 'Savonarola has come on.
A new Vicar-General was appointed with power which would invest him with such authority over Savonarola that the latter would lose his independence. But he displayed no disposition to yield to Rome.
Many historic meetings, big with social disaster, are recorded in history. Witness the meeting of the Athenian judges for the killing of Socrates. Witness the coming together of the priests and Judas for the piteous tragedy of the death of Jesus. Witness that midnight meeting of the conspirators in Florence for the burning of Savonarola.
Besides ordinary books, the library contains priceless treasures, such as a collection of Elzevirs, a collection of Spanish literature, a MS. book with the handwritings of Savonarola, Petrarch, several autograph letters of Philip II., III., and IV. of Spain, and autographs of D. Hume, Byron, Sir D. Wilkie, Moore, Rogers, Campbell, Sir W. Scott, Southey, and foreigners of note, as Madame de Stael, Cuvier, Buffon, Voltaire, etc.
I only know that there has been a sort of mighty Savonarola bonfire, in which most of the things once valued have been consumed to ashes politics, religions, systems of philosophy, isms and ologies of all descriptions; schools, churches, prisons, poorhouses; stimulants and tobacco; kings and parliaments; cannon with its hostile roar, and pianos that thundered peacefully; history, the press, vice, political economy, money, and a million things more all consumed like so much worthless hay and stubble.
It is a philosophico-historical novel, the scene of which is laid in Florence at the time of Savonarola, the period called the Renaissance, when art and literature were revived with great enthusiasm; a very interesting period, the glorious morning, as it were, of modern civilization.
We shall have to consider the action of Savonarola in another place. Meanwhile, it is not too much to affirm that, with diplomatists like Machiavelli, and with princes like those whom he has idealized, Italy could not be free. Hypocrisy, treachery, dissimulation, cruelty are the vices of the selfish and the enslaved.
It may have details that are a little crude, and the pointed nose of the Virgin is not perhaps in accordance with the best tradition, while she is too real for an apparition; but the figure of the kneeling saint is masterly and the landscape lovely in subject and feeling. Here too is Fra Bartolommeo's portrait of Savonarola, in which the reformer is shown as personating S. Peter Martyr.
Savonarola saw his people fall dead beside him on the altar steps, and, taking up the Sacrament, he fled to the Greek library, where the messengers of the Signoria came and arrested both himself and Fra Domenico.
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