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The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]». Краткое содержание книги:
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 01
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 02 / (From the Rise of Greece to the Christian Era)
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 04
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 05 / (From Charlemagne to Frederick Barbarossa)
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 06 / (From Barbarossa to Dante)
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 08 / The Later Renaissance: from Gutenberg to the Reformation
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 09
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 10
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 13
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 14
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 17
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 21 / The Recent Days (1910-1914)
These three parties were so equally balanced in the balia named by the parliament, on December 2, 1494, that it soon became impossible to carry on the government. Girolamo Savonarola took advantage of this state of affairs to urge that the people had never delegated their power to a balia which did not abuse the trust.
"The people," he said, "would do much better to reserve this power to themselves, and exercise it by a council, into which all the citizens should be admitted." His proposition was agreed to; more than one thousand eight hundred Florentines furnished proof that either they, their fathers, or their grandfathers had sat in the magistracy; they were consequently acknowledged citizens and admitted to sit in the general council. This council was declared sovereign on July 1, 1495; it was invested with the election of magistrates, hitherto chosen by lot, and a general amnesty was proclaimed, to bury in oblivion all the ancient dissensions of the Florentine republic.
So important a modification of the constitution seemed to promise this republic a happier futurity. The friar Savonarola, who had exercised such influence in the council, evinced at the same time an ardent love of mankind, deep respect for the rights of all, great sensibility, and an elevated mind. Though a zealous reformer of the Church, and in this respect a precursor of Luther, who was destined to begin his mission twenty years later, he did not quit the pale of orthodoxy; he did not assume the right of examining doctrine; he limited his efforts to the restoration of discipline, the reformation of the morals of the clergy, and the recall of priests, as well as other citizens, to the practice of the gospel precepts. But his zeal was mixed with enthusiasm; he believed himself under the immediate inspiration of Providence; he took his own impulses for prophetic revelations, by which he directed the politics of his disciples, the Piagnoni.
He had predicted to the Florentines the coming of the French into Italy; he had represented to them Charles VIII as an instrument by which the Divinity designed to chastise the crimes of the nation; he had counselled them to remain faithful to their alliance with that King, the instrument of Providence, even though his conduct, especially in reference to the affairs of Pisa, had been highly culpable.
This alliance, however, ranged the Florentines among the enemies of Pope Alexander VI, one of the founders of the league which had driven the French out of Italy. He accused them of being traitors to the Church and to their country for their attachment to a foreign prince. Alexander, equally offended by the projects of reform and by the politics of Savonarola, denounced him to the Church as a heretic, and interdicted him from preaching. The monk at first obeyed, and procured the appointment of his friend and disciple the Dominican friar, Buonvicino of Pescia, as his successor in the Church of St. Mark; but on Christmas Day, 1497, he declared from the pulpit that God had revealed to him that he ought not to submit to a corrupt tribunal; he then openly took the sacrament with the monks of St. Mark, and afterward continued to preach. In the course of his sermons he more than once held up to reprobation the scandalous conduct of the Pope, whom the public voice accused of every vice and every crime to be expected in a libertine so depraved—a man so ambitious, perfidious, and cruel—a monarch and a priest intoxicated with absolute power.
In the mean time the rivalry encouraged by the court of Rome between the religious orders soon procured the Pope a champion eager to combat Savonarola; he was a Dominican—the general of the Augustines, that Order whence Martin Luther was soon to issue. Friar Mariano di Ghinazzano signalized himself by his zeal in opposing Savonarola. He presented to the Pope Friar Francis of Apulia, of the order of Minor Observantines, who was sent to Florence to preach against the Florentine monks, in the Church of Santa Croce. This preacher declared to his audience that he knew Savonarola pretended to support his doctrine by a miracle. "For me," said he, "I am a sinner; I have not the presumption to perform miracles; nevertheless, let a fire be lighted, and I am ready to enter it with him. I am certain of perishing, but Christian charity teaches me not to withhold my life if in sacrificing it I might precipitate into hell a heresiarch, who has already drawn into it so many souls."
This strange proposition was rejected by Savonarola; but his friend and disciple, Friar Dominic Buonvicino, eagerly accepted it. Francis of Apulia declared that he would risk his life against Savonarola only. Meanwhile a crowd of monks, of the Dominican and Franciscan orders, rivalled each other in their offers to prove by the ordeal of fire, on one side the truth, on the other the falsehood, of the new doctrine. Enthusiasm spread beyond the two convents; many priests and seculars, and even women and children, more especially on the side of Savonarola, earnestly requested to be admitted to the proof. The Pope warmly testified his gratitude to the Franciscans for their devotion. The Seigniory of Florence consented that two monks only should devote themselves for their respective orders, and directed the pile to be prepared. The whole population of the town and country, to which a signal miracle was promised, received the announcement with transports of joy.
On April 17, 1498, a scaffold, dreadful to look on, was erected in the public square of Florence; two piles of large pieces of wood, mixed with fagots and broom, which should quickly take fire, extended each eighty feet long, four feet thick, and five feet high; they were separated by a narrow space of two feet, to serve as a passage by which the two priests were to enter and pass the whole length of the piles during the fire.
Every window was full; every roof was covered with spectators; almost the whole population of the republic was collected round the place. The portico called the Loggia dei Lanzi, divided in two by a partition, was assigned to the two orders of monks. The Dominicans arrived at their station chanting canticles and bearing the holy sacrament. The Franciscans immediately declared that they would not permit the host to be carried amid flames. They insisted that the friar Buonvicino should enter the fire, as their own champion was prepared to do, without this divine safeguard. The Dominicans answered that "they would not separate themselves from their God at the moment when they implored his aid." The dispute upon this point grew warm.
Several hours passed away. The multitude, which had waited long and began to feel hunger and thirst, lost patience; a deluge of rain suddenly fell upon the city, and descended in torrents from the roofs of the houses; all present were drenched. The piles were so wet that they could no longer be lighted; and the crowd, disappointed of a miracle so impatiently looked for, separated, with the notion of having been unworthily trifled with. Savonarola lost all his credit; he was henceforth rather looked on as an impostor.
Next day his convent was besieged by the Arabbiati, eager to profit by the inconstancy of the multitude; he was arrested with his two friends, Domenico Buonvicino and Silvestro Marruffi, and led to prison. The Piagnoni, his partisans, were exposed to every outrage from the populace; two of them were killed, their rivals and old enemies exciting the general ferment for their destruction. Even in the seigniory the majority was against them, and yielded to the pressing demands of the Pope. The three imprisoned monks were subjected to a criminal prosecution.