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

by Paul Strathern

  Indeed, opposition remained a clandestine and dangerous business. Not for nothing were the ardent Medici supporters known as the Bigi, a bland colour tone that was intended to emphasise their low-profile invisibility – for their contacts with Piero de’ Medici, as well as their suggestion that he launch an invasion that they would support, were undeniably treason, and as such punishable by death. Opposition thus manifested itself in subversive action, the opposite of loyalty to the state. Violence, such as assassination, was another political measure to which opposing factions were liable to resort. Savonarola was a particular target, and when he left San Marco to walk through the streets to another church where he was delivering a sermon, he was invariably accompanied by a bodyguard of loyal followers. As Landucci recorded: ‘On 24 May some people attempted to attack Frate Girolamo in the Via del Cocomero after he had delivered a sermon.’3 Indeed, Savonarola himself in his letter to Alexander VI on 31 July included amongst the reasons for his inability to visit Rome:

  There are many enemies here who are thirsting after my blood and have made several attempts upon my life, both by assassination and by poison. For this reason I am unable to venture out of doors in safety without endangering myself, unless I am accompanied by armed guards, even within the city, let alone abroad.4

  There had also been a serious downturn in trade, resulting largely from the continuing independence of Pisa, which had simply refused to resubmit to Florentine rule once the French garrison imposed by Charles VIII had withdrawn. The port of Pisa stood at the mouth of the River Arno and thus controlled much of Florence’s overseas trade. In an attempt to remedy this stranglehold the Signoria in Florence had hired a mercenary army to retake Pisa, but so far this had proved both ineffective and costly. Even such wealthy merchants as Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco could no longer afford to support the art that had played such a leading role in the Renaissance in Florence. As a result, Florentine artists were beginning to seek employment in other cities, and the Renaissance was spreading throughout Italy with profound effect upon an age when, according to the great nineteenth-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt:

  both sides of human consciousnesss – that which turned inwards as well as that which turned towards the outer world – lay obscured beneath a common veil, either dreaming or merely half awake. This veil was woven out of faith, childlike prejudices and illusion; and seen through it, the world and its history appeared tinted in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, a nation, a party, a corporation, a family, or in some other general category. It was in Italy that this veil first dissolved into thin air, allowing an objective perception and treatment of the state, as well as all things of this world in general. At the same time, the subjective side asserted itself with similar emphasis, allowing man to become a self-aware individual and to recognise himself as such.5

  Perceptive minds, such as those of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, understood that this profound transformation which was taking place within their culture was progressive in nature – despite its insistence upon harking back to the achievements of the classical era. Western European humanity was evolving – commercially expanding trade routes into new continents, and culturally expanding on a similar scale into territory previously unexplored by Europeans. The clock could not be turned back. Savonarola may have been a moving force for a more equitable society, yet ironically such political progressivism was yoked to a cultural and moralistic conservatism. As a patron of the arts, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco was determined that, at least in its progressive sense, Lorenzo the Magnificent’s legacy should be encouraged. When his favourite young artist Michelangelo returned to Florence a year after his flight to Bologna, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco resolved to help him as best he could during these difficult times. According to Ascanio Condivi, to whom Michelangelo recounted his life during his last years:

  When Michelangelo returned to his homeland he began carving a marble statue of Eros, at the age of six or seven, lying as if asleep. When Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici saw this work he could not but admire its classical beauty, and suggested a plan to Michelangelo, telling him, ‘If you could treat the marble so that it looks as if it has been buried, I can send this to Rome and pass it off as a rare ancient work which has recently been unearthed, and you could get a far better price for it.’ Michelangelo was such a genius that he knew even the most devious tricks of his trade, and when he heard Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s words he immediately set to work as he had suggested.6

  But this scam did not go entirely according to plan. The man chosen by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco to negotiate the sale in Rome of Michelangelo’s statue to the wealthy Cardinal Raffaele Riario succeeded in persuading the cardinal of the authenticity of this ‘rare ancient find’, for which he then paid an undisclosed, but substantial, sum. The go-between then kept most of this for himself, cheating both Michelangelo and Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco. Meanwhile Cardinal Riario, who was a renowned connoisseur, soon discovered that his ‘ancient’ sculpture was in fact a contemporary fake. However, he was so impressed by the sheer skill of Michelangelo’s work that he invited the artist to Rome to work for him – thus fulfilling what had probably been Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s intention all along. Michelangelo would live in Rome for the next three years, producing some of his first masterpieces for a series of rich patrons. These included a magnificent larger than life-sized statue of a tipsy Bacchus, the Ancient Roman god of wine, which Vasari perceptively noted has ‘all the slenderness of male youth somehow combined with the sensuality and roundness of the female form’.7 By contrast, this was also the period when Michelangelo produced his first transcendent religious masterpiece, the Pietà, depicting Mary grieving over the naked body of the dead Christ in her lap, a work that caused Michelangelo’s contemporary Vasari to wonder at:

  the miracle of how such a formless block of stone could be transformed to such a perfection of the flesh as nature herself is scarce capable of producing.8

  Such depictions of the delights of wine and the perfection of naked flesh were hardly the kind of work that Michelangelo could have produced in Savonarola’s ‘City of God’. Michelangelo’s profound belief in God may have been attuned to that of Savonarola, but only by escaping from his influence was Michelangelo capable of fulfilling the genius that had first been recognised in him by Lorenzo the Magnificent. Only amidst the corruption of Rome would this most religious of artists be able to carry forward the promise of the Renaissance and realise his own leading role in its promulgation.

  Botticelli, on the other hand, remained behind in Florence. According to Vasari, who grew up in Florence just two decades later and must therefore have heard at first hand from fellow citizens who had lived through these times:

  Botticelli became such an ardent follower of Savonarola’s teachings that he was induced to give up painting altogether. As this meant he had no means of earning a living his life fell into the greatest disorder. Yet this only served to make him an even more fervent member of the Piagnoni and abandon all thought of following his vocation.9

  Vasari was almost certainly wrong about Botticelli abandoning painting during this period, for several canvases have been reliably dated from these years. However, there is no doubt that the market for paintings all but ceased in Savonarola’s ‘City of God’, leaving many accomplished artists without any source of income. Possibly as a result of poverty, Botticelli is known to have transferred his studio and moved in with his brother Simone Filipepi, who lived in the Via Nuova. Simone was renowned as a strong Piagnoni sympathiser, though his continuing love of secular literature would seem to go against his alleged belief in the imminent and absolute truth of Savonarola’s apocalyptic predictions. Around this time, in the latter half of 1495, Botticelli was probably still involved in completing his drawings to illustrate Dante’s Divine Comedy – a private task that may well have encouraged the rumours concerning his abandonment of his vocation.

  Many experts believe that during this time B
otticelli also painted his late masterpiece Lamentation over the Dead Christ, which depicts the traditional grieving figures around Christ’s prostrate body. This is the work of a soul coming to terms with his new life. The Virgin Mary’s expression is utterly blank with grief, the saints around her exhibiting their own range of sorrowful emotions. The face of the female figure to the right all but blends with that of the dead Christ; as she presses her cheek to his, one can almost sense the closeness of her breath against Christ’s deathly palllid cheek. Yet if we look more closely we can see that this is unmistakably the face that Botticelli once depicted in The Birth of Venus, as she rose from the waves. Whilst the figure to the left tending to the wounds in the dead Christ’s feet is recognisable as one of the dancing goddesses from Primavera. Botticelli’s serene pagan beauties have succumbed to heart-rending grief over the figure who has succeeded them in Botticelli’s heart.

  In many ways this Lamentation reflected a similar transformation that was taking place amongst the people of Florence – or at least among the majority who now saw Savonarola as their leader, politically as well as spiritually. They would no longer just be his followers, they would believe in him. They would abandon their old way of life, their joys and their sadnesses, to dedicate themselves as the new citizens of the ‘City of God’. There was no denying the strength of faith, amounting almost to a contained collective hysteria, that now began to infuse the downtrodden Piagnoni and their followers.

  Yet as we have seen, not all of Savonarola’s followers were Piagnoni. Even amongst those who fervently believed in him and his call for a return to the simplicity of the early Christian way of life, there still remained that intellectual element that had once included so many of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s circle at the Palazzo Medici. Representative of these was Ficino, who wished Savonarola to reinforce his colleagues’ blind faith with the strength of an earlier tradition. Where Savonarola harked back to the Old Testament prophets, Ficino still wished to persuade him to incorporate the philosophical tradition of Platonism into his faith. As well as inspiring humanism, Plato’s ideas had also provided an intellectual backing for much Christian theology. Ficino regarded Plato much like a Christian saint whose ideas had prepared the ground prior to the arrival of Christ himself. Where St John the Baptist had come to be regarded as Christ’s religious herald, Plato should be recognised as his intellectual forerunner.

  Plato’s inclusion in the Christian heritage would unite all who were attracted to Savonarola’s beliefs, as well as giving this faith a philosophical foundation that few amongst the growing number of Renaissance intellectuals throughout Italy could have resisted. Here was a faith that would eliminate the growing pagan element amongst the humanists. If Savonarola was to establish Florence as the centre of a new Christendom, surely this was the way forward. Here lay the foundations of a religious Renaissance to match – indeed, surpass – the artistic and intellectual Renaissance that had been born in Florence. What the Bible promised for the Piagnoni, Plato could provide for intellectual believers and leaders all over Italy, who had become so disillusioned with the corrupt Church establishment in Rome.

  Yet now, to Ficino’s consternation, Savonarola continued to have his doubts about the orthodoxy of some of Plato’s later thinking, and especially that of his followers. Such late Platonic thinking had led Ficino to believe in a number of hermetic ideas, some of which had originally struck a peculiar chord with a number of Savonarola’s metaphysical notions. We know from Savonarola’s record of his revelations that he believed in the existence of, and even saw, such things as angels and demons. He was also a profound believer in prophecy, most notably when this sprang from the visions he saw in his mind’s eye. But such notions of prophecy derived directly from the prophets of the Old Testament. On the other, hand, Savonarola detested other more esoteric forms of prophecy such as astrology. Such beliefs were pure heresy.

  fn1 Not for nothing does this word have connotations with ‘rabid’ and thus ‘rabies’.

  16

  ‘A bolt from the blue’1

  INITIALLY, IT SEEMED that little attention had been paid in the Vatican to Savonarola’s impudent reply to Alexander VI, refusing his cordial invitation to visit Rome. The pope had other matters on his mind: after the humiliation inflicted on him by Charles VIII and the French army on their passage through Rome, he now had to re-establish his power in the Holy City, and at the same time plan his next political move on the Italian scene.

  After Savonarola had delivered his ‘last sermon’ at the end of July 1495, overseen the first edition of his ‘Compendium of Revelations’ into print and despatched his letter replying to Alexander VI, he had retired to the summer countryside to recover from the mental and physical exhaustion brought on by his ascetic way of life and by his strenuous attempts to guide Florentine politics, all exacerbated by his dysentery. It seems most likely that he stayed at the hospice of Santa Maria del Sasso in the mountains at Casentino some thirty miles east of Florence. Two years previously this had become part of the independent Tuscan Congregation under the rule of Savonarola, and his stay thus coincided with his intention to visit all the institutions that had recently come under his rule. Away from the heat and stress of the city, along with the self-imposed intensity of his life at San Marco, Savonarola had gradually begun to recover his health and strength.

  Then, some time during the second week in September, with all the force of ‘a bolt from the blue’, a papal Brief arrived in Florence from Rome. This was dated 8 September, was certainly not composed by Alexander VI, and was probably not even written on his direct orders. However, its composition and method of address betrayed all the skill of a highly accomplished political operator, to say nothing of a man well versed in the ways of the Church. It is now known that this so-called papal Brief was in fact penned by Bartolomeo Floridi, Bishop of Cosenza, a leading member of the papal secreteriat, almost certainly at the prompting of Piero de’ Medici or his followers in Rome.fn1

  All the better to serve his purpose, and possibly to cover his tracks, Floridi deviously chose not to send his Brief directly to Savonarola at San Marco, but instead to ‘the prior and Monastery of Santa Croce’.2 This was the centre of the main clerical opposition to Savonarola in Florence, the home of the rival Franciscans. Consequently, as doubtless intended, the contents of this so-called papal Brief quickly spread through Florence, especially amongst the Arrabbiati and the Medici supporters, a week or so before the Brief was passed on to San Marco. Even then it did not pass immediately into Savonarola’s hands, as the original receipt indicates that the prior was at the time ‘gratia recuperandae valetudinis absens’ 3 – in other words, he was still away recuperating, probably at Casentino.

  The Brief itself was a chilling document. After opening with a few general observations about how dangerous matters, such as ‘schisms within the Church’ and ‘heretical thinking’, can result from ‘adopting a false simplicity’, it then passed on to name ‘a certain Girolamo Savonarola’, who had:

  become so deranged by recent upheavals in Italy that he has begun to proclaim that he has been sent by God and even speaks with God … claiming that anyone who does not accept his prophecies cannot hope for salvation … Despite our patience he refuses to repent and absolve his sins by submitting to our will. Consequently, we have decided to put an end to the scandalous secession of the Tuscan Congregation from that of Lombardy, to which we only consented because of the exhortations of certain deceitful friars. We have decided to re-unite these congregations under the rule of the Lombardy Vicar-General Sebastiano Maggi, who will lead an inquiry into the activities of Savonarola as well as into his writings. Until this inquiry is completed, Savonarola is suspended from all preaching … Anyone who does not comply with the requirements of this brief will suffer instant excommunication.

  Savonarola’s immediate reaction to this document can only be imagined. Now he stood to lose the independence that he had gained at such cost – for which he had compromis
ed the very integrity upon which all his spiritual aims were based, entering into his pact with the dying Lorenzo the Magnificent.

  Savonarola may not actually have received the so-called papal Brief until he returned to Florence. His reply to it was certainly written in Florence, and is dated 29 September, probably no more than a day or so after he first read its contents. Savonarola realised that if he was to have any chance of retaining his independence and fulfilling the role that he felt God had given him, he would have to convince Rome of his cause. In this letter he would have to demonstrate, and redeem, the very nature of his faith. Painstakingly he justified himself, point by point, attempting to refute each of the accusations made against him. The difficulty of doing this, yet at the same time not contradicting the authority of the pope and the orthodoxy of Church doctrine, proved a formidable task. As a result, a number of his arguments appear somewhat too clever for their own good. Having extolled the virtues of his pure and simple faith above all else, Savonarola now found himself relying upon his exceptional intellect to argue its case.

  His meticulous reply extended over more than ten closely written pages. Later, he would famously maintain that the papal Brief contained ‘no less than eighteen mistakes’;4 however, just a few of his arguments will suffice to give the flavour of this letter. Savonarola claimed that contrary to the allegations made in the Brief, he had always been submissive to the Church: he had committed no heresy, because all he had done was call for sinners to repent. When it came to his role as a prophet, his argument was particularly devious: