Savonarola, his life and times

Preface

The life and character of Savonarola have been rightly supposed to present great difficulties to the historian. From the day of his death — nay, more, from the day of his power in Florence — up to our own times, opinions the most diverse have been entertained respecting his character, his motives, his conduct. While his enemies have denounced him as a rebel against the sovereign Pontiff — in later times they have hardly dared to call him a heretic — and as a disturber of the commonwealth, his followers and admirers have regarded him as a saint and a hero, and have venerated his memory as that of a martyr.

The supporters of despotism, ecclesiastical and civil, have cherished a feeling of bitter enmity against the man who had such an ardent love of liberty ; and they have been joined by the prophets of scepticism, who have had nothing but contempt and hatred for one who was so powerful a witness for religion and for God.

According to the sceptic Bayle, he was a ridiculous and base impostor, who richly deserved the fate that befell him. According to Roscoe, who found it difficult to believe anything good of one who was so consistent and steadfast an opponent of his idolized Medici, he was an arrogant and ambitious priest, half impostor and half fanatic. The errors of Roscoe were partly traditional, partly depended upon his defective point of view, and partly arose from his being

6 PREFACE.

unacquainted with many of the original documents which throw light upon the age of which he wrote.

It was only quite lately that an attempt was made to rewrite the history of Savonarola and his times on the basis of contemporary documents and the testimony of contemporary writers. Rudelbach was the first who seriously undertook this work, and he accomplished his task with German industry and thoroughness. Although he has considerably detracted from the value of his book by his persistent attempt to prove that Savonarola was a Protestant, all subsequent writers are greatly indebted to his researches.

Rudelbach's work was published in 1835, and was succeeded in 1836 by that of his countryman, Meier, who also brought to light documents and facts which had been previously unknown. This writer also marred his work by endeavoring to prove that Savonarola held the doctrines of Luther. In spite of this, I have been greatly indebted to him and his predecessor.

The next important life of Savonarola was written by M. Perrens, an eminent authority on Florentine history, and published in 1853. This writer had the advantage of using the materials collected by the Padre Marchese, who had taken a deep interest in the life of Savonarola, and belonged to his own order.^ It cannot be denied that Perrens made diligent use of these materials and of other documents which he found at Florence. He made himself thoroughly acquainted with his subject, and he produced a well-written and readable book ; still, there is a want of consistency in his views of Savonarola's character and history which renders his work in many respects unsatisfactory.^

^ He edited some of the unpublished letters of Savonarola, and published a history of the convent of St. Mark's, and other works bearing on the same subject.

2 It is the more necessary to note this, since Dean Milman's article in the Quarterly Review, subsequently republished among his miscellaneous works, has given currency, among readers of English, to the view of M. Perrens.

PREFACE. 7

The life of Perrens was, however, the best that had been written until Professor Villari published his " History of Girolamo Savonarola and his Times." ^ Whether we consider the fulness of his researches, or the true historical spirit in which Villari composed his book, it must be allowed that he has done the work almost as well as it can be done. As a book for Itahans and for those who take an interest in the philosophical doctrines of Savonarola, it can hardly ever be excelled, and can never be entirely set aside.

To Signor Villari I owe much more than to any other writer, and I have hardly ever ventured to differ from him without much consideration. It will be evident, however, to careful readers that I have followed him in no servile spirit. I have done my best to understand the history and character of the man whom I have undertaken to describe, and I have endeavored to tell the story simply and plainly, as I have myself been able to understand it.

Since the fruits of my study of the life of Savonarola were first published, several contributions to the subject of considerable importance have appeared. First and chief of these is an essay on Savonarola in a volume of historicobiographical studies by the great German historian Ranke (Leipzig, 1877). Next comes a very interesting study by Pere Bayonne (Paris, 1879), a member of the same order and an enthusiastic admirer of Savonarola. Finally, Professor Villari has put forth a carefully revised and almost rewritten edition of his great Life (Florence, 1888), in which he has made a few corrections and alterations, some of them based upon documents previously unknown.

I have been careful to consult all those modern writers from whom I expected to obtain help for my work, and I have made ample acknowledgment of my obligations

^ La Storia di Girolamo Savonarola e de' suoi tempi, narrata da Pasquale Villari, con 1' aiuto di nuovi documenti. Firenze : Le Monnier, vol. i. 1859 ; vol. ii. 1861.

8 PREFACE.

wherever I was conscious of them. Sometimes I have thought it better to quote their very words. But it must not be supposed that I have obtained my information generally at second hand. I have studied all the principal original sources, and have commonly told the story in their language. For the sake of any who may care to follow me in these studies, I may mention the Lives of Giovan Francesco Pico della Mirandola and Burlamacchi, the work of Barsanti, and the " Cedrus Libani " of Frk Benedetto, published in the splendid Italian " Archivio Storico." I should add that I have been much indebted to the various works of Padre Marchese, published in the same collection.

Of the works of Savonarola I have carefully studied the "Compendium Revelationum," the "Trionfo della Croce," and many of his sermons and smaller works, as well as his poems. I have also used the works of Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and Sismondi ; and among later works, Capponi's " Storia della Repubblica di Firenze " and Von Reumont's " Lorenzo de' Medici."

WILLIAM CLARK.

Trinity College, Toronto.

Midsummer, 1890.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Italy in the Fifteenth Century . . ii

II. Savonarola's Birth and Early Years 30

CHAPTER I. ITALY IN THE FIFfEENTH CENTURY

In order to understand the character and work of a man who belonged so entirely to his own age as Savonarola, it will be necessary to attempt some estimate, however slight and imperfect, of the times in which he lived. We must try to understand something of the state of the Roman Empire, of which Italy was, in theory at least, the centre ; of the condition of the Papacy, the great fountain of authority in the Western Church ; of the religious orders ; of the intellectual and moral condition of the people at large.

Although it would be quite impossible to understand the course of Florentine history, with its fierce struggles between Guelfs and Ghibellines, apart from the history of the Empire, these struggles had long ceased before the age of Savonarola. They had, indeed, left behind them political parties which had sprung out of them, and party feelings whose roots were buried deep in those ancient animosities ; but as a practical question, the state of the Empire hardly concerns the student of ItaHan ecclesiastical history in the fifteenth century. The Empire was at its lowest point, and the Papacy at its highest. Frederick III. was Emperor and Nicholas V. was Pope when Savonarola was born. "In Frederick the Third's reign," says Dr. Bryce/ " the Empire sank to its lowest point. It had shot forth a fitful gleam under Sigismund, who, in convoking and presiding over the Council of Constance, had revived one of the high. est functions of his predecessors. . . . Never afterwards was he [the Emperor], in the eyes of Europe, anything more than a German monarch." It was just the reverse with the Papacy. " The Pontificate of Nicholas V.," says Dean Milman,'^ " is the culminating point of Latin Christianity."

Slowly, gradually, surely, the change had taken place. The time had long gone by when men had dreamed of a state of things in which the world should be governed by two masters acting in harmony, the Emperor and the Pope. The theory of Dante, born a Guelf, but forced by the violence of the papal party into the GhibeUine ranks, was a beautiful one, but it could not be worked. Even when the faith of the Church was the religion of the Empire, it became a hopeless task to reconcile the claims of the master of the world with those of the Vicar of Christ. That the Pope should hold his secular possessions of the Emperor as his suzerain ; that the Emperor should receive his authority from the Head of the Church, — through His Vicar, by whom he was anointed and crowned, — all this might seem reasonable, natural,

1 The Holy Roman Empire, ch. xvii. This work can hardly be too highly recommended to the student of mediaeval history. A knowledge of its subject is of the greatest necessity for such ; and it is difficult to mention a work from which it could more easily and effectually be obtained.

2 Latin Christianity, bk. xiii. ch. xvii.

simple in theory ; but innumerable complications arose in working it out. The difficulty of serving two masters continually presented itself; and men drifted into the party of the Guelfs or into that of the Ghibellines, not only from the intelligible reason that they sided with the papal party on the one hand, or with the Imperialists on the other, but from multitudes of other reasons, arising out of local position and family or national history. To us, for instance, it seems strange to find the most strenuous supporters of the Papacy among the strongest republicans ; but our surprise vanishes when we remember that the aristocratic party was headed by those great nobles who derived their chief authority from the Emperor, and were devoted to the support of his claims.

It would be out of place to sketch here, even in barest outline, the rise of the papal power, and therefore we must be contented merely to indicate those points which will render our narrative intelligible. The power of the Roman Bishop had grown up by slow degrees, and had derived its strength from a variety of elements. It would be a mistake to fasten upon any one cause as sufficient to account for the almost absolute dominion which the Bishop of Rome came to exercise over the Western Church.

It was not only his position in the metropolis of the world-empire, — although this went for much, — it was not simply the early fable that the Pope was the successor of Saint Peter, that gave him his authority. This was an effect quite as much as a cause of his predominance. The New Testament knows nothing of Saint Peter as the founder of the Church of Rome. When he is mentioned in this connection by Irenaeus, it is only as associated on equal terms with Saint Paul.

But there were other causes at work. The piety, orthodoxy, learning, and ability of a series of Pontiffs who adorned that chair in the earliest days contributed to strengthen the influence and confirm the power which seemed naturally to belong to the Bishop of the Mother City, and to engender the idea that this was the Mother Church.^ Perhaps it must be added that a strong central ecclesiastical power was almost a necessity in the ages through which the Church had to pass from Constantine to Charles the Great, and from his days to those of another Charles, who witnessed the beginning of the great and widespread revolt against the papal power. We have said nothing of the false decretals. Although they did undoubtedly lend support to the papal theory in its days of advance and development, it must yet be confessed that the main points of that theory were set forth and conceded before those famous documents were promulgated.^

Whether a sagacious anticipation of the dangers inherent in the secular character which began to be asso-

1 Dr. Freeman remarks : " From the time o£ Constantine onwards, the divisions of the Empire and the constant absence of the Emperors from Rome had greatly increased the power of the Popes. They had not, like the Patriarchs of Constantinople, a superior always at hand. Charles the Great had fully asserted the imperial power over the Church: but after his Empire broke up, the power of the Popes grew again. It was checked only by their own wickedness and their divisions among themselves, which kings like Otto the Great and Henry the Third had to step in and put an end to" (General Sketch of European History, ix. 2),

2 The first steps in the progress of papal power are strikingly illustrated in Dr, Lightfoot's appendix to his edition of Saint Clement's Epistles, pp. 252 ff. On the general subject, cf. Papal Claims (London and New York), ciated with the spiritual power of the Papacy would have led to their being averted, we cannot tell. Humanly speaking, it is difficult to imagine, as we trace the course of history, that the Popedom could have been very different from what it v^'as. Be this as it may, it seems inevitable that it should have become a secular power, and equally so that its spiritual character, the world being what it is, should have suffered from the connection.

The deterioration is, in fact, undeniable. As we follow the solemn and impressive history from Pontiff to Pontiff, from age to age, we become aware that the voice of the Vicar of Christ no longer speaks in the pure tones of a Leo or a Gregory j the world also has its prophet on the throne of Peter, and the spirit of the world is blended, in a combination sometimes blasphemous, sometimes touching upon the ludicrous, with the higher spirit of the kingdom. The first Bishop of Christendom is serving two masters.

The moral deterioration of the Roman See is a simple fact of history. It was not rapid, and there were breaks and suspensions and recoils in its course ; but it was, on the whole, gradual and certain. We mark it, perhaps, most in the period which elapsed between the beginning of the fourteenth century and the era of the Reformation. The evil, however, was at work long before this time. In the struggles between the great Popes, like Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), and the great Emperors, like Henry IV., there was of necessity a secularizing of the spirit of the ecclesiastical power, far more than a spirituahzing of the secular ; and the Popes were quite as much the victims as they were the causes of the circumstances in which they found themselves.

John of Salisbury, almost exactly a century later than Gregory VII., — he died in 1180, — tells us that when asked by his friend Hadrian IV. what people said of him and of the Roman Church, he repUed : —

" Many people say that the Roman Church, which is the mother of all other Churches, shows herself to other Churches, not as a mother, but as a stepmother. ' Scribes and Pharisees sit upon her seat, who bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders ; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.' They lord it over God's heritage, and do not walk in the way of life, as ensamples to the flock. They heap up precious things, and load their tables with gold and silver. . . . With them godliness is practised for the sake of gain, not for the dissemination of the truth. ... To many even the Roman Bishop has become unbearable ; and people complain that while the churches which were built by the devotion of our fathers are falling to ruin, and while the altars are deserted, he is going about in purple and gold. The palaces of the priests are resplendent, while the Church of Christ is left polluted and uncared for. ... In my judgment," he added, *' so long as they go this way, the scourge of the Lord will never depart from them."

This was towards the end of the twelfth century ; but about a century later began a period which tended still further to destroy the better features of the papal power. This was the famous Babylonish Captivity, — the residence of the Popes for a period of seventy years (1305-1376) at Avignon in France. One of its evil results was seen in the schism which immediately followed, and lasted for about half the time of the Captivity, — until the Council of Constance, when Martin V. was raised to the papal throne in 141 7, and was finally accepted by the whole Western Church.

When Milman speaks of the Pontificate of Nicholas V. as "the culminating point of Latin Christianity," he does not ignore the facts and circumstances which had long been at work to undermine the monarchy of Hildebrand. "The papal power," he says, "had long reached its zenith. From Innocent III. (i 198-12 16) to Boniface VIII, (i 294-1303) it had begun its decline." That is to say, from near the time of John of Salisbury to the beginning of the period of the papal residence at Avignon, the power of the Pope relatively to that of the secular rulers began to decline ; and the Captivity and the schism almost annihilated any real authority that still remained in his hands. But the Pope as the representative of the Church — perhaps, rather, the Church presided over by the Pope — was supreme in the middle of the fifteenth century. It had burned Huss and Jerome of Prague, and it seemed at peace and irresistible. This was the appearance of things as it would strike the eye of a statesman. But there were unseen forces at work which we, at least, cannot overlook. An age which endured a Papacy in virtual subjection to the French Crown for the best part of a century, another which could tolerate the worse scandal of rival Popes for more than a whole generation, must have fallen from the faith, as well as the order, of earlier times.

" The transfer of the papal throne from Rome to Avignon for a space of seventy years, during the early part of the fourteenth century, entailed enormous evils on Europe, and on the estates of the Church in particular. It was a deliberate renunciation by the Popes of their most sacred duties as Bishops of Rome and as temporal sovereigns. While they passed their days in epicurean ease and luxury on the banks of the Rhone, the patrimony of the Church was trodden down by lawless barons and contending factions, and, as was natural in such a state of things, the people, both clerical and lay, equally despised the laws of God and of man. Venality, impurity, and licentiousness pervaded the papal court, and had reached such a pitch at the time that Petrarch was a resident at or near Avignon that he points to the Romish court there, in his epistles sifie tihilo and in three of his sonnets, as the Western Babylon, a sink of iniquity, a very hell upon earth." ^

It would be absurd to charge the Popes with the whole guilt of the corruption of the fifteenth century. If they were in part the causes, they were also in part only the indications, of a state of things against which some of them struggled hard, but which for the most part, they were powerless to amend. It is by no means true that the Popes of this time were all bad men ; but unfortunately some of the best seemed the least fitted for the evil times on which they had fallen. Nicholas V.,'^

1 Harford's Life of Michael Angelo, vol. i. ch. viii. pt. i., where the references will be found.

2 In Nicholas V., in three short years, the Pope had become again a great Italian potentate. . . . Nicholas V. laid the foundation of his power not so much in the strength of the Roman See as a temporal sovereignty as in the admiration and gratitude of Italy, which was rapidly reported over the whole of Christendom. . . . The famous architect Leo Albert! describes the unexampled prosperity under Nicholas, for which the conspirators would have made that cruel return. " The whole of Latium was at peace. . . . The domain of the Church was in a high state of cultivation ; the city had become a city of gold through the jubilee ; the dignity of the citizens was respected; all reasonable petitions were granted at once by the Pontiff." — Milman : Latin Christianity (2d ed. ), vi. 169.

one of the best of Popes, had his soul saddened, his heart ahnost broken, by rebeUion breaking out among his ungrateful Roman subjects.

To him succeeded Pius II. (1458-1464), the famous yEneas Sylvius, who, although he was not a man of the same depth and spirituality as his predecessor, would yet, by the elevation of his mind, the purity of his character, and the splendor of his abilities, have shed lustre upon any throne. If it was the age of silver succeeding the age of gold, it was succeeded by one far baser than itself. Paul II. (1464-1471), the successor of Pius, was the sister's son of Eugenius IV., who reigned during the sixteen troubled years which intervened between Martin V. and Nicholas V. If his character as Pope had resembled that of his earlier years, he might have left behind him the reputation of his uncle ; but the arrogance of his pretensions, his love of display, his unscrupulousness in accumulating money, and his disregard for his word, or even his oath, have deeply stained his name. "You venture to appeal to judges," he cried, with a glare ^ at Platina. " As if you did not know that all laws are lodged in our breast ! The sentence is given. I am Pope, and I have power to rescind or to approve, at my pleasure, the acts of all other men."

It has been truly said that, at this time, every other precious thing was as cheap at Rome as the Pope's oath. But the course was still downwards : Paul II. was succeeded by Sixtus IV. (1471-1484). In his reign simony was open and undisguised; no benefice was given away without being paid for. The unscrupulousness of his conduct towards his opponents we shall have 1 Torvis Oculis. Cf. Bower, Popes, A. d 1465.

to notice when we come to speak of his quarrel with the Medici. Murder he held in certain cases to be justifiable ; and his general character may be judged from the generally beheved report that his death was brought on by chagrin at a peace being concluded, without his sanction, between the Venetians and certain allied powers who were at war with them. Of darker charges against him, made and believed, we say nothing. The chief excuse alleged for his crimes consists in the plea that they all proceeded from an immoderate affection for his relations, and his desire to promote and enrich them.

Innocent VIII. (1484-1493), if not as bad a man, was possibly a worse Pope than Sixtus had been. When the latter died, a contemporary wrote : " On this most happy day God Almighty showed His power upon earth, and delivered His people out of the hand of this most impious and iniquitous sovereign, in whom dwelt no fear of God, no love for the flock of Christ, but shameful lust, avarice, and vain-glory." But it was worse in the days of his successor. Murders were frequent, and were seldom punished when their authors were protected by the princes of the Church. A man who had murdered his own two daughters was set at liberty on the morning of the day appointed for his execution, because he had paid eight hundred ducats. And the papal Vice-Chamberlain, when asked why such criminals escaped, gave with bitter irony the reply : " God willeth not the death of a sinner, but that he shall pay and live ; and so we think in Bologna." ^ One incident of this Pope's reign may suffice to show its character. We suppress the

1 No mere story. Steph. Infessura declares that he was present when it was said (Diar., p. 1988, in Rudelbach).

most offensive portion of the Pope's words in reference to it.

The Pope's vicar for the city of Rome on one occasion issued an edict forbidding concubinage, and threatening the laity who were guilty of it with excommunication, and the clergy with suspension and loss of their benefices. Innocent had the vicar summoned before him, and gave orders that the edict should be withdrawn, as concubinage, or something worse, was universal. It should be added, however, that he did, although apparently with reluctance, consent to the renewal of a constitution of Pius II. forbidding priests to keep taverns, play-houses, and houses of ill-fame, or to act as the secret agents of prostitutes. This Pope, let it be remembered, was the friend of Lorenzo de' Medici ; and one of his natural sons married Lorenzo's daughter Maddalena. It was he who, on account of this family connection, conferred the cardinal's hat on Giovanni, the brother of Maddalena, afterwards Leo X., when he was only thirteen years of age.

This brings us to the reign of Alexander VI. (1493- 1503) . It was under this Pope — one of the worst, perhaps the very worst, that ever brought dishonor upon the loftiest seat in Christendom — that Savonarola was put to death.

The hasty sketch which has been given of the occupants of the Roman See during these years — nearly half a century — will prepare our readers to understand something of the times to which our narrative belongs. We turn from the Popes to the monks, — in other words, to the special representatives of the inward and religious life of the Church.

There was a time when, however it might be in the world, there was purity and devotion in the cloister. Without arguing the question whether those who iled from the world to the convent did not carry the world with them into their retreat, — or the other question, whether the monastic life was more a means of deepening or of narrowing the spiritual life of men, — there can be no question that we are indebted to the religious orders for splendid examples of learning, of piety, of intellectual power and influence.

But it is equally undeniable that, like other human institutions, these were liable to corruption and decay. We see recurring evidences of their degeneracy in the rise of reformed communities, — like that of Clairvaux breaking off from Clugny, for example. The most remarkable attempt to deliver monasticism from its tendency to luxury and self-indulgence, from its forgetfulness of the vow of poverty, was the almost contemporaneous rise of the two great mendicant orders of the Dominicans, or Preaching Brothers, and the Franciscans, or Lesser Brothers. Of the vast achievements of these two great orders there could be no question, even if we had only the name of Aquinas as a son of the former, and that of Bonaventura as belonging to the latter. Yet these also fell into such decay that their reformation seemed almost hopeless ; as we shall have occasion to remark in the course of this history.

On this subject one witness may be adduced, and one shall suffice, — Nicolas de Cl^mangis.^ He was born in the latter half of the fourteenth century, and survived the period of the Council of Basel, dying about 1434. He was rector of the University of France, and together

1 Cf. Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexicon, s. v., and Rudelbach.

with his master, Pierre d'Ailly, and Gerson, formed the triumvirate of Catholic reformers who were the glory of France at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The sad condition of the Church was the subject of various appeals which he addressed to the king of France, Charles VII., and to the Anti-pope, Clement VII. ; but his principal work was his treatise on the corrupt condition or ruin of the Church.-^ In this treatise he has the following remarks : —

" As for the monks, what can we say in commendation of those who, according to their vows, ought to be the most perfect of all the sons of the Church, since they are removed from anxiety about the things of the world, and are thus able to devote themselves to the contemplation of heavenly things, but who are plainly the reverse of all this ? For they are, in fact, the most covetous and avaricious of all, and are mere slaves of the world, instead of fleeing from it. Nothing is so hateful to them as their cell and their convent, reading and praying, their rule and religion. Monks they are externally in their dress, but in their life and works they are as far as possible removed from perfection. And this is the righteous punishment which they suffer, that they do not find what they seek ; for the revenues of the convents dwindle away more and more from their insatiable pursuit of earthly goods ; so that where formerly a hundred could live conveniently, now hardly ten can exist with the greatest care ; and they are scarce able to keep their buildings in a habitable condition.