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Updated: May 13, 2025
Many times a day have I repeated with tears the verse: Heu, fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum! I could not endure the enormous wickedness of the blinded people of Italy; and the more so because I saw everywhere virtue despised and vice honored. We see clearly that Savonarola's vocation took its origin in a deep sense of the wickedness of the world.
As I see it, Savonarola's special mission at that time was to be a wandering preacher, spreading the light and exciting his listeners to spiritual revival in this city and that, but never to be in a position of political power and never to become rooted.
Overlooking the slight, Lorenzo tried by all means to win Savonarola's favor, but the reformer persisted in denouncing him. When a committee asked the preacher to desist from his denunciations and prophetic warnings, he bade them tell Lorenzo to repent of his sins, adding that, if he threatened banishment, the ruler himself would soon depart, while his censor would remain in Florence.
All day the people streamed aimlessly through the streets, like an impetuous torrent; they cast covetous glances on the houses of the citizens who had amassed wealth by acts of oppression; but they had no one to lead them; only, at the hour of Savonarola's sermon, they all flocked instinctively to the Duomo.
But all agree that the magic with which he wrought his wonders from the pulpit was the feeling that everybody had that Fra Girolamo believed what he said, knew what he said, meant what he said. Mrs. Oliphant quotes Burlamacchi's description of Savonarola's influence over the people thus: "The people got up in the middle of the night to get places for the sermon.
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.
It was a common turning-point towards which those widely-sundered lives had been converging, that two evenings ago the news had come that the Florentine courier of the Ten had been arrested and robbed of all his despatches, so that Savonarola's letter was already in the hands of the Duke of Milan, and would soon be in the hands of the Pope, not only heightening rage, but giving a new justification to extreme measures.
In September 1494, Charles VIII, on his way to Naples, came into Italy, was received by Ludovico of Milan at Asti, while his Switzers sacked Rapallo. Was this, then, the saviour of Savonarola's dreams? "It is the Lord who is leading those armies," was the friar's announcement.
They were lodged in separate cells, in the prison portion of the Palazzo Vecchio, and each was importuned to recant the charges made against the Pope and the Medici. All refused, even when told that the others had recanted. Savonarola's judges were chosen from among his most bitter foes. He was brought before them, and ordered to take back his accusations. He remained silent.
Savonarola's nature was one of those in which opposing tendencies co-exist in almost equal strength: the passionate sensibility which, impatient of definite thought, floods every idea with emotion and tends towards contemplative ecstasy, alternated in him with a keen perception of outward facts and a vigorous practical judgment of men and things.
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