Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 13, 2025
Nardi, lib. ii. vol. i. p. 128, treats the whole matter of Savonarola's confessions under torture with good sense.
But in spite of the grant of indulgences wherewith this demand was accompanied, the Signoria insisted that Savonarola's trial should take place at Florence, adding a request so as not to appear to withdraw the accused completely from the pontifical authority that the pope would send two ecclesiastical judges to sit in the Florentine tribunal.
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.
The consequence of which was that on the same day I preached a tremendous sermon. These passages leave upon the mind no doubt of Savonarola's sincerity. If he deceived others, he was himself the first to be deceived, and that too not before he had subjected himself to the most searching examination, seeking in vain to escape from the force which compelled him to play the part of prophet.
"I shall see," said the librarian, and he went upon a quest that kept him some minutes. "You're not thinking of taking Savonarola's life, I suppose?" suggested Colville. "Oh no. Villari's book has covered the whole ground for ever, it seems to me. It's a wonderful book. You've read it?" "Yes.
That reads a good deal like the description of Savonarola's congregations, or of Wesley's, or of the young revivalist in Wales. No difficulty about their audiences or congregations, if you insist on being technical. Of course, everybody understands that preaching and faith and all that is not everything that the young minister must do for his fellow man. "Faith without works is dead."
Slowly at first, then faster and faster, that fatal demand had been swelling in Savonarola's ear, provoking a response, outwardly in the declaration that at the fitting time the miracle would come; inwardly in the faith not unwavering, for what faith is so? that if the need for miracle became urgent, the work he had before him was too great for the Divine power to leave it halting.
He also composed verses. All particulars, however, of Savonarola's boyhood are unfortunately lacking. But we can form a vivid idea of the surroundings which must have influenced him. Ferrara was then the splendid capital of the House of Este, with 100,000 inhabitants and a court which was one of the first in Italy, and was continually visited by princes, emperors, and popes.
Now and then there are remarkable novels which scourge with the whips of the Furies, as indeed most of Savonarola's sermons flagellated. With all your faith and the fervor of it, be full of thought. Merely to believe burningly is not enough. Nobody will listen to you declaim the confession and then declaim it over and over again and nothing more. Even pious monotony palls.
See Varchi, vol. i. p. 169. Niccolo Capponi, in 1527, returning to the policy of Savonarola, caused the Florentines to elect Christ for their king, and inscribed upon the door of the Palazzo Pubblico: The position of the Puritan leaders in England was somewhat similar to Savonarola's. But they had at the end of a long war, the majority of the nation with them.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking