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Updated: May 13, 2025
To most of the pious Florentines, who had hitherto felt no doubt in their adherence to the Frate, that belief in the Divine potency of the Church was not an embraced opinion, it was an inalienable impression, like the concavity of the blue firmament; and the boldness of Savonarola's written arguments that the Excommunication was unjust, and that, being unjust, it was not valid, only made them tremble the more, as a defiance cast at a mystic image, against whose subtle immeasurable power there was neither weapon nor defence.
So magical was the power of Savonarola's voice in those days that, in all this great stir of public excitement, not a single excess was committed, and the revolution that seemed on the point of being effected by violence on the Piazza was quietly and peacefully accomplished within the walls of the palace.
Fior. lib. i. p. 23, records a saying of Savonarola's, Gigli con gigli dover fiorire, as one of the causes of the obstinate French partiality of the Florentines in 1529. See Varchi, Segni, and Nardi, who agree on these points. That Savonarola believed in his own prophecies there is no doubt.
While the reform was still in progress large numbers of Savonarola's followers entered the Order, and thereby greatly facilitated his plans. Sons of the first houses in Florence entered San Marco as novices. This reform of the Order in a particular province was the first step to a national Church, in which, had the reformer himself lived longer, it must infallibly have ended.
He remained day after day in the city, showing no inclination to depart. Then was manifested a proof of the wonderful influence of Savonarola's personality.
Terribly verified as these words were destined to be and they were no less prophetic in their political sagacity than Savonarola's prediction of the Sword and bloody Scourge it was now too late to avert the coming ruin. On March 1, 1494, Charles was with his army at Lyons. Early in September he had crossed the pass of Mont Genêvre and taken up his quarters in the town of Asti.
In order to arrive at the raison d'être of Fiesole you must blot out mentally Arnolfo's vast pile, and Brunelleschi's dome, and Giotto's campanile, and Savonarola's monastery, and the tall and slender tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, rising like a shaft sheer into the air far, far below you must blot out, in short, all that makes the world now congregate at Florence, and all Florence itself into the bargain.
Deh! per Dio, donna, Se romper si potria quelle grandi ale! The Church replies: Tu píangi e taci: e questo meglio parmi. No other answer could be given to Savonarola's impatient yearnings even by his own hot heart, while he yet remained a young and unknown monk in Bologna. Nor, strive as he might strive through all his life, was it granted to him to break those outspread wings of arrogant Rome.
For Savonarola's voice had ceased to be heard even in his own church of San Marco, a hostile Signoria having imposed silence on him in obedience to a new letter from the Pope, threatening the city with an immediate interdict if this "wretched worm" and "monstrous idol" were not forbidden to preach, and sent to demand pardon at Rome.
Here too are relics of the guild houses of some of the smaller Arti, while perhaps the most humanly interesting thing of all is the great mournful bell of S. Marco in Savonarola's time, known as La Piagnone. Pico was one of the most fascinating and comely figures of his time.
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