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

by Paul Strathern

  One can but imagine the expressions of outrage on the faces of his distinguished listeners. For many years now, during the years of the Medici ascendancy, the leading citizens who governed Florence had grown unaccustomed to hearing such downright democratic criticism. Savonarola was venturing into dangerous political territory, yet such was his ever-increasing self-confidence that he now went even further. He delivered his final Lenten sermons in the cathedral to a packed congregation, his harsh voice with its homely Ferrarese intonations ringing out over the sea of rapt upturned faces. They were hardly able to believe what they were hearing, but Savonarola could now see beginning to unfold before him the destiny of which he had dreamed. Filled with the Holy Spirit, he felt empowered to inform the gathered citizens of Florence, ‘I believe that Christ speaks through my mouth.’

  Word of these latest outrages soon reached Lorenzo the Magnificent, and he was strongly advised to banish Savonarola. But he decided against such a drastic step. There were several reasons for this. According to the contemporary historian Guicciardini, Lorenzo retained ‘a certain respect for Fra Girolamo, whom he considered to be genuinely holy’.15 At the same time, there were other, more worldly reasons for Lorenzo’s lack of decisive action. Just three years previously a preacher named Fra Bernardino da Feltre had begun to gain a similar popular following in Florence. Fra Bernadino’s simple innocent sermons, with their homilies on the sanctity of the poor, had evoked widespread sympathy amongst the deprived sections of the population. In this way, he had gained an almost saintly reputation, but his otherworldly manner had not prevented him from making several very worldly observations. He had begun to attack the bankers of Florence for charging such high interest on their loans to the poor that entire families were often plunged into penury for life. As a remedy for this he had suggested the establishment of a Monte della Pietà (in effect, a ‘bank for the people’). Fra Bernardino’s direct honesty had caused the people of Florence to see their rulers through new eyes, and they had not liked what they saw. Lorenzo the Magnificent had quickly sensed how the tide of public opinion was turning against him. Not only amongst the poor, but also amongst the more educated classes, there was a growing dissatisfaction with the Medici regime and the taxes that not only kept the poor in their place, but could also be applied punitively in order to ruin any factions that might be contemplating opposition to Medici rule. Lorenzo had promptly banished Fra Bernardino into exile, but this had proved a highly unpopular move, resulting in widespread dissatisfaction and grumblings, which had taken some time and considerable expense (in the form of bribes and entertainments) to dissipate. Lorenzo was not going to make the same mistake again – especially in light of the irony that he had been responsible for inviting Savonarola back to Florence in the first place. Such a decision would have made him a laughing stock, and would have struck at the very heart of his reputation for decisive action. The great protector of Florence against its enemies could not be seen as a ditherer who went back on his word.

  Instead, Lorenzo decided that he would attempt to destroy Savonarola using a more subtle method. He would undermine his reputation as a public speaker by demonstrating that he was not only a dangerous rabble-rouser, but also blasphemous. How could any mere friar claim to speak with the voice of Christ? If Savonarola could be exposed as a charlatan, his following amongst the poor would soon evaporate. More important still, his growing following amongst the humanists would also be destroyed.

  As far as this last point was concerned, Lorenzo was at least in part working against himself. His increasing inclination towards religion was grating with his humanist beliefs; he too was attracted to Savonarola’s piety. Indeed, Lorenzo’s latest writing was a religious verse drama about St John and St Paul. Similarly, his close friend Pico had long since succumbed to Savonarola’s siren song, and now even Poliziano was attending his sermons and was on the verge of being won over. The poet would later describe Savonarola as ‘a man eminent both in learning and in sanctity and a superb preacher of heavenly doctrine’.16 Poliziano’s personality was both emotional and intellectual, and he seems to have responded to what he saw as the poetic intensity in Savonarola’s style of preaching. Yet paradoxically it was the friar’s very lack of style that appealed to the poor. Savonarola appears to have been all things to all men. Where Pico had recognised a great intellect, Poliziano recognised the ringing phrases of a poet – and meanwhile the downtrodden were inspired to recognise a man who had their cause at heart. Even the ardent Platonist Ficino was impressed, though at this stage he still had reservations. There appeared to be little place in Savonarola’s creed for much of the pagan philosophy of Plato, which saw the world as the mere play of shadows cast by the distant brilliance of the abstract ideas whose radiance constituted the ultimate reality. Such ethereal Platonic idealism would have been of little consolation to the poor. Yet curiously, Savonarola was in fact inspired by Plato, almost certainly through the influence of Ficino’s writings, a fact that would not have escaped Ficino when he read Savonarola’s words:

  The ultimate aim of man is beatitude. This does not consist, as the natural philosophers would have us believe, in the contemplations of speculative science. Nay, beatitude is the pure vision of God. In this life we are only capable of seeing a distant image, a faint shadow of the beatitude. Only in the next life can we enjoy this vision in all its radiant reality.17

  Pico, Poliziano and Ficino would all have recognised Savonarola’s philosophical reference. Likewise, the power and clarity of this image would have been easily understood by the less educated amongst his congregation. Savonarola’s words seemed to fill some emptiness that lay at the heart of the society he was addressing. For all the surface aesthetic changes which the Renaissance had brought to the city – architecture, frescoes, festivals, humanism and its discovery of the pagan classical world – this transformation had brought with it a certain spiritual malaise; at the same time, perhaps inevitably, it had also awoken dormant fears. It was this malaise, and these fears, that Savonarola addressed.

  Lorenzo the Magnificent, increasingly racked by gout, sensed that he was now dying. The mortal man faced with death responded to the absolutism of Savonarola’s call to faith. But the man who had ruled Florence so successfully for more than two decades knew that Savonarola posed a political threat – to the stability of the city and all that it stood for as the leading cultural centre in Italy, as well as to his own rule, the Medici family and all that they stood to achieve in future generations.

  Lorenzo’s plan to undermine Savonarola was an ambitious and subtle one, which could only have been achieved by one man: Fra Mariano da Genazzano, the superior of the local Augustinian order. Where Savonarola harked back to a past era, Fra Mariano was very much a man of the coming age – a preacher of considerable sophistication and intellect.

  Despite Savonarola’s growing popularity, Fra Mariano held, and jealously guarded, the title of the most celebrated preacher in Florence. Some twenty years previously the monastery housing the Augustinians had burned down, whereupon Lorenzo the Magnificent had commissioned Brunelleschi to design a new residence for them just outside the city’s northern Porta San Gallo. The result was a resplendent building with cells for 100 monks and a Renaissance-style church. Lorenzo was particularly drawn to Fra Mariano, and had taken to visiting him at his monastery, where they would discuss the cultural and theological issues of the day. Fra Mariano was well versed in the new Renaissance learning, and saw no contradiction between his role as a monk and his love of pagan classical poetry and philosophy. When Lorenzo retired to one of his country villas during the long, hot summer months, he was in the habit of inviting Fra Mariano to stay with him, and here the Augustinian monk made a favourable impression on Lorenzo’s intellectual companions. Poliziano’s opinion of Fra Mariano was typical:

  I have met Fra Mariano repeatedly at the villa and entered into confidential talks with him. I never knew a man at once more attractive and more cautious. He neither repels b
y immoderate severity nor deceives and leads astray by exaggerated indulgence. Many preachers think themselves masters of men’s life and death. While they are abusing their power they always look gloomy and weary men by setting up as judges of morals. But here is a man of moderation. In the pulpit he is a severe censor; but when he descends from it he indulges in winning friendly discourse … I and my friend Pico have much conversation with him and nothing refreshes us after our literary labours as [sic] relaxation in his company. Lorenzo de’ Medici, who understands men so well, shows how highly he esteems him … preferring a conversation with him to any other recreation.18

  Poliziano was equally impressed by his style of preaching, writing to a friend of Fra Mariano’s ‘musical voice, his precisely chosen words, his grand sentences. Then I become aware of his telling metaphors, the way he pauses for effect, and the enchantment of his harmonious cadences’.19 Fra Mariano’s sermons, with their wealth of classical and philosophical allusion, may have owed much to Ficino’s erudite expositions before Lorenzo and his circle, but there was no denying that he was above all else an actor. Besides his graceful flourishes and gestures, he was not above resorting to more histrionic groans and trembling cries to stir the emotions of his less-educated listeners. He too had his following amongst the poor.

  Even some of the monks from San Marco went to hear Fra Mariano’s sermons. Savonarola’s admirer and defender Domenico Benivieni could not refrain from telling Savonarola: ‘Father, there is no denying that your doctrine is true, useful and necessary, but your way of delivering it lacks grace, especially when it is so frequently compared to that of Fra Mariano.’20 To this, Savonarola is said to have replied bluntly, ‘Such verbal elegance must soon make way for simple preaching of sound doctrine.’

  Fra Mariano had become aware of Savonarola’s growing reputation, and in the spring of 1491 he visited him at San Marco, evidently with the aim of sizing up his rival. He left, assuring Savonarola of his friendship. Around this time Lorenzo the Magnificent suggested to Fra Mariano that he should take on his upstart competitor, and deliver a devastating sermon that would demonstrate the hollowness of his rival’s claims and prophecies, at the same time so humiliating Savonarola that he would be eclipsed once and for all in the public mind. Fra Mariano readily agreed to this, telling Lorenzo that he would deliver his sermon at the Church of Santo Spirito, the priory church of the San Gallo monastery, on Ascension Day, Thursday 12 May 1491. This was the first major date in the religious calendar after Easter, falling forty days later; it allowed sufficient time for the controversy over Savonarola’s Lenten sermons to have died down, and also made it look as if Fra Mariano’s sermon was not some hasty personal response to San Marco’s ‘preacher for those in despair’.

  Word of this coming attack was soon passed on to Savonarola, who merely responded by predicting, ‘I shall wax, and he shall wane.’21 By Ascension Day news of this ‘joust’ had spread through Florence, and the crowds that gathered at the San Gallo monastery more than filled its sizeable church.fn2 Poliziano and Pico della Mirandola were also amongst the congregation, together with Lorenzo the Magnificent himself – all of whom were now fully aware of the import of what was taking place. Savonarola’s contemporary biographer and friend, Fra Placido Cinozzi, has left an eyewitness account of what happened. Fra Mariano took as his text Jesus’ reply to his disciples, when they asked him to tell them what would come to pass in the future: ‘It is not for you to know the time, or the seasons.’22 He went on to elaborate that it was sheer nonsense for anyone to pretend to have knowledge of future events, and then launched into a passionate personal attack on Savonarola, labelling him as a false prophet who was responsible for spreading subversive sedition, with the aim of stirring the people of Florence to rebellion. But Fra Mariano had evidently misinterpreted what Lorenzo the Magnificent wished of him, for he soon became so carried away with himself that he began mimicking Savonarola’s brusque gestures and provincial accent, before unleashing a stream of intemperate insults against Savonarola, calling him a worm, a snake, a clown who was ignorant of the Bible, and an inept priest who was not even capable of conducting a Mass in proper Latin. By the end of his sermon, Fra Mariano was all but incoherent with rage and vitriolic condemnation. Lorenzo, Poliziano and Pico were horrified at such an inappropriate and vulgar display, and the congregation was deeply shocked. This was not the kind of behaviour Florentines wished to see in church. Even those who had championed Fra Mariano against Savonarola now began to have second thoughts.

  Just three days later, on the following Sunday, Savonarola gave his reply in a sermon delivered at the cathedral. Fra Mariano had played into his rival’s hands, and Savonarola intended to take full advantage of this. Using the selfsame text as Fra Mariano had chosen, he proceeded to elucidate its true meaning, disposing one by one of what he claimed were Fra Mariano’s specious arguments against him. He then began a personal attack on Fra Mariano, but unlike his rival’s attack, this was neither intemperate nor insulting. Instead, ‘in the most gentle manner’, he reminded Fra Mariano how just a few days previously he had called at San Marco expressly to see him. Savonarola reminded him how during the course of their meeting Fra Mariano had congratulated him on his sermons, praising their biblical erudition, and assuring him that they would do much good in Florence. Having prepared the ground, Savonarola then began asking some devastating questions: ‘Who was it who made you change your mind? Who was it who suggested that you should attack me?’ All present knew precisely to whom Savonarola was alluding. Not only had his sermon rebutted Fra Mariano, but it had also implicated Lorenzo the Magnificent.

  The people of Florence had witnessed the crushing defeat of their celebrated preacher; and Fra Mariano, unable to bear the humiliation, packed his bags and left for Rome, now a lifelong and dangerous enemy of Savonarola who would use all his influence in the Vatican to wreak his revenge. Pico, who had been worried by the turn of events, called upon Savonarola in his cell at San Marco and warned him, ‘You will not fare well, if you continue jousting in this fashion.’24

  fn1 Economics as such had not yet come into being: Savonarola’s concern was more with the social effects of commercial activity.

  fn2 Neither the San Gallo Augustinian monastery nor the attached church of Santo Spirito exists any longer, for reasons that will become clear in a later chapter.

  7

  Cat and Mouse

  SUCH WAS SAVONAROLA’S popularity amongst his fellow friars at San Marco that in July 1491 they elected him prior of the monastery. As the Medici family had been responsible for the rebuilding of San Marco, and continued to be its benefactors (to the extent that they even referred to it as ‘our’ monastery), it was customary for any newly elected friar to pay a courtesy visit to the Palazzo Medici, a short walk down the Via Larga. However, when Savonarola’s fellow monks urged him to fulfil this obligation, he demanded of them: ‘Who made me prior – God or Lorenzo?’1 When they replied, ‘God’, Savonarola declared, ‘Thus it is the Lord God who I will thank’, and then returned to his cell to continue with his habitual regime of prayer and fasting.

  When word of Savonarola’s refusal reached the Palazzo Medici, Lorenzo remarked irritatedly, ‘A foreign monk has come to live in my house and he does not even deign to come and see me.’2 Lorenzo’s illness was giving him increasing pain, and this time he decided against any confrontation with Savonarola. Instead, he chose to take a conciliatory course of action which would give the new prior the chance to make amends without either of them losing face before the people of Florence. Lorenzo began attending the church of San Marco on Sundays to hear Mass, and afterwards he would walk in the garden, or in the cloisters, in the hope of encountering Savonarola, engaging him in conversation and exerting his famous charm upon the new prior. On earlier occasions when Lorenzo had strolled in the monastery gardens after Mass he had been joined by the previous prior, along with several of the more senior monks, who were still pleased to join the man they regarded as their b
enefactor. When Savonarola’s fellow monks came to inform him of what Lorenzo was doing, he said to them, ‘Is he asking for me?’3 When they replied that he was not, Savonarola told them, ‘Then let him walk as he pleases.’

  This made Lorenzo even more determined to gain the confidence of the man whose holiness he viewed with increasing respect, yet whose opposition he knew it was politically dangerous to tolerate. By this stage Lorenzo’s illness was causing him to lose his grasp of affairs and cloud his judgement – a fact that became evident in the way he now misjudged Savonarola. Lorenzo ordered gifts to be sent to San Marco, but these were simply returned to the Palazzo Medici. In a public allusion from the pulpit to this turn of events, Savonarola likened a true preacher to a loyal watchdog who is not distracted when a thief throws him a bone or a lump of meat; instead, he ignores these gifts and continues barking.

  As a last resort, Lorenzo ordered his chancellor, Piero da Bibbiena, to deposit anonymously gold coins to the value of 300 florins in the alms chest of San Marco. This chest was the chief source of public financial support for the monastery, and would accumulate a collection of largely copper coins, plus the occasional silver one, through the week. When Savonarola was informed of this hugely generous anonymous gift, he knew at once that it came from Lorenzo. He decreed that the silver and bronze coins deposited by the good citizens of the city should be set aside as usual for the running costs of the monastery. However, the gold coins were to be taken to the brotherhood of St Martin, who distributed alms amongst the deserving poor. When Bibbiena heard of what Savonarola had done, he reported back to Lorenzo, declaring, ‘This is a slippery customer we are dealing with.’4