Jerome Savonarola; a sketch

Front matter

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PIJKSKXTEI) HY

A SKETCH

Preface

This little volume is issued in commemoration of the fourth centenary of the death of Jerome Savonarola, who was executed on May 23, 1498. I have not approached the subject with any notion of presenting the famous preacher in a new light, nor have I written for scholars to whom the copious literature on Savonarola is available, but for those to whom many of these works may not be accessible.

Passion, in most loyal devotion and in most malignant enmity, centred around the friar during life. Time has not silenced the voice of hate or of love. If the Italian laureate, Carducci, in his blasphemous " Hymn to Satan," hails Savonarola as one through whom Lucifer wrought havoc among mitres and crowns, saints have regarded him as a martyr and saint. Years have probably conferred greater discretion on Carducci. Recently he made a public declaration that the celebration of Savonarola's fourth centenary was not appropriate for him or his kind ; that only devout and intelligent Catholics should participate in it. In applying the terms " martyr " and " saintly " to Savonarola, I am mindful of the decree of Urban the Eighth, to which 1 profess entire submission.

In the first part of this sketch the public career of Savonarola is presented after the manner of a

Vi PREFACE

chronicle ; in the second part I have endeavored to give a picture of the man, illustrated by his own writings, which are considered in an appendix.

For the convenience of those of my readers who may desire to pursue the subject in a more comprehensive way, I add a second appendix, containing a list of books that will be found of service. I have drawn from some of these works, and have consulted, at first hand, all the contemporary sources, but I do not consider it necessary to encumber the pages of this volume with detailed references. A general credit and acknowledgment must suffice, particularly as my obligations to a majority of the authors named is slight, while I am much indebted to other sources of value which are not specially mentioned.

The saying attributed to the great Pope Benedict XIII., who venerated the friar, — " If God gives me the grace to win Heaven, as soon as I shall have consoled myself with the Beatific Vision, my curiosity will lead me to look for Savonarola," — vividly expresses a thought awakened in many minds during the last four hundred years. The alleged declaration of Pius the Seventh, that in Heaven we shall know why the Jesuits were suppressed, and the meaning of Savonarola's death, is probably the last word of criticism for all practical purposes.

Feast of St. Catharine of Siena, April 30, 1898.

Contents

FIRST PART,

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Ancestry Am) Eaelt Days op Jerome

I. Ancestry Axd Early Days Of Savonarola

On the 21st of September, in the year 1452, was born the most illustrious citizen of the ancient Italian city of Ferrara, Jerome Savonarola.^

The family of Savonarola was of Paduan extraction. Jerome's grandfather, Michael, was a celebrated physician in Padua, where for two hundi'ed years his ancestors had won distinction and esteem. The fame of Doctor Savonarola induced Nicholas the Third, Lord of Ferrara, to urge his coming to that city. He accepted the invitation, and as physician to the prince took up his residence at the court.

Of his son Nicholas, the father of Jerome, nothing notable is recorded. A shiftless man, a physi-

1 Ferrara, now a poor town of scarcely thirty thousand people, was then a city of one hundred thousand inhabitants, and as the capital of the House of Este, the scene of much splendor, a home of Italian culture and pagan learning, the stately host of visiting princes, emperors, and popes, to whom royal welcome was magnificently extended.

cian without ambition, but an acceptable follower of the coui't, he failed to share the renown attaching to the name of Michael, who was justly distinguished for his medical writings as well as for his skill in practice.

Jerome was one of seven children. Of his earliest years we have few particulars. Neither playful nor pretty, he was a grave child, studious, devoted to his mother. These are the characteristics that most deeply impressed themselves on observers and biographers, and they sum up the exterior child life of this remarkable man.^

1 The period whicli witnessed the birth and childhood of Savonarola marks the close of the Middle Ages, ushers in the Renaissance, and is at once the dawn of a new spiritual life for the Church, and a harbinger of the dread Reformation.

He was a nursing infant when Constantinople fell, and the last of the Greek emperors, Constantine Paleologus, gave way to the conquering Turk, Mahomet the Second; when Scanderbeg was fighting, and St. John Capistran, the famous Franciscan, was preaching for the cause of Christian Europe. The fifteenth century was not only an era of religious and political activity, but of general restlessness, of social turbulence, of mercantile enterprise, of maritime expeditions, of impulsive ambitions.

The invention of the art of printing from movable types ; the improvement in methods of manufacturing paper, with the consequent cheapening and multiplying of books ; the introduction to "Western Europe, through a multitude of scholarly Grecian refugees, of the riches of Oriental culture, not only in their native Greek, but in the store of Arabic, Chaldaic, and Syriac literature, henceforth to form a part of the intellectual life of the West, and of a fuller classical learning, the renewal of studies which had never perished, especially in monastic schools, — were among the causes that, in the seething womb of this peculiar epoch, struggled for the birth of a new life.

During the period when these various forces were in a condi-

As he entered upon his growing boyhood, the seriousness of the child deepened. He soon recognized the vanity and pomp of a society which was largely pagan in its refinement. Such an abhorrence did he conceive for it that, having once been brought to the duke's palace, he resolutely declared that he would never again visit the place. Study and prayer filled his days, while meditation strengthened his increasing conviction that the times were evil.

His parents intended him for the medical profession, but Divine Providence had otherwise ordained. In the learning of his day Savonarola made rapid progress ; for as Burlamacchi, afterwards his religious brother and disciple, tells us, he worked night and day. The philosophy of Aristotle and of Plato he diligently read, following tliese by an ardent and enthusiastic study of the Angelic Doctor.

While he thus enriched his mind, devotion and

tion of fermentation, the minds of many were anxious and harassed, and spiritual men foresaw and proclaimed that some great, because necessary, change must come in the affairs of Church and state.

As the century advanced in its second half, the immortal discoverer Christojjher Columbus, whose voyages were to open a new world for the Church and civilization, was dreaming his divine dreams, and looking out over the unknown seas with eyes of yearning and with a heart eager for exploration, and inspired by zeal for the salvation of souls. These two famous Italians did not meet in this world ; but in starry regions of peace and bliss, we trust that their much-tried spirits have found rest and recompense with God.

piety shone in his manner and conduct, the fruit of the growing charity with which his tender heart glowed. Fidelity to his books prepared him for that wider and deeper research which came later, in reading the lessons of the human heart. Full of sympathy as he witnessed squalor, suffering, and ignorance side by side with luxury, indulgence, and pagan culture, his soul burned Avith righteous indignation against the irreligious and unchristian spirit which was dominant, and with tender pity for God's neglected poor. ^^

As the gulf, already broad, grew wider and wider, " the rich becoming richer and the poor poorer," his spirit cried out in the crude but impassioned verses which he entitled "On tlie Ruin of the World." To him the whole world seemed awry, virtue and piety having disappeared, sin walking abroad without shame, bloodshed and rapine triumj)hant, the widow and the orphan despoiled, Christ scorned, and Heaven defied. Savonarola was then only in his twentieth year. We may easily credit Father March ese when he tells us that at this time the youth found pleasure in the woods, in lonely places, walking in the fields or by the river's bank, singing plaintively or weeping, thus giving vent to the emotions which surged in his breast.

For an account of an interesting incident of this period of his life we are indebted to Father Benedict, ^ne of his disciples at St. Mark's, who learned from the master many details of his youth. Living near the Savonarola homestead in Ferrara was a Florentine exile of the noble house of the Strozzi, whose daughter attracted the attention of the gloomy young poet. A sudden attachment sprang from this, doubtless a passing emotion of fancy, under the influence of which Savonarola declared to the lady his devotion. We may imagine the just indignation with which he met her haughty rejection, her cutting announcement that no Strozzi could stoop to an alliance with a Savonarola.

This shattering of his hopes, this disappearance, as he then thought, of all light and sunshine, was the happy occasion of his turning more completely to God. The piety which he had always cultivated now urged him to an absolute abandonment of the world. He did not act hastily ; but considered the matter long, seeking guidance through prayer.

When he was about twenty-two years old, as he mentions in one of his discourses, and as Pico della Mirandola, Burlamacchi, and Father Benedict also record, he heard a sermon delivered by an Angus tinian friar. So deep an impression did this preacher make on him that his resolution was at once formed to leave the world and to join a religious order. His love and admiration for St. Thomas Aquinas determined his choice of the Order of Preachers. Nevertheless, another year passed before he effected his purpose.

During this time his tender heart suffered unspeakable anguish, for the delay was entirely due to his fear of inflicting pain on his father and mother by announcing to them his purpose of retiring to a monastery.

II. The Cloister. — Ideal Of The Religious Life. (1475-1481.)

The struggle was ended only in 1475. On April 24, being then in his twenty-third year, Savonarola stealthily left his home, and set out for Bologna and St. Dominic's, where the sacred relics of the Patriarch lie enshrined in the noble and exquisite tomb wrought by Niccolo Pisano, the cradle of modern Christian art.^

Savonarola's earliest ideal was the religious life in its simplest form, the work and lowliness of a lay-brother seeming to him the more attractive. This erroneous notion was dissipated by the Fathers of St. Dominic's, who pointed out to the student

1 For the consolation of his father and mother he wrote a letter and a hrief tract on contempt of the world. These they found after his departure. The letter is deeply religious. Declaring the feelings of love and reverence for his parents which were deep in his heart, he gently reminds them that he could not have trusted himself to bid them adieu. In a subsequent letter he tells them that he is about to become a soldier of Jesus Christ, an honor which they will assuredly prize above the fleeting honors of this world's wars and heroes. In his tract he emphasizes these sentiments, expressing at the same time, in vigorous language, his horror of the sinful world which he is about to abandon. He begins, even in this youthful production, tp announce the coming wrath of God in punishment of Italy's sins.

that the career to which he was called was that of the priestliood.

In the retreat at Bologna, Savonarola spent seven happy years. Prayer, fasting, mortifications of the most rigorous kind, filled his days ; at the same time his modesty and obedience proved how truly he had separated himself from the outer world. During this period he lectured to the novices, composed a Compendium of Philosophy, and wrote commentaries on Plato, his previous philosophical and theological studies having laid a most solid foundation for the vast learning which he subsequently acquired.

Early in his religious life his meditations, which before his coming to Bologna had found expression in the canticle or poem, already mentioned, on the ruin of the world, bore further fruit in a second metrical composition, which he styled '• The Ruin of the Church." Brooding over the unhappy condition of his beloved Italy (for Savonarola was no mere provincial), witnessing a period whose annals deal frequently with treacher}^, cruelty, bloodslied in war, in riot, and in assassination, his gloomy forebodings were further embittered as he beheld the relaxation in morals, the scandals in ecclesiastical life, the decay of faith, the numerous disorders which afflicted the Church. In this canticle on the sins prevailing among the faithful, his ardent soul pictures with a sombre vividness the evils that had already come, and the misfortunes that, as a necessaiy consequence and punishment, would follow in their train. He describes the Church in solitude, mourning the overthrow of her chaste edifice, spending her days in tears because of the havoc that had been wrought. His inflamed imagination beheld the evil spirit as a horrible vampire that had spread its great wings over the prostrate form of the Church, from which it gradually drew the life-blood. Then, as if rapt in an ecstasy of indignation, the impetuous young friar poured out the longings of his soul " for the beauty of the house of the Lord," and for the honor of the place where His glory dwelleth : " O God, O Lady, give me that I may break those spreading wings ! that I may slay this monster ! that I may lift up and restore your beloved Church I " 1

His gracious Lady bade him be silent, to pray and weep. With swelling heart he obeyed, giving himself to the life of the cloister in the fullest devotion of his generous souL Thus restrained by the Spirit of God, and yielding to the empire of grace, he rigorously devoted himself to the vocation with which he had been honored.

1 We have paraphrased the impassioned words of the young friar. These verses supply the key to his future career.

III. Arrival In Florence. (1481.)

History is silent as to the time of Savonarola's first appearance in the pulpit. Even the date of his ordination is not given by his biographers. Certain it is, however, that while in Bologna his suj)eriors directed him to preach. What effect these discourses had on his audience we know not. Ap- 2)arently he did not achieve any notable success, for contemporary chronicles make no mention of his efforts.

In 1481 he was sent to Ferrara, his native city, where for a time he preached, but without any special influence. Apart from a lack of polish that many of the cultured hearers of those days considered more important than doctrine, his want of success may have been an illustration of the old proverb, that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country. So, at least, Savonarola thought.

During this year, the closing of the University of Ferrara, the faculty of which included several members of the Dominican Order, was the occasion for the withdrawal of some of the brethren previously assigned to the convent of that city. Savonarola was sent to the Tuscan capital, destined afterwards to be the scene of his triumphs and his sorrows. He never again saw his native place. The contemplation of the misfortunes which threatened Ferrara and all Italy through expected war, stirred the soul of the anxious friar as he began his journey to his new home. We know not whether the gloom of his reflections was brightened by the beautiful panorama which opened up before him in the very heart of the ga^rden land of Italy, as he gazed, for the first time, on the lovely valley in which fair Florence, divided by the River Arno, sat gloriously enthroned, and solemnly guarded by the lordly Apennines. Normaj^ we jiidge whether, as he entered the noble convent of St. Mark, a prophetic inspiration fell upon his soul, or coming events cast their shadows on the hopes that must have swelled his generous heart while he thought of this new and extensive field which awaited his labor and zeal.

The name of St. Mark's is forever linked with the history of Florence, with the career of Savonarola, and with the memory of the Medici; for it was Cosimo the Elder who built and endowed the convent at a heavy cost, and there welcomed the Dominicans in the jenv 1443. To this great man the brethren were further indebted for a magnificent library, which was practically the first public library founded in Italy. The friars of St. Mark's were men of learning as well as of piety ; and under their fostering care, especially in the golden days of St. Antoninus and of Fra Angelico, St. Mark's became the centre of Christian culture in Florence.

Only twenty-two years had elapsed since the death, of the gentle archbishop when Savonarola entered the convent whose walls were all alive with the speaking figures of Angelico 's lovely saints and angels, and with the glory of Paradise itself, and whose chronicles were enriched with the story of bis brother Dominican artists. Learning and art and sanctity, the-refore, greeted the young friar from Ferrara, and bade him welcome to this home of religion and true Christian erudition.

Beyond its peaceful cloister there arose the din and strife of politics and of contending philosophers.^ Not only were purely religious studies neglected,2 but even the pursuit of full and genuine

1 While in other parts of Europe politics, as we now understand the term, was an unknown factor, in Italy a number of petty states, variously named, including one kingdom, several duchies, republics, and marquisates, had so fostered the spirit of diplomacy and statecraft, that in the fifteenth century the science of politics had made rapid advance in popular interest and study. Florence probably deserved the primacy of eminence in the tangled and crooked work which this study and interest developed among the turbulent and often fiercely contentious Tuscans.

Among the literati of this time, the amenities (?) of literary life were often observed by charge and countercharge of fraud, treachery, crime, etc., " the flowers with which the glorious path of scholarship was strewn."

2 At this time, as Savonarola declared in one of his sermons, there was not a professor of Holy Scripture in all Florence, outprofane learning was neither serious nor dignified. Lorenzo the Magnificent discussed Plato with his followers,^ and tlien passed to tlie composition of obscene carnival ballads and rhymes whose merits his sycophantic courtiers lauded beyond the immortal song of Dante. Such was the standard among the men who venerated everything ancient, who regarded "the discovery of a Greek or Latin manuscript as one of the greatest blessings of Heaven," who extravagantly extolled the classics, and endeavored, through a blind imitation of Greek and Latin writers, to establish a neopagan literature.

So lamentable a manner of life, among the higher classes, accompanied as it was by much immorality, induced a corresponding degradation of the people. Vice, it may be said, was too often unchecked, unrebuked. The Carnival was not a mere diversion preceding Lent; it was a prolonged dissipation in which lewd displays and ribald songs,

side of the monasteries, and even in them he claimed that the sacred study did not flourish,

1 The Academy of Plato, which had heen founded by Cosimo de' Medici, was then under the presidency of the famous Marsilio Ficino. Its members often engaged in debate on theological and philosophical questions, having in view the reconciliation of Christianity with paganism! Of Ficino himself it is recorded that the Gospels were Platonized before he could relish them. While thus marking with a note of severity those scholars who were puffed up with pagan lore, we are not unmindful of those who, like Pico della Mirandola, that marvel of genius and learning, had preserved their faith, and even later cultivated devotion.

some of the latter composed by Lorenzo, were a large part of the programme. The contamination of public manners was a necessary consequence of these entertainments.

Hallam, speaking of Lorenzo the Magnificent, whose patriotism he could not praise as disinterested, declares that he completed the subversion of the Florentine republic for which his two immediate ancestors had prepared, the mockery and pageant of forms having alone been preserved by him in order to keep up the illusion of liberty.

A student of Tacitus, Lorenzo realized that, in imitation of the Roman Emperor Augustus, the most effective way to carry out his purpose of enslaving the people was first to corrupt them. Nor had he read the life of Pericles without learning the same lesson from the Athenian tyrant.

It is not, therefore, surprising that the political condition was deplorable among a people whose republican institutions had previously and successfully resisted oft-repeaated shocks, but who now seemed, with few exceptions, dead to all thought of freedom. Verily, the proud Catholic Republic had sunk low when Savonarola began his labors among the Florentines.

IV

BEGIXNIXG OF SAVOXAHOLA'S CAREER AS A PREACHER AXD MISSIONARY. (1482-1489.)

It required but a sliort time for Savonarola to appreciate his new surroundings. Occupied with the instruction of the novices, he had, however, no opportunity of appearing in the pulpit till the Lent of 1-482. These few months of preparation were providential. They enabled him to study the difficulties of his position, and served as a judicious check on what might have been a rash precipitancy had he spoken in the first fervor of his indignation. Seeing how the Bible was held in slight esteem, having been superseded by Plato and Aristotle among many of the learned, he gave himself with renewed determination to the study of the Scriptures, inculcating at the same time a like devotion on the part of his novices. The Divine Word was indeed his armory. During all the succeeding years of his preaching he invariably made the Holy Scriptures the root and basis of his discourses.^

1 "He delighted," Father Marehese tells us, " in the Bible as a perennial fountain of inspiration. Like Dante, Michael Angelo, Milton, he drew from the sacred pages beauties which entitle him to rank with the immortals." Possibly Savonarola's great

16 JEBOME SAVONATiOLA.

Disregarding the prevailing method of address, and speaking from his big, honest heart, without quibble or subterfuge, seeking neither to please cultivated ears nor to win pagan applause, he besfan liis Lenten sermons in the church of San Lorenzo. His earnestness, his fire, his wealth of Scripture learning and comment, were all lost on the Florentines who came to hear him.

Their sense of pagan art and refinement was shocked by the bluntness of the man who cared more for truth than for its forms. As Lent drew to its close his audience had dwindled to twentyfive, women and children included. Assuredly a discouraging beginning for the ardent champion of faith and virtue in this demoralized centre of infidelity and immorality ! Nevertheless, he accepted the lesson, while he recognized the cause of his failure ; and though his soul flamed with the message he felt that God wished him to deliver, he resolved to retire, and resume in the quiet of St. Mark's his commentaries on the Bible which he then knew by heart. Tliese lectures were primarily intended for his beloved " angels," as he called the white-robed boys of St. Mark's, who had come to follow in the way of him whom Dante named —

" The loving minion of the Christian Faith, The hallowed wrestler, gentle to his own, And to his enemies terrihle."

love of the Bible may have been seized as a pretext by those who, unlike him, rejected the authority of the Church as a divinely appointed interpreter, to class him with Protestants.

JEEOZIE SAVONAROLA. 17

Subsequently, however, as we shall see, others sought admittance, and were kindly received.

In the Lent of 1484, and again in 1485, Savona- I'ola was sent as preacher to the little republic of San Gemignano, among whose people simplicity went hand in hand with faith and piety. Strangers to the refinements and the debaucheries of Florence, they listened with reverence and in a trul}^ penitential spirit, as the orator gave free vent to his righteous indignation because of the prevailing sins of Italj^ At San Gemignano he foretold some of the calamities which subsequently fell upon the land.^

During the succeeding four years Savonarola varied his scholastic work by preaching in various towns. In the summer of 1489 his superiors withdrew him from the missionary field, and recalled him to St. Mark's.^

1 In 1484 he also preached in Brescia, warning the people that certain defined chastisements would fall on them. The fulfilment of this prediction Madden and other biographers find in the ecour<?e of 1500, which came with the pillage of the town by the French. Assuredly the coincidence is striking.

2 For the statement of Villari and others that this change waa made at the request of Lorenzo de' Medici there is not sufficient evidence. A seeming basis for their supposition they find in an incident that occurred in 1482. In that year Savonarola attended a Chapter of his Province held at Reggio. Among the distinguished scholars who were present as guests of the Brethren, interested in the disputations which relieved the more solemn and formal features of such assemblies, was Pico della Mirandola. Either because of a personal introduction to Savonarola as the opening of an acquaintance, or merely through admiration aroused by his talents, Pico formed a strong attachment to the friar. A

At first he discoursed onl}^ to the Brethren, but soon liis fame spread ; and despite that Lombard tongue which grated on Tuscan ears, laymen crowded to hear the man whose power they felt, and to whose words they listened as the utterance of one who knew whereof he spoke. St. Mark's could not contain all w^ho wished to share in the lecturer's teaching. Despite his unsparing labors, these were days of rest, of calm, of preparation for the greater labors and for the trials that were in waiting. " Thus," as Mrs. Oliphant gracefully writes, " the first chapter of Fra Girolamo's history ends, under the damask rose-tree in the warm July w^eather, within those white cloisters of San Marco. In the full eye of day, in the pulpit and the public places of Florence, as prophet, spiritual ruler, apostle among men, was the next period of Lis life to be passed. Here his probation ends."

few years later, it is alleged, he used his influence with Lorenzo to secure the permanent assignment of Savonarola to St. Mark's. That the Dominican Superior should accede to such a request, if made by Lorenzo, would not have been inconsistent with religious discipline, especially as the growing repute of the young lecturer had already become the theme of frequent discussion among the Florentines. If Lorenzo did procure the recall of Savonarola, he probably had no anticipation of the consequences involved, nor did he think that in this friar he would find his firmest opponent in behalf of Florentine liberty and reformation.

V

LENTEN DISCOLItSES. — PRIOR OF ST. MARK'S.— RELA- TIONS WITH LORENZO DE' MEDICL {1490-1492.)

Yielding to the urgent requests of the laymen who tlironged the spacious cloisters and garden to hear his discourses, Savonarola announced, towards the end of the month, that on Sunday, Aug. 1st, 1490, he would speak from St. Mark's pulpit ; and, as Burlamacchi tells us, he added, "I shall speak for eight years."

He delivered his first discourse, feeling that he had indeed entered on a divinely appointed work. This he outlined in three propositions, the spirit of which pervaded his sermons during the entire period of his public ministry. The Church of God, he declared, needs reformation ; ^ Italy will be scourged ; and these things will soon come to pass. With these propositions as texts, and with the wealth of Scripture as a storehouse from which to draw, he scattered with a lavish hand the gathered fruits of years spent in meditation, in praj-er, and in grief for the unhappy conditions prevailing. "Swift and fiery" was the natural eloquence of the man, who, arguing that mere elegance of

1 From within, and only in discipline and morals.

diction was of minor importance, disregarded many of the forms prescribed by art. Tlie effect produced on the Florentines by the friar's sermons was notable.

Some held him to be a man of God, a prophet; others claimed that he was a fanatic, to whose raving denunciations sensible men would pay no heed. That his opponents, as well as admirers, continued to flock to St. Mark's, overtaxing the capacity of the convent church, proves the extraordinary interest aAvakened and sustained by the preacher who vigorously censured the vices of his time, and confidently foretold the coming calamities, chastisements sent by the God of justice.

That great " contradictions " arose against him, as Burlamacchi declares, we may readily believe. It could not have been otherwise. He had anticipated this ; he knew that prophets had been murdered ; for himself he foretold the same fate.

The friar's study of his Divine Master had been too loving and faithful to leave any doubt in his mind, or any vain expectation in his heart, as to the reward awaiting his mission.^