Heretics and Heroes

by Thomas Cahill

  Into all such displays there entered processions of gaily clad gentlefolk, knights and their ladies, “heralds, standard-bearers, fifers, trumpeters,” pages, and men-at-arms, all magnificently decked out in colorful costumes, none more resplendent than Lorenzo himself, who at the citywide celebration of his engagement to the Roman heiress Clarice Orsini wore “a cape of white silk, bordered in scarlet, under a velvet surcoat, and a silk scarf embroidered with roses, some withered, others blooming [to symbolize the sorrows and joys of life], and emblazoned with the spirited motto, worked in pearls: LE TEMPS REVIENT.17 There were pearls also in his black velvet cap as well as rubies and a big diamond framed by a plume of gold thread. His white charger, which was draped in red and white pearl-encrusted velvet, was a gift from the King of Naples”—and on runs the account, describing the armor Lorenzo wore in the jousting and the prize he won, “a helmet inlaid with silver and surmounted by a figure of Mars.”

  The openhanded Medici knew how to enjoy their good fortune and to include as many of their fellow citizens as possible in their celebrations. The Medici, as well as their (often envious) imitators among the other wealthy families of Italy, became patrons of the arts to a degree so lavish that we may say unreservedly that no one had ever seen their like before nor have we seen it since. The young Michelangelo sat at Lorenzo’s table and slept under his roof, treated by Lorenzo as a boon companion and by others as a young god. But many artists were similarly entertained, and Lorenzo’s court shone with such attendants as the brothers Pollaiuolo, Andrea del Verrocchio, Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, and Domenico Ghirlandaio. Not a few of these also attended sessions of Lorenzo’s Platonic Academy, where they found themselves locked in intense conversation with the famous humanistic scholars of the day, men such as Marsilio Ficino, Agnolo Poliziano, and the great and good Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. All were welcome to peruse the vast collection of books in the eponymously named Laurentian Library.

  The high spirits of Renaissance Italy spilled over into other European lands, though the waves set off by so much gaiety sometimes landed elsewhere with a shock and might even be received with contempt. The Renaissance, as it appeared elsewhere, could at times look and sound quite different from its lively Italian manifestation. And though the humanists of Italy were generous in sharing their artistic and intellectual riches with other Europeans, they were quite certain that the great classical tradition was a uniquely Italian treasure and that Italians had nothing to learn from anyone else (except—when they remembered—from the Greeks, of course).

  This attitude militated against the dissemination through Italy of the art of printing, where it was for years considered something concocted “among the Barbarians in some German city.” Duke Federigo of Urbino, an important collector, dismissed the invention out of hand, admitting that he “would have been ashamed to own a printed book.” No printing press was set up at Florence till Bernardo Cennini established one at last in 1477, a full quarter century after its invention in Germany.

  So the multiplication of copies of individual books in Italy continued to depend for decades on the ancient traditions of the scriptorium. But it was at such scriptoria as Lorenzo’s that many scribes were employed for the sake of making many copies of many manuscripts, so that these might be distributed widely. (Even in their self-imposed cultural isolation, the Italians remained generous.) And it is thanks to these last scriptoria of Europe that you, dear Reader, can today read the book in your hands (or on your screen) so easily.

  The thing that most put off the Italians from adopting printing was the monstrous appearance of the Gothic letters employed by German printers. Thick, heavy, overweight, very nearly sludgy, unattractive to the modern eye, these letters (whether in movable type or in earlier manuscript examples) reminded Italians of everything they disliked about the Barbarians.18 (Madre di Dio, those letters looked like overweight people with inert bowels!) Instead, the Italians invented calligraphy, beautiful—and eminently readable—script. From this calligraphy, lean and swift, balanced and shapely, full of sweeping slides and lovely loops—rather than the stolid shapes of Gothic—were born the typefaces we still use today, roman, italic, and their derivatives.

  Lascaris was only one of several agents Lorenzo employed to scour libraries far and wide for forgotten treasures, many of which would be copied in multiples by Lorenzo’s scribes. Lascaris returned to Florence with more than two hundred separate manuscripts from the impoverished libraries of formerly Byzantine lands (soon to be known as the Middle East). But the lavish reception he had imagined for himself and his extraordinary number of finds was not to be, for Lorenzo was dead—at forty-three a victim perhaps of his own lifestyle, more likely a casualty of the immense forces that had been ranged against him for years.

  Fourteen years before Lascaris’s return to Florence, Lorenzo and his beloved younger brother Giuliano had been attacked while at mass in Florence’s grand Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flower. Both were knifed, but whereas lightning-quick Lorenzo had escaped death with a minor wound to his neck, Giuliano was cut down viciously. The anti-Medici conspirators were a rival family, the Pazzi, who had been urged to these assassinations by none other than Sixtus IV, the reigning pope, who had had quite enough of the Medici. They’d refused to loan him everything he wanted for his campaigns to refashion the power dynamics of northern Italy to his advantage (and to the concomitant disadvantage of Florence and the Medici). The pope was particularly outraged at the effrontery of Lorenzo’s careful diplomacy in several northern cities, all in the service of preserving a league that would keep the peace—not one of Sixtus’s goals. Though Lorenzo was in fact an indifferent banker, whose enormous fortune had been amassed in the time of his grandfather, Cosimo, and his father, Piero the Gouty, he was a skilled peacemaker and a gracious and warmhearted diplomat who found welcome practically everywhere.

  But Lorenzo, though the central citizen of Florence, was not its ruler. The sovereignty of Florence, as of many other Italian city-states, lay in the hands of a corporation, a board of elected citizens. As in the ancient Greek city-states, the Italians never went so far as to extend anything approaching universal suffrage. Their republican governments were oligarchies, formed by the leading citizens, who offered wider suffrage to adult males of some financial consequence at those crucial moments when broader participation was required to ensure that the ordinary citizenry would support a special undertaking, such as going to war.

  But given the Medicis’ power and prominence within Florence, Lorenzo was able (and virtually expected) to act as dictator in moments of crisis. In the words of the Florentine historian Francesco Guicciardini, “He had a reputation such as probably no private citizen has ever enjoyed from the fall of Rome to our own day.” And “if Florence was to have a tyrant, she could never have found a better or more delightful one.”19 We should not, however, underestimate the negative long-term effect on the individual of having the game without the name—of always bearing the responsibility of the role without being able to assume the title—or the personal consequences of finding oneself the pope’s implacable enemy (to such a degree that he is willing to have you bumped off while attending mass), or the political consequences of watching while this evil man attempts to align all Italy against you and your city. For a time, Lorenzo was even excommunicated, as was his entire family, and all Florence placed under interdict.20 The bishops allied with Florence responded in turn by excommunicating the pope. The consequent dustup would be pacified only by the death of Sixtus and the election of a pontiff even more worldly, if more conciliatory. But by then Lorenzo’s health had suffered.

  One further actor must be brought onto the great open stage that was Florence: the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola. Born at Ferrara in 1452, grandson of a quack doctor who recommended imbibing large quantities of alcohol to ensure longevity and who saw to Savonarola’s education, such as it was, Savonarola was one of the ugliest men ever to gain such an impassioned following and to
reach such heights of fame. He was known to sleep on a comfortless straw mattress over a wooden board. He made it a practice not to speak to women, except to upbraid them, though it was rumored that in youth his suit had been firmly rejected by a young woman he had fallen in love with. (He himself insisted that he had always intended to serve God alone and not to marry.) Ghostly pale, consumptive-looking in the extreme thinness that could be discerned beneath his white habit and black cloak and hood, Savonarola was further distinguished by an enormous hooked nose set between hollow cheeks, a tightly pursed but smiling mouth, and twitching, green irises that resembled the merciless orbs of a bird of prey.

  The friar first came to Florence in Lent of 1481 as a guest preacher at the Church of San Lorenzo. He was not well received. His voice was harsh, his gestures abrupt and graceless. But he practiced and improved. By 1491 his devoted congregation had grown so large that his sermons had to be delivered in the Cathedral, where Savonarola revealed to the assembled Florentines that, after much fasting and prayer, he had been granted the gift of foreknowledge by God. “It is not I who preach,” the friar shouted to the surprised crowd, “but God who speaks through me!”

  What sort of future did Savonarola foresee? One of great calamity and divine punishment for the church, for Italy, and especially for Florence, unless Christians returned to their former simplicity.21 They must forget about the classical authors of Greece and Rome, who were all at this very moment burning in Hell. They must renounce all the terrible pleasures—gaming, festivals, fashionable clothes—that were destroying their souls. They must get rid of all this new art, the cleverly made, lasciviously conceived paintings that made even “the Virgin Mary look like a harlot.” It was especially important to bring an end to prostitution—ladies of the evening (“pieces of meat with eyes,” Savonarola called them) must be whipped till they reformed—and all sodomites must shortly be burned alive. God would see to it that Lorenzo de’ Medici would die soon, as would the pope and the king of Naples, after which the entire political process must be transformed and brought under his rule. Florence needed a new constitution, one that did away with the current tyranny and replaced it with … with … Here Savonarola grew vague. It was clear that God wanted to replace Lorenzo with something new. But with what, exactly?

  One by one, the great humanists caved. Pico della Mirandola, Poliziano, Botticelli, perhaps Michelangelo spoke of Savonarola with respect, even with awe. When Savonarola’s name was advanced to be Prior of San Marco, a friary funded with Medici money, Lorenzo made no objection. After all, Lorenzo encouraged variety everywhere and was never one to interfere unnecessarily. We can almost see him shrugging his muscular shoulders in the very Italian gesture of “Live and let live.” As he lay dying, Lorenzo even asked to see the fiery friar. Though no one knows exactly what was said in this final meeting, we may well imagine that Savonarola heard Lorenzo’s confession, gave him absolution, and applied the anointing chrism of the church’s last rites to Lorenzo’s dying body. The tradition that holds that the friar cursed Lorenzo is certainly mistaken. At the least, Savonarola blessed the dying man and left him consoled.

  Once Lorenzo was gone, however, the friar’s preaching became ever more intense and admonitory. He pointed to the sky, where he claimed to see the Sword of the Lord hanging over the city. “Repent, O Florence, while there is still time!” intoned the preacher, sounding ever more like Isaiah. (Indeed, it seems fairly obvious that he was imitating language to be found in Isaiah 21 and elsewhere in the Hebrew Prophets.) “The Lord has placed me here: ‘I have put you here as a watchman in the center of Italy that you may hear my words and announce them to the people.’ ” Foreign enemies were about to cross the Alps, like “barbers armed with gigantic razors,” and they would fall upon the people. Then would the Turks turn Christian.

  Prophets are exciting people, natural celebrities. Here was a man who could never have cut a figure or raised a response at one of Florence’s storied celebrations; rather, one who had refashioned himself as Isaiah to Florence’s Jerusalem and Italy’s Judea. And his predictions were all coming true! Lorenzo was dead, so were the pope and the king of Naples! French armies were crossing the Alps, soon to subject Italy—and especially recalcitrant Florence—to ghastly penalties. Soon, too, no doubt, the Turks would submit themselves to baptism, as the whole world is remade by God.

  To prepare for these events the Florentines altered their constitution, creating a virtual theocracy with Savonarola in charge. Clutching a crucifix high above his head, Savonarola pressed on, as his fellow Blackfriars swarmed about the city’s streets: the people must now fast continually; they must denude their churches of all unnecessary ornament—gold plate, silver cups, precious candelabra, jewel-encrusted sacred objects, beautifully illuminated books—all of which must be set afire or melted down, for these were nothing more than diabolic temptations to vanity. Opposite the Palazzo della Signoria in the very center of Florence an enormous scaffold was erected and upon it people placed their collections of fine clothing and the beautiful adornments that had once made Florence famous. Atop this mountain of finery, the citizens piled profane books they had but lately treasured, as well as any drawings or paintings that could possibly lead a viewer to impure thoughts. Even famous artists, such as Botticelli, were seen to sacrifice their pictures to the pile. As the great mound was set afire—the original “Bonfire of the Vanities”—a children’s choir sang, trumpets were blown, and bells were sounded.

  Children were mustered, and not only for singing: the friars organized what Savonarola called “Blessed Bands” of such children, their hair trimmed short, who went throughout the city collecting donations for the poor and seeking out whatever vanities had eluded the flames. These children were instructed to root out all remaining vice, which included informing on anyone caught gambling, behaving unsuitably, wearing an ostentatious costume, or harboring some undivulged treasure. The Blessed Bands were especially encouraged to inform on family members.

  What are we to make of this volte-face on the part of the previously partying people of Florence? Why did they submit themselves to Savonarola and to such a revolution in their way of life? For simple people, there was undoubtedly the prophetic dimension: what he predicted came true! (Well, yes, though predicting the deaths of dying people is not so amazing, nor is predicting an invasion when the threat is already at your door. Now, the conversion of the Turks—I guess if he’d got that one right, he’d be worth a second look.)

  Beyond finding an explanation for the celebrity awarded Savonarola by simple souls, it must be said that we are presented here with a conundrum: the enthusiasm of the cultivated and the learned—the most cultivated and learned (and, till now, the most joyful) people in all of Europe—for an unpleasant, unsympathetic, unbelievable windbag. Why did they not resent their Garden of Love being invaded by these “Priests in black gowns … walking their rounds,/And binding with briars [their] joys and desires,” as William Blake would one day express it? Is this just an instance of the lemming rule, of crowds following crowds? If everyone’s going over the cliff, I might as well go with them?

  No doubt Lorenzo’s calling Savonarola to his deathbed helped precipitate the transformation. If Lorenzo il Magnifico himself submitted to the friar, who am I to hold out? The age-old reliance of Italians—as well as not a few other nations—on charismatic leaders (now Lorenzo, now Savonarola) may also have figured in the equation. But beyond these partial explanations there lies the Christian faith of Italy, where—even today after centuries of secularism—supposed unbelievers generally call a priest to their deathbeds and arrange for a church funeral. This is, to some extent, an aspect of Italian canniness—of the impulse to place bets on both horses. As one exceedingly agnostic Italian friend said to me recently when he refused to cross the path of a black cat, “Better to be cautious.” And I’m sure the same man, when his time comes, will welcome a priest to his deathbed. Better to be cautious.

  But it is also possible at this poi
nt in our consideration to part the curtains of cynicism and to look out the window in the morning light: to admit that, for all his admiration of Horace and Catullus, for all his lifelong meditations on Plato, Lorenzo was a Christian, at least of a kind, and a Christian who believed deeply enough that he did not wish to enter into Eternity without having properly closed his life on this earth. Certainly, he was the son of an intelligent but deeply pious woman;22 and in our deaths we must in some manner recapitulate, even reintegrate, our lives by returning to the scenes of our earliest days. He could not have foreseen that his private deathbed conversation would help to usher in the Age of Savonarola.

  The age did not, in any case, last long. Savonarola proved far less talented at politics than at preaching. He quickly lost the confidence of the invading French, antagonized the new Borgia pope (a serious mistake), and sent Florentines out to die in skirmishes for which they were ill prepared. Finally, Pope Alexander excommunicated the obstreperous, interfering cleric and threatened to put the Florentines under interdict once more if they did not give him up. Savonarola continued defiantly to preach in the Cathedral but to dwindling audiences. The Roman Church, he now claimed, had become a satanic institution, a whore promoting whoredom and all manner of vice.