Death in Florence: the Medici, Savonarola and the Battle for the Soul of the Renaissance City

by Paul Strathern

  They also had another, somewhat surprising, element in common: their extensive knowledge of unorthodox philosophical thinking. Pico della Mirandola was already beginning to show an interest in esoteric learning – such as the Kabbala (a mystical branch of Judaism) and Zoroastrianism (the early monotheistic religion of Persian fire worshippers). Although Savonarola’s religious interests are unlikely to have extended to such exotica, we know that his learning was not confined to orthodox Christianity. It was probably around this time that Savonarola completed his Compendium totius philosophae (A Brief Summary of all Philosophies), which would not be published until after his death. We now know that parts of this work, some of which elaborated an aspect of unorthodox religious thought, were lost, or possibly destroyed by overzealous followers who wished to eradicate all hint of heretical thinking from his works. Still, despite Savonarola’s early years of humanist education with Guarino at the University of Ferrara – an experience shared by Pico – there can be no doubt that by this stage Pico’s knowledge of unorthodox thinkers and philosophers was far greater than that of Savonarola. Yet as we shall see, Savonarola’s informed discussions and critiques of such thinkers would later play an integral part in Pico’s beliefs. For the time being, it seems, Savonarola and Pico merely exchanged their views and agreed to differ; for though Savonarola studied such matters, he remained deeply opposed to unorthodox thinking of any sort.

  By this stage, Savonarola was already establishing something of a reputation for himself within San Marco, such that soon after his arrival he had been made master of the novices. His intellect, as well as his exemplary asceticism and fervour, had inspired a devoted following amongst those who attended his theological instruction – a following that included both the novices in his charge and his fellow monks. Despite this, the indications are that Savonarola was undergoing something of a spiritual crisis during this period. One of his fellow monks recounts how he would arrive to give his morning lessons with his eyes swollen from the weeping that had overcome him during the night-long vigils and hours of fervent meditation that he imposed upon himself. Regardless of Savonarola’s evidently distressed psychological state, ‘His teachings … raised men’s hearts above all human things.’ It seemed to his listeners ‘that from the time of the early Christian fathers no one equalled him in the teaching of the sacred books’. This comparison to the early days of Christianity would seem to be no accident: Savonarola’s stated aim was to return the Church to the physical poverty and utter spiritual devotion of its origins.15

  Part of Savonarola’s duties involved delivering the occasional sermon at one of the many smaller churches in Florence. Evidently his sermons impressed, for in the spring of 1484 he was invited to deliver the Lenten sermons in the Church of San Lorenzo, one of the oldest and largest in Florence, which had recently been redesigned by Filippo Brunelleschi. This early Renaissance architectural masterpiece was the chosen burial place of the Medici, and the congregation was accustomed to erudite sermons delivered with some eloquence by leading preachers of the day. Savonarola’s lessons in the closed privacy of the monastery of San Marco had a miraculous effect upon his listeners, and he must have made a similarly inspiring impression with the sermons that he delivered in the smaller churches of Florence; yet outside such intimate surroundings he proved far from compelling. ‘The little friar’, with his heavy, dark eyebrows and his long, hooked nose, made an unprepossessing figure in the pulpit. His low, intense voice did not carry through the long, high-ceilinged nave, and his broad Ferrarese accent struck many as comical; at the same time, the fervour of his words was entirely dissipated in such vast echoing surroundings.

  According to Placido Cinozzi, the fellow monk who was present at all of Savonarola’s Lenten sermons, his congregations gradually diminished, until all that remained were just twenty-five people, including women and the young children they had brought with them. As Savonarola himself later admitted:

  I had neither the voice, nor the strength, nor the ability to preach; as a result everyone was bored when I delivered my sermons … just a few simple men on the one side of the aisle, and a few poor women on the other, came to hear me.16

  Savonarola was so dispirited that he decided to abandon the whole idea of preaching sermons in public. This would have been a humiliating decision indeed – an admission of his failure as a monk, no less – for the Dominicans were a preaching order, and this fact must surely have been at the forefront of his mind when he chose to join the Dominicans, rather than an alternative order. Indicatively, one of the reasons Savonarola gave for abandoning preaching was that his sermons were so ineffectual they ‘couldn’t even have frightened a chicken’. This suggests that from the very start he conceived of his sermons with a particular purpose in mind: his words were not intended to enlighten, or to reassure, but to inspire the fear of God in his listeners.

  This humiliation brought Savonarola’s ongoing spiritual crisis to a climax. One day, late in 1484, he accompanied a fellow monk who was visiting his sister at the convent of San Giorgio. While Savonarola was waiting alone in the churchyard outside the convent, he was overcome by a sudden revelation, which he described as taking the form of ‘many reasons, at least seven, that a scourge of the Church was at hand … And from this moment on I fell to thinking much of these things.’17

  Despite Savonarola’s desire to give up preaching, his superiors decided he should continue. But in order to prevent him from suffering any further humiliation in Florence, he was asked to deliver the Lenten sermons in the small hilltop town of San Gimignano, away in the rolling Tuscan countryside some thirty miles south-west of Florence. Here, with no pressure to ‘perform’, and filled with the inspiration of his recent revelation, Savonarola appears not only to have found his voice, but for the first time to have begun to express himself in the manner that was to become his own. Unfortunately, no record of these 1485 Lenten sermons has been found, but we can gather his state of mind from a letter he wrote during this period. On 9 March, in the midst of his succession of sermons at San Gimignano, Savonarola received word from his mother Elena in Ferrara that his father Niccolò had died. We do not know the exact words of Savonarola’s reply, but its general content and tone can be inferred from other letters that he wrote to her later during this period. Savonarola seems to have been utterly preoccupied with his vocation and the sermons he was delivering: he replied to his mother that she should no longer regard him as a member of the family, for his father was now Jesus Christ and his family was the Dominican order. As he later insisted again and again: ‘You should consider me dead.’18 Such words can hardly have consoled Elena, yet she persisted in regarding him as her son. Seven months later she wrote to inform him that her brother Borso had also died. Niccolò’s financial incompetence had left Elena struggling with debts, and Savonarola’s Uncle Borso had been the sole support for his mother and her two daughters. This time it appears that Savonarola did find himself moved by his mother’s sorrowful words and her pitiful plight. Addressing her as ‘Most honourable and most beloved Mother’,19 he explained that he could not send her the money for which she was asking because his vow of poverty meant that he had none. Instead he sent her all he could: a five-page letter that took him many days to compose. This was a curious blend of a sermon and advice on how to become a saint, complete with biblical references ranging from Psalms to Corinthians:

  I want your faith to be such that you could watch [your children] die and be martyred without shedding a tear for them, as that most holy Hebrew woman did when seven of her saintly children were killed and tortured in front of her and she never cried, but instead comforted them in their death.

  Parts of this tract can be read as an exhortation to himself and, when read in this light, its attitude towards its recipient appears utterly heartless and selfish. However, it is in fact a call to place one’s life completely in the hands of God. ‘It is better, therefore, to tolerate patiently our brief tribulations so as to have eternal joy and peace
and glory everlasting.’ This last advice is certainly intended for his mother, rather than for himself. Yet it is not hypocrisy: Savonarola had come to see his own life as something more than striving for ‘eternal joy and peace’. His revelation at the convent had convinced him that he was intended to become a prophet. This would soon become evident in his sermons. Savonarola’s initial Lenten sermons at San Gimignano had proved so popular that he was invited back to deliver the 1486 Lenten sermons. For many years it was thought that the contents of these too had been lost; but in 1935, whilst searching through the Florentine archives, the Italian scholar Roberto Ridolfi came across some notes written in medieval Latin. On inspection, it became clear that these were Savonarola’s rough drafts for his 1486 Lenten sermons. In these, he elaborated upon his ‘revelation’, when he had learned of ‘at least seven’ reasons why ‘a scourge of the Church is imminent’, including the presence of evil ‘shepherds’ in the Church, the corruption of the Church, and simony (the selling of Church posts for money). This last was an obvious reference to the new pope, Innocent VIII, who had proved every bit as corrupt as his predecessor Sixtus IV. Not only had Innocent VIII been the first pope openly to acknowledge his own children, but he had also institutionalised the selling of holy offices. Savonarola may have lamented the papacy of Sixtus IV, but with the elevation of Innocent VIII to the papal throne he recognised that things had in reality gone from bad to worse. As he wrote in a poem at the time: ‘When I did see that haughty womanfn5 enter Rome’ it reduced him to a state of ‘constant weeping’.21

  Savonarola also told the citizens of San Gimignano that God had sent prophets to warn mankind of what was about to happen – the coming of ‘the antichrist, war, plague or famine’. Despite being so specific, he insisted, ‘I do not warn you about this because I am a prophet, but because I can tell from reading the Bible that such a scourge of the Church is coming.’ Although he was undoubtedly performing the task of a prophet, he was not yet sure enough of himself to take on the mantle publicly.

  After finishing his Lenten sermons at San Gimignano, Savonarola returned to Florence, where some months later he learned that he had been appointed a master of studies at the great Studium generale in Bologna. He would be returning to the very place where he had first studied theology; but now, just ten years later, he himself would be amongst the distinguished theologians of the teaching staff.

  fn1 In fact, this is called the convent of San Marco, but as in English this term mostly refers to closed religious communities of women, in order to avoid confusion I have throughout used the usual English term for a building that houses a community of monks.

  fn2 He had succeeded the duplicitous, warmongering Sixtus IV.

  fn3 The precise date when Primavera was painted remains in dispute. Many favour the earlier date of 1482, immediately after Botticelli had returned from Rome, and some even favour 1477 when Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco would have been just fourteen. However, even if Primavera was not painted at the later date that I have favoured, other works confirm that the interaction between the intellectual circle of the Palazzo Medici and Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco next door continued after the rift between Lorenzo the Magnificent and his cousin.

  fn4 In all fairness, this was not mere flattery. Pico’s assessment was shared by a number of intellectuals of the time.

  fn5 This was Simony personified, as Savonarola made plain by writing in the margin in his own hand: ‘the ambition for ecclesiastical honours’.

  4

  Securing the Medici Dynasty

  WHEN LORENZO THE Magnificent learned that Innocent VIII had been elected the new pope, he at once launched a diplomatic offensive designed to win him over to his cause. But what precisely was his cause? Undoubtedly, Lorenzo wished to maintain the balance of power in Italy, so that Florence and her thriving trade could continue to prosper without threat from her powerful neighbours. An alliance with the pope, a major spiritual and political force throughout the land, was essential to this end. But it soon became clear that Lorenzo the Magnificent had ulterior motives for becoming the pope’s ally and friend: he wanted to secure the Medici dynasty, and was intent upon doing this in the most spectacular fashion.

  Lorenzo the Magnificent’s oldest son Piero was thirteen years old in 1484, and was seen as Lorenzo’s natural successor to power in Florence. He was a difficult, somewhat arrogant child, who had many of his father’s more dashing physical attributes, but as yet had demonstrated little of Lorenzo’s intellect or judgement. Despite being educated by the likes of Poliziano and Ficino, Piero showed more interest in hunting than in learning or affairs of state. In an attempt to rectify this, Lorenzo despatched his son, accompanied by Poliziano, at the head of the Florentine delegation to Rome to congratulate the new pope on his succession.

  Innocent VIII was a suave, mild-mannered and somewhat devious character, who had only been elected as a compromise, when neither the powerful and notorious Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, nor his sworn enemy the well-connected Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, had been able to muster sufficient votes for themselves. Lorenzo knew that having diplomatic dealings with the fifty-five-year-old pope might prove an overawing task for the inexperienced teenage Piero, and as a result he found himself behaving in much the same overprotective way as his own father, Piero the Gouty, when Lorenzo was sent on his first youthful diplomatic missions. An indication of this can be seen in the five-page letter he sent on 26 November 1484 to Piero in Rome, which is little more than a litany of similarly detailed instructions on how to conduct himself:

  Be careful not to take precedence of those who are thine elders, for although thou art my son, thou art but a citizen of Florence … When Giovannifn1 thinks fit to present thee to the Pope privately first inform thyself well of all the needful ceremonies, then when presented to His Sanctity kiss my letter which will be given thee for the Pope, entreating him to deign to read it.1

  Yet it was not until the third page of this letter that Lorenzo came to the heart of the matter:

  After this thou art to say to His Holiness that having thus recommended me, brotherly love constrains thee to recommend also Messer Giovanni, whom I have brought up as a priest.

  ‘Messer Giovanni’ was Lorenzo’s second son, who was just nine years old and was intended for high office in the Church. Giovanni was a likeable chubby child who already showed signs of great intelligence; and, to his father’s dismay, great indolence – a most uncharacteristic trait for a Medici. Even so, Lorenzo was prepared to place his highest hopes in Giovanni, and would set about paving his way to high office in the customary fashion by purchasing for him a number of rich benefices, providing him with both an income and a position within the Church. Although such methods were not unusual, they had certainly become more commonplace with the advent of Innocent VIII’s reign of blatant simony, which had upset more than just Savonarola. Lorenzo would seize the opportunity presented by this new laxness, and had even taken the unusual step of making young Giovanni Bishop of Arezzo, a senior Church post within his Tuscan domains; and he would soon begin cajoling the King of France into making Giovanni Archbishop of Aix-en-Provence, an important benefice that came with a considerable income.

  Significantly, this was the beginning of Lorenzo’s attempt to establish the Medici in France. Only with hindsight is it possible to determine the enormity of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s ambitions for his family. At the time, he was not even officially ruler of Florence, and his position had no title – even his friend and courtier Pico della Mirandola was a count. And Lorenzo’s claim to rule Florence was precarious enough, as the Pazzi conspiracy had shown. Yet the plans he was now covertly setting in motion were intended to bring the Medici family to the highest thrones in Europe, no less: to the papal throne and the throne of France. It was now that Lorenzo began secretly engraving that permanent marque on his expensive jewels – LAU.R.MED: Lorenzo Rex Medici. He saw himself as the founding father of a dynasty of kings. Such breathtaking ambitions would not come to fruition
during his lifetime, and indeed not until well into the next century – yet without Lorenzo’s foresight, the fortunes of the Medici might never have extended beyond Florence, the city that his wise grandfather had predicted would tire of them within fifty years. It was now more than three decades since Cosimo had made this ominous prediction.

  Meanwhile Lorenzo despatched his financial fixer, Antonio Miniati, to scour Europe for rich benefices for the young Giovanni. At the same time, similar messages were sent to the managers of the international branches of the Medici bank, but these were of little avail. By this stage the Medici bank had declined to such an extent that it now only had branches in Rome, Naples, Pisa and Geneva-Lyons (a joint branch). Over the past few years branches had been closed in Milan (1478), Avignon (1479), London (1480), Bruges (1480) and Venice (1481). Although several distinct factors had contributed to this decline, it undoubtedly represented a catalogue of disasters for the Medici finances. The ailing branch in Venice, for instance, had been forced to close at the time of the Venice–Ferrara war, severly curtailing income resulting from German and Levantine trading ventures. The London branch had never recovered from the 80,000 florins owed by Edward IV and his nobles. The closure of the highly lucrative Bruges branch had in part been due to the extravagance and financial legerdemain of the trusted long-term manager Tommaso Portinari. In order to establish the prestige of the Medici bank (and its manager), Portinari had spent almost 10,000 florins buying and renovating the Hôtel Bladelin, which was (and remains to this day) one of the finest medieval residences in Bruges. Later, he had invested Medici bank assets in a joint side-venture in the wool trade, which was skilfully contracted so that he personally received a large share of the profits, while the bank (and Lorenzo) was responsible for any losses. Lorenzo, in his somewhat lackadaisical attitude towards the family banking business, had not noticed this, until it was pointed out to him too late. Meanwhile the wily and inept Portinari had delivered his masterstroke, investing – contrary to all strict and explicit instructions – in a hazardous Portuguese expedition to the Guinea coast of West Africa. When this failed, Portinari destroyed all the evidence he could lay his hands on, so that, as the Medici financial historian de Roover put it with masterly understatement: ‘Not much is known about this profitless venture.’2 Although Lorenzo had competent advisers at the Medici bank in Florence, as well as his uncle in Rome, the overall affairs of the bank remained largely unsupervised. After his father Piero the Gouty’s initial ill-advised mistake in calling in the bank’s debts, Piero had applied his considerable commercial talents to steering the bank through the difficult period of his five brief years at the helm. On the other hand, his attentions were constantly directed elsewhere, and chicanery such as that of Portinari was almost bound to have occurred. Indeed, Portinari was not the only manager to become involved in underhand deals, which for the most part went undetected until they were beyond remedy.