Romola

by George Eliot

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

  FLORENCE EXPECTS A GUEST.

  It was the 17th of November 1494: more than eighteen months since Titoand Romola had been finally united in the joyous Easter time, and hadhad a rainbow-tinted shower of comfits thrown over them, after theancient Greek fashion, in token that the heavens would shower sweets onthem through all their double life.

  Since that Easter a great change had come over the prospects ofFlorence; and as in the tree that bears a myriad of blossoms, eachsingle bud with its fruit is dependent on the primary circulation of thesap, so the fortunes of Tito and Romola were dependent on certain grandpolitical and social conditions which made an epoch in the history ofItaly.

  In this very November, little more than a week ago, the spirit of theold centuries seemed to have re-entered the breasts of Florentines. Thegreat bell in the palace tower had rung out the hammer-sound of alarm,and the people had mustered with their rusty arms, their tools andimpromptu cudgels, to drive out the Medici. The gate of San Gallo hadbeen fairly shut on the arrogant, exasperating Piero, galloping awaytowards Bologna with his hired horsemen frightened behind him, and shuton his keener young brother, the cardinal, escaping in the disguise of aFranciscan monk: a price had been set on both their heads. After that,there had been some sacking of houses, according to old precedent; theignominious images, painted on the public buildings, of the men who hadconspired against the Medici in days gone by, were effaced; the exiledenemies of the Medici were invited home. The half-fledged tyrants werefairly out of their splendid nest in the Via Larga, and the Republic hadrecovered the use of its will again.

  But now, a week later, the great palace in the Via Larga had beenprepared for the reception of another tenant; and if drapery roofing thestreets with unwonted colour, if banners and hangings pouring out of thewindows, if carpets and tapestry stretched over all steps and pavementon which exceptional feet might tread, were an unquestionable proof ofjoy, Florence was very joyful in the expectation of its new guest. Thestream of colour flowed from the palace in the Via Larga round by theCathedral, then by the great Piazza della Signoria, and across the PonteVecchio to the Porta San Frediano--the gate that looks towards Pisa.There, near the gate, a platform and canopy had been erected for theSignoria; and Messer Luca Corsini, doctor of law, felt his heartpalpitating a little with the sense that he had a Latin oration to read;and every chief elder in Florence had to make himself ready, with smoothchin and well-lined silk lucco, to walk in procession; and the well-bornyouths were looking at their rich new tunics after the French mode whichwas to impress the stranger as having a peculiar grace when worn byFlorentines; and a large body of the clergy, from the archbishop in hiseffulgence to the train of monks, black, white, and grey, wereconsulting betimes in the morning how they should marshal themselves,with their burden of relics and sacred banners and consecrated jewels,that their movements might be adjusted to the expected arrival of theillustrious visitor, at three o'clock in the afternoon.

  An unexampled visitor! For he had come through the passes of the Alpswith such an army as Italy had not seen before: with thousands ofterrible Swiss, well used to fight for love and hatred as well as forhire; with a host of gallant cavaliers proud of a name; with anunprecedented infantry, in which every man in a hundred carried anarquebus; nay, with cannon of bronze, shooting not stones but ironballs, drawn not by bullocks but by horses, and capable of firing asecond time before a city could mend the breach made by the first ball.Some compared the new-comer to Charlemagne, reputed rebuilder ofFlorence, welcome conqueror of degenerate kings, regulator andbenefactor of the Church, some preferred the comparison to Cyrus,liberator of the chosen people, restorer of the Temple. For he had comeacross the Alps with the most glorious projects: he was to march throughItaly amidst the jubilees of a grateful and admiring people; he was tosatisfy all conflicting complaints at Rome; he was to take possession,by virtue of hereditary right and a little fighting, of the kingdom ofNaples; and from that convenient starting-point he was to set out on theconquest of the Turks, who were partly to be cut to pieces and partlyconverted to the faith of Christ. It was a scheme that seemed to befitthe Most Christian King, head of a nation which, thanks to the devicesof a subtle Louis the Eleventh who had died in much fright as to hispersonal prospects ten years before, had become the strongest ofChristian monarchies; and this antitype of Cyrus and Charlemagne was noother than the son of that subtle Louis--the young Charles the Eighth ofFrance.

  Surely, on a general statement, hardly anything could seem moregrandiose, or fitter to revive in the breasts of men the memory of greatdispensations by which new strata had been laid in the history ofmankind. And there was a very widely spread conviction that the adventof the French king and his army into Italy was one of those events atwhich marble statues might well be believed to perspire, phantasmalfiery warriors to fight in the air, and quadrupeds to bring forthmonstrous births--that it did not belong to the usual order ofProvidence, but was in a peculiar sense the work of God. It was aconviction that rested less on the necessarily momentous character of apowerful foreign invasion than on certain moral emotions to which theaspect of the times gave the form of presentiments: emotions which hadfound a very remarkable utterance in the voice of a single man.

  That man was Fra Girolamo Savonarola, Prior of the Dominican convent ofSan Marco in Florence. On a September morning, when men's ears wereringing with the news that the French army had entered Italy, he hadpreached in the Cathedral of Florence from the text, "Behold I, even I,do bring a flood of waters upon the earth." He believed it was bysupreme guidance that he had reached just so far in his exposition ofGenesis the previous Lent; and he believed the "flood of water"--emblemat once of avenging wrath and purifying mercy--to be the divinely--indicated symbol of the French army. His audience, some of whom wereheld to be among the choicest spirits of the age--the most cultivatedmen in the most cultivated of Italian cities--believed it too, andlistened with shuddering awe. For this man had a power rarelyparalleled, of impressing his beliefs on others, and of swaying veryvarious minds. And as long as four years ago he had proclaimed from thechief pulpit of Florence that a scourge was about to descend on Italy,and that by this scourge the Church was to be purified. Savonarolaappeared to believe, and his hearers more or less waveringly believed,that he had a mission like that of the Hebrew prophets, and that theFlorentines amongst whom his message was delivered were in some sense asecond chosen people. The idea of prophetic gifts was not a remote onein that age: seers of visions, circumstantial heralds of things to be,were far from uncommon either outside or inside the cloister; but thisvery fact made Savonarola stand out the more conspicuously as a grandexception. While in others the gift of prophecy was very much like afarthing candle illuminating small corners of human destiny withprophetic gossip, in Savonarola it was like a mighty beacon shining farout for the warning and guidance of men. And to some of the soberestminds the supernatural character of his insight into the future gathereda strong attestation from the peculiar conditions of the age.

  At the close of 1492, the year in which Lorenzo de' Medici died and TitoMelema came as a wanderer to Florence, Italy was enjoying a peace andprosperity unthreatened by any near and definite danger. There was nofear of famine, for the seasons had been plenteous in corn, and wine,and oil; new palaces had been rising in all fair cities, new villas onpleasant slopes and summits; and the men who had more than their shareof these good things were in no fear of the larger number who had less.For the citizens' armour was getting rusty, and populations seemed tohave become tame, licking the hands of masters who paid for a ready-madearmy when they wanted it, as they paid for goods of Smyrna. Even thefear of the Turk had ceased to be active, and the Pope found it moreimmediately profitable to accept bribes from him for a littleprospective poisoning than to form plans either for conquering or forconverting him.

  Altogether this world, with its partitioned empire and its roomyuniversal Church, seemed to be a handsome establishment for t
he few whowere lucky or wise enough to reap the advantages of human folly: a worldin which lust and obscenity, lying and treachery, oppression and murder,were pleasant, useful, and when properly managed, not dangerous. And asa sort of fringe or adornment to the substantial delights of tyranny,avarice, and lasciviousness, there was the patronage of polite learningand the fine arts, so that flattery could always be had in the choicestLatin to be commanded at that time, and sublime artists were at hand topaint the holy and the unclean with impartial skill. The Church, it wassaid, had never been so disgraced in its head, had never shown so fewsigns of renovating, vital belief in its lower members; nevertheless itwas much more prosperous than in some past days. The heavens were fairand smiling above; and below there were no signs of earthquake.

  Yet at that time, as we have seen, there was a man in Florence who fortwo years and more had been preaching that a scourge was at hand; thatthe world was certainly not framed for the lasting convenience ofhypocrites, libertines, and oppressors. From the midst of those smilingheavens he had seen a sword hanging--the sword of God's justice--whichwas speedily to descend with purifying punishment on the Church and theworld. In brilliant Ferrara, seventeen years before, the contradictionbetween men's lives and their professed beliefs had pressed upon himwith a force that had been enough to destroy his appetite for the world,and at the age of twenty-three had driven him into the cloister. Hebelieved that God had committed to the Church the sacred lamp of truthfor the guidance and salvation of men, and he saw that the Church, inits corruption, had become a sepulchre to hide the lamp. As the yearswent on scandals increased and multiplied, and hypocrisy seemed to havegiven place to impudence. Had the world, then, ceased to have arighteous Ruler? Was the Church finally forsaken? No, assuredly: inthe Sacred Book there was a record of the past in which might be seen asin a glass what would be in the days to come, and the book showed thatwhen the wickedness of the chosen people, type of the Christian Church,had become crying, the judgments of God had descended on them. Nay,reason itself declared that vengeance was imminent, for what else wouldsuffice to turn men from their obstinacy in evil? And unless the Churchwere reclaimed, how could the promises be fulfilled, that the heathensshould be converted and the whole world become subject to the one truelaw? He had seen his belief reflected in visions--a mode of seeingwhich had been frequent with him from his youth up.

  But the real force of demonstration for Girolamo Savonarola lay in hisown burning indignation at the sight of wrong; in his fervent belief inan Unseen Justice that would put an end to the wrong, and in an UnseenPurity to which lying and uncleanness were an abomination. To hisardent, power-loving soul, believing in great ends, and longing toachieve those ends by the exertion of its own strong will, the faith ina supreme and righteous Ruler became one with the faith in a speedydivine interposition that would punish and reclaim.

  Meanwhile, under that splendid masquerade of dignities sacred andsecular which seemed to make the life of lucky Churchmen and princelyfamilies so luxurious and amusing, there were certain conditions at workwhich slowly tended to disturb the general festivity. Ludovico Sforza--copious in gallantry, splendid patron of an incomparable Leonardo daVinci--holding the ducal crown of Milan in his grasp, and wanting to putit on his own head rather than let it rest on that of a feeble nephewwho would take very little to poison him, was much afraid of theSpanish-born old King Ferdinand and the Crown Prince Alfonso of Naples,who, not liking cruelty and treachery which were useless to themselves,objected to the poisoning of a near relative for the advantage of aLombard usurper; the royalties of Naples again were afraid of theirsuzerain, Pope Alexander Borgia; all three were anxiously watchingFlorence, lest with its midway territory it should determine the game byunderhand backing; and all four, with every small state in Italy, wereafraid of Venice--Venice the cautious, the stable, and the strong, thatwanted to stretch its arms not only along both sides of the Adriatic butacross to the ports of the western coast, Lorenzo de' Medici, it wasthought, did much to prevent the fatal outbreak of such jealousies,keeping up the old Florentine alliance with Naples and the Pope, and yetpersuading Milan that the alliance was for the general advantage. Butyoung Piero de' Medici's rash vanity had quickly nullified the effect ofhis father's wary policy, and Ludovico Sforza, roused to suspicion of aleague against him, thought of a move which would checkmate hisadversaries: he determined to invite the French king to march intoItaly, and, as heir of the house of Anjou, take possession of Naples.Ambassadors--"orators," as they were called in those haranguing times--went and came; a recusant cardinal, determined not to acknowledge a Popeelected by bribery (and his own particular enemy), went and came also,and seconded the invitation with hot rhetoric; and the young king seemedto lend a willing ear. So that in 1493 the rumour spread and becamelouder and louder that Charles the Eighth of France was about to crossthe Alps with a mighty army; and the Italian populations, accustomed,since Italy had ceased to be the heart of the Roman empire, to look foran arbitrator from afar, began vaguely to regard his coming as a meansof avenging their wrongs and redressing their grievances.

  And in that rumour Savonarola had heard the assurance that his prophecywas being verified. What was it that filled the ears of the prophets ofold but the distant tread of foreign armies, coming to do the work ofjustice? He no longer looked vaguely to the horizon for the comingstorm: he pointed to the rising cloud. The French army was that newdeluge which was to purify the earth from iniquity; the French king,Charles the Eighth, was the instrument elected by God, as Cyrus had beenof old, and all men who desired good rather than evil were to rejoice inhis coming. For the scourge would fall destructively on the impenitentalone. Let any city of Italy, let Florence above all--Florence belovedof God, since to its ear the warning voice had been specially sent--repent and turn from its ways, like Nineveh of old, and the storm-cloudwould roll over it and leave only refreshing raindrops.

  Fra Girolamo's word was powerful; yet now that the new Cyrus had alreadybeen three months in Italy, and was not far from the gates of Florence,his presence was expected there with mixed feelings, in which fear anddistrust certainly predominated. At present it was not understood thathe had redressed any grievances; and the Florentines clearly had nothingto thank him for. He held their strong frontier fortresses, which Pierode' Medici had given up to him without securing any honourable terms inreturn; he had done nothing to quell the alarming revolt of Pisa, whichhad been encouraged by his presence to throw off the Florentine yoke;and "orators," even with a prophet at their head, could win no assurancefrom him, except that he would settle everything when he was once withinthe walls of Florence. Still, there was the satisfaction of knowingthat the exasperating Piero de' Medici had been fairly pelted out forthe ignominious surrender of the fortresses, and in that act of energythe spirit of the Republic had recovered some of its old fire.

  The preparations for the equivocal guest were not entirely those of acity resigned to submission. Behind the bright drapery and bannerssymbolical of joy, there were preparations of another sort made withcommon accord by government and people. Well hidden within walls therewere hired soldiers of the Republic, hastily called in from thesurrounding districts; there were old arms duly furbished, and sharptools and heavy cudgels laid carefully at hand, to be snatched up onshort notice; there were excellent boards and stakes to form barricadesupon occasion, and a good supply of stones to make a surprising hailfrom the upper windows. Above all, there were people very strongly inthe humour for fighting any personage who might be supposed to havedesigns of hectoring over them, they having lately tasted that newpleasure with much relish. This humour was not diminished by the sightof occasional parties of Frenchmen, coming beforehand to choose theirquarters, with a hawk, perhaps, on their left wrist, and, metaphoricallyspeaking, a piece of chalk in their right-hand to mark Italian doorswithal; especially as creditable historians imply that many sons ofFrance were at that time characterised by something approaching to aswagger, which must have whetted the F
lorentine appetite for a littlestone-throwing.

  And this was the temper of Florence on the morning of the 17th ofNovember 1494.