United States or Netherlands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
One other fact must be mentioned, both Vittoria and Michael Angelo belonged to, or at least sympathized with, the Piagnoni, and were in a sense disciples of Savonarola. Now, it is this religious element which makes Michael Angelo seem to step out of his country and out of his century and across time and space into our own.
It was clear that the Prior's enemies had sought his death, for they showed a furious passion of resentment. Even the Piagnoni were troubled by doubts of their prophet, who had refused to show his supernatural powers and silence the Franciscans. The monks were protected with difficulty from the violence of the mob as they returned in the April twilight to the Convent of San Marco.
The Piagnoni showed some chagrin when he allowed a disciple, Fra Domenico, to step into his place as a proof of devotion. On all sides there were murmurs at the Prior's strange shrinking and obvious reluctance to meet with a miracle the charges of his opponents. A great crowd assembled on the day appointed for the "ordeal" in the early spring of 1498.
Yes! even at that time when beauty was being victoriously born again, the mad fear of her raged with such panic in certain minds that, when Savonarola lit his great bonfire so subtle a servant of beauty as Botticelli, fallen into a sort of religious dotage, cast his own paintings into the flames to the lugubrious rejoicings of the sanctimonious Piagnoni as Savonarola's followers were called; predecessors of those still gloomier zealots who, two centuries later, were to turn England into a sort of whitewashed prison, with crop-headed psalm-singing religious maniacs for gaolers.
Already one-half of the armed multitude, too much in the rear to share greatly in the siege of the convent, had been employed in the more profitable work of attacking rich houses, not with planless desire for plunder, but with that discriminating selection of such as belonged to chief Piagnoni, which showed that the riot was under guidance, and that the rabble with clubs and staves was well officered by sword-girt Compagnacci.
While he sympathizes with Savonarola's political and moral reforms, he raises a doubt about his inner sincerity, and does not approve of the attitude of the Piagnoni. In his estimation of men Nardi was remarkably cautious, preferring always to give an external relation of events, instead of analyzing motives or criticising character. He is in especial silent about bad men and criminal actions.
The Royalists, it is true, made exactly the same employment of what Bentham used to call question-begging words, of words steeped quite as deeply in the passions which animated them. It was much when at Florence the 'Bad Boys, as they defiantly called themselves, were able to affix on the followers of Savonarola the title of Piagnoni or The Snivellers.
The Attitude of Savonarola toward the Renaissance His Parentage, Birth, and Childhood at Ferrara His Poem on the Ruin of the World Joins the Dominicans at Bologna Letter to his Father Poem on the Ruin of the Church Begins to preach in 1482 First Visit to Florence San Gemignano His Prophecy Brescia in 1486 Personal Appearance and Style of Oratory Effect on his audience The three Conclusions His Visions Savonarola's Shortcomings as a patriotic Statesman His sincere Belief in his prophetic Calling Friendship with Pico della Mirandola Settles in Florence, 1490 Convent of San Marco Savonarola's Relation to Lorenzo de' Medici The death of Lorenzo Sermons of 1493 and 1494 the Constitution of 1495 Theocracy in Florence Piagnoni, Bigi, and Arrabbiati War between Savonarola and Alexander VI. The Signory suspends him from preaching in the Duomo in 1498 Attempts to call a Council The Ordeal by Fire San Marco stormed by the Mob Trial and Execution of Savonarola.
The truth was, Monna Brigida had a consciousness on the one hand of certain "vanities" carried on her person, and on the other of a growing alarm lest the Piagnoni should be right in holding that rouge, and false hair, and pearl embroidery, endamaged the soul.
There were men of high birth, accustomed to public charges at home and abroad, who had become newly conspicuous not only as enemies of the Medici and friends of popular government, but as thorough Piagnoni, espousing to the utmost the doctrines and practical teaching of the Frate, and frequenting San Marco as the seat of another Samuel: some of them men of authoritative and handsome presence, like Francesco Valori, and perhaps also of a hot and arrogant temper, very much gratified by an immediate divine authority for bringing about freedom in their own way; others, like Soderini, with less of the ardent Piagnone, and more of the wise politician.
Word Of The Day