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

by Paul Strathern

  fn8 The lasting affection of Florence for Capponi can be seen in the fact that he still has a street named after him, north of the city centre near the former site of the Porta San Gallo.

  17

  The Bonfire of the Vanities

  AS FEARED, FLORENCE underwent a winter of famine. The picture that Landucci painted of life in the city at this time makes for grim reading. On 25 January 1497 he recorded:

  The price of corn was 3 lire 14 soldi a bushel.fn1 And at this time a woman died amidst the crowd in the Piazza del Grano (The Corn Market), where government stores of bread and corn were being sold. We also heard that a poor peasant came into Florence to beg for bread, leaving his three small children starving at home. When he returned to find that they were dying, and he had no food for them, he took a rope and hanged himself.1

  On 6 February, despite an official decree lowering the price of corn by ‘12 or 15 soldi a bushel’ just a week or so beforehand, Landucci recorded how the distribution of free grain to the destitute resulted in an even worse incident:

  Several women were suffocated in the crowd in the Piazza del Grano, and some of them were brought out half-dead, which may seem incredible, but it is true, because I saw it myself.

  Many incredible things were now taking place in Florence. Next day saw the culmination of that year’s carnival weeks, when Carnival itself was ‘celebrated’ in Savonarola’s new style. Again ‘Savonarola’s boys’ had spent the preceding weeks setting up altars at street corners, parading through the streets dressed in white, singing hymns and knocking on doors seeking items for charity. These collections had by now taken on a more insistent tone, and the items that Savonarola’s boys sought were more specifically characterised as ‘vanities’.2 Activities extended far beyond taking girls’ ornate veil holders, and included the collecting of all manner of luxuries and ornaments that might be regarded as distracting their owners from the fundamentalist Christian way of life preached by Savonarola. This certainly included the items that women used for adorning themselves – such as jewellery, scented ‘dead hair’ (wigs), mirrors, perfume (‘lascivious odours’) and colourfully dyed cloth for making dresses. Needless to say, items associated with gambling were also much sought out – including dice, packs of cards, gaming tables and even chess sets. Indeed, anything that brought pleasure was fair game for Savonarola’s boys on their collecting rounds: secular Latin books (which were said to contain all manner of lewd stories), Boccaccio’s scurrilous tales and Petrarch’s famous love poems, even works by the Ancient Greek philosophers (‘pagan heresies’), and books by poets ranging from Ovid to Poliziano. Just as sought-after were musical instruments of all kinds, as well as statues and paintings that did not depict religious scenes – such as popular figurine copies of Donatello’s suggestive hermaphroditic statues, as well as paintings of the naked female form. Even paintings of religious subjects were not immune, in particular those ‘which are painted in such a shameful fashion as to make the Virgin Mary look like a prostitute’.3

  It has been claimed that during this period Botticelli piously surrendered a number of his secular paintings from his studio; and though many historians continue to dispute this, it would certainly seem to have been characteristic of the artist’s troubled frame of mind at this time.

  Botticelli – now in his early fifties – was one of the few survivors from the charmed intellectual circle that had gathered around Lorenzo at the Palazzo Medici. By this stage he had taken to painting a series of stark crucifixions. In these Christ’s face hangs down, below his long matted dark hair, infused with a look of pain and resignation, showing all the signs of being realised with deep empathy by Botticelli. Although he believed in Savonarola, there was no doubt that, in his poverty and anguish, Florence had become a deeply painful place for him.

  Meanwhile another survivor, the diminutive stuttering Ficino, had become an embittered old man. In the heyday of Lorenzo’s time at the Palazzo Medici, Ficino had written celebrating the Ancient Greek tradition of platonic relationships between beautiful young men and their older mentors as the most exalted form of love. But now in the wake of Savonarola’s condemnation of homosexuality, Ficino found himself lambasted as a sodomite. The man who had once been a revered philosopher, admired as a canon of Florence Cathedral, was now reduced to a scandalous figure. After Savonarola had scorned his attempt to introduce his beloved Plato into the Christian fold, Ficino had retired to the countryside at Careggi, but had recently been driven back into the city by the famine. Here he was shunned by his former friends. The Medici supporters distrusted him because of his former association with Savonarola, and yet figures like Botticelli would have nothing to do with him either, because Savonarola now regarded him as a heretic.

  The bonfires in each neighbourhood around which people had traditionally danced in abandoned fashion during the pre-Savonarolan Carnival were now all amalgamated into one massive bonfire in the Piazza della Signoria, which was intended to accommodate all the vanities that Savonarola’s boys had collected. An eight-sided wooden pyramid had been constructed, with seven tiers, one for each of the seven deadly sins. The vanities were placed on these tiers, and the inside of the pyramid was filled with sacks of straw, piles of kindling wood, and even small bags of dynamite (intended to spread the flames throughout the pyramid, as well as cause incendiary firework effects such as bangs and showers of sparks). In the end, this ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ rose to sixty feet, and the circumference at its base was 240 feet. At its peak was placed a wooden effigy made to look like the traditional image of the Devil, complete with hairy cloven-hoofed goats’ legs, pointed ears, horns and a little pointed beard.fn2 Such was this wondrous collection of vanities that it is said a Venetian merchant who was passing through Florence offered 22,000 ducats if he could be allowed to take them with him rather than let them be wastefully burned. This was a colossal sum, especially in a time of famine – during these years one could have bought a modest palazzo for one-tenth of this amount. Nonetheless the merchant’s offer was indignantly refused, and he soon left the city fearing for his own safety when he saw that the face on the figure atop the bonfire had been adapted to resemble his own.

  On the day of Carnival, 7 February 1497, the ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ was finally lit. Watching this destructive conflagration were the gonfaloniere and senior officials of the administration gazing down from the balcony of the Palazzo della Signoria, while the assembled choirs of Savonarola’s boys dressed in white chanted hymns, as well as songs mocking worldly luxuries, which had been especially composed for the occasion. As the bonfire crackled into life, trumpets sounded from the palazzo, and the Vacca tolled. The large assembled crowd applauded the flames before joining the choir of Savonarola’s boys in their hymn-singing. It seemed as if Florence was now truly the ‘City of God’.

  Next day, Savonarola preached the first of that year’s Lenten sermons. These were on texts taken from Ezekiel, one of the more virulent of the Old Testament prophets, who is today perhaps best known for his pronouncement:

  Thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will stretch out mine hand against [mine enemies] … And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.5

  This was hardly the sentiment likely to be adopted by one who would rest on his laurels now that he had succeeded in establishing the ‘City of God’ in Florence. Indeed, Savonarola had by this stage become fully aware that only one course lay open to him if he was to succeed, or even survive: he must challenge and overcome the full might of Rome, thereby banishing corruption from the very heart of the Church, so that it could be purified from within. Anything less, and he would be destroyed: the martyr’s death that he had hinted might lie in wait for him would inevitably come about – unless he rallied the faithful against the evil of Rome. And this he proceeded to do in no uncertain fashion, gradually growing in both boldness and vehemence with each passing sermon. By 4 March h
e had roused himself to such a pitch that he was declaring:

  Friars have a proverb amongst themselves: ‘He comes from Rome, do not trust him.’ O hark unto my words, you wicked Church! At the Court of Rome men are losing their souls all the time, they are all lost. Wretched people! I do not claim that this is true of everyone there, but only a few remain good. If you meet people who enjoy being in Rome, you know they are cooked. He’s cooked, all right. You understand me?6

  When Savonarola passed from the plural to the singular, his packed congregation would have recognised that he was referring to none other than the pope. As if sensing that perhaps he had gone too far, Savonarola immediately distanced himself, claiming: ‘I am not speaking of anyone in particular.’

  Yet, carried on the tide of his own emotion, he was soon throwing all caution to the winds once more:

  O harlot Church, once you were ashamed of your pride and lust, but now you acknowledge this without the least show of remorse. In former times, priests would refer to their sons as ‘nephews’, but now they quite openly call them ‘sons’ on every occasion.

  There could be no mistaking the object of these remarks. What had previously been gossip amongst the more educated classes had now become common knowledge. All now knew that Alexander VI was the first pope openly to acknowledge his bastard offspring, dispensing with such euphemisms as ‘nephew’ or ‘niece’ – even going so far as to move his sons and daughter into the papal apartments at the Vatican. More pertinently still, the sixty-six-year-old Alexander VI’s most recent mistress Giulia Farnese, a married Roman woman of good family who had begun her liaison with the pope when she was still a teenager, had recently given birth to his son – news of which would certainly have reached Savonarola at San Marco by way of the Dominican grapevine, and would have been known to the better-informed members of his congregation.

  Likewise, news of Savonarola’s sermons was eagerly relayed to Rome by his enemies, especially amongst the Franciscans and the Augustinians. This made life particularly difficult for the Florentine special envoy, Alessandro Bracci, when he arrived in Rome and presented himself before Alexander VI on 13 March. Political relations between Rome and Florence were at their lowest ebb over Pisa and the Holy League, and Bracci had been strictly instructed by the Florentine administration on the position that he was to adopt concerning the city’s foreign policy. Bracci opened his speech to the pope with the customary diplomatic niceties, expressing Florence’s deep respect and support for His Holiness, whilst at the same time taking care to avoid any specific commitments. He then proceeded with some trepidation to the more specific matters that he had been instructed to inform Alexander VI about. These included a demand for the return of Pisa, along with a reminder that Florence had the support of Charles VIII, to whom the city was committed by an unbreakable alliance, which thus unfortunately precluded any possibility of Florence joining Alexander VI’s Holy League.

  Alexander VI made it plain that he was unimpressed by this flim-flam, especially when it came from the man representing the city that allowed Savonarola to continue preaching such blasphemous and defamatory sermons against him. Dispensing with all but the most perfunctory of diplomatic pleasantries, Alexander VI addressed the unfortunate Bracci:

  My Lord secretary, you may be as fat as we are, but if you will pardon me saying so, your message is distinctly lean and skinny.fn3 If you have nothing further to say, you might as well return home … We cannot understand how you have taken up such a stubborn and obstinate attitude. Presumably it has something to do with the faith you place in the prophecies of that soothsayer of yours. If we could be allowed to address your people directly, we are convinced that our true arguments would soon disillusion you and cure you of the blindness and error into which you have been led by this friar. However, what causes us even greater pain – and at the same time gives us just reason for our antagonism towards you – is that your Signoria and citizens give their support to him. And all this is done without any just cause whatsoever, as he vilifies us and makes mincemeat of our dignity – us the very occupiers of this most Holy See.7

  The pope could be secure in his angry reaction, for unbeknown to Bracci, to Florence, and even to Savonarola, the political situation in Italy had undergone a dramatic shift in Alexander VI’s favour. He had entered into secret negotiations with Charles VIII. News now reached Florence, and was then carried by fast messenger down the road to Rome, that Alexander VI had succeeded in turning the tables on Florence: in France on 25 February Charles VIII had finally been persuaded to sign a treaty with the Holy League. This may have been unfortunate for Bracci in Rome, but for Savonarola in Florence it was nothing less than a political disaster. His ‘scourge of God’ had disappeared. Alexander VI and the Holy League may have been in some disarray, but one thing was clear: there was absolutely no prospect of anyone coming to the aid of Florence if one, or more, of her encircling enemies chose to invade her territory. And this state of affairs was unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. As a result of this news, disillusion with Savonarola’s role as a prophet became more widespread throughout Florence. The Arrabbiati and the Bigi had adopted the slogan ‘We are for the natural world’ (as distinct from the supernatural world – that is, prophecies), and this now began to gain wider currency amongst the population.

  When Savonarola heard of this, he was so stung that he determined to answer his critics in his next sermon. As if obsessed, he returned again and again to what they were saying about the ‘natural world’. Similarly, according to the contemporary diarist Parenti he also attacked Charles VIII, ‘condemning him as stupid and idle’,8 adding that just as he had truly predicted ‘the death of his son, now he predicted his death’.9 Although Savonarola took care not to mention Charles VIII by name (a point confirmed by the printed text itself), Parenti was in no doubt to whom he was referring in this sermon.

  If we view Savonarola’s predictions from a modern rational scientific point of view, it is undeniable that here he was going out on a limb. Unlike the tyrants whose deaths he had previously prophesied, with such spectacular effect and such spectacular accuracy, Charles VIII was just twenty-six years old and in good health. The indications are that in this case Savonarola’s self-belief got the better of him: he had become so encouraged by the success of his previous prophecies that he felt any convictions he held with sufficient strength and faith were now infallible. At the same time, he had evidently become so enraged by the success of his enemies that his emotions overrode any intellectual caution or prudence: he realised that his entire future was at stake. He was beginning to lose influence; and if this drift continued, his power in the city was liable to evaporate. His position was anomalous: he was a foreigner, and he held no elected role in the administration. His power depended upon his influence over the frequently changing members of the Signoria and on his ability to impose his will upon the populace through his sermons. ‘Savonarola’s boys’ could not otherwise have been so effective in bringing about the huge propaganda coup represented by the ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’, which by now had all of Italy talking.

  In Savonarola’s eyes, Charles VIII had once and for all failed to fulfil the role that God had given him: the ‘scourge of God’ therefore had himself to be scourged. God had no alternative but to destroy Charles VIII for disobeying his commandment. Thus Savonarola certainly felt justified in prophesying this event. In modern psychological parlance this may be regarded as wish fulfilment or self-delusion; yet in the psycho-religious atmosphere prevalent in Florence at the time, as well as in Savonarola’s mind, this prophecy was not disingenuous.

  Savonarola continued preaching his 1497 Lenten sermons on the prophet Ezekiel, and the citizens of Florence continued to starve as a result of the famine. On 19 March Landucci recorded, ‘More than one child has been found dead of hunger in Florence.’10 Just eight days later, he wrote:

  Throughout this time, men, women, and children were collapsing from exhaustion and hunger, some them dying of
it. At the hospital many were dying as a result of weakness from starvation.

  Amidst such an atmosphere of doom and disaster, Savonarola’s Lenten sermons in the cathedral attracted crowds as large as ever. Landucci records that ‘fifteen thousand people attended his sermon every weekday’, a figure that would probably have accounted for half the able-bodied population at the time. However, weakened by Charles VIII’s pact with the pope, Savonarola now found his critics more vociferously confident. Landucci mentions in his entry for Good Friday:

  A friar preached in Santo Spirito,fn4 who spoke against Fra Girolamo, and all through Lent he had been saying that the Frate was deceiving us and that he was not a prophet.

  The population of Florence was splitting into two aggressively divided camps. A despatch sent by the Ferrarese ambassador during March revealed:

  The city is more divided than ever before, and all are apprehensive that there will soon be an outbreak of civil violence. If this does happen it will be very dangerous for the city. Savonarola is doing his best to forestall this, but his enemies have become widespread and determined, particularly after news of the blessed truce [between France and the Holy League].11

  The political situation within Florence had been subtly shifting against Savonarola for some months now. In January, Francesco Valori had been elected gonfaloniere. Valori was a member of a well-respected family, who had been a staunch political ally and trusted friend of Lorenzo the Magnificent, to such an extent that he had even married into the Medici family. In 1491 he had been selected by Lorenzo as one of the five-man delegation sent to have a quiet word with Savonarola, intimating that perhaps the new prior of San Marco should tone down his sermons. However, just three years later Valori had been filled with consternation when Piero de’ Medici had taken it upon himself, without even consulting the Signoria, to set out on a personal mission to Charles VIII. When news reached Florence of what Piero de’ Medici had surrendered at his meeting with the French king, Francesco Valori had been outraged, and after the flight of Piero from the city he had felt no qualms about becoming an enthusiastic supporter of the Piagnoni, as well as lending his support to Savonarola and his social reforms. By 1497 his election as gonfaloniere was long overdue: his popularity was widespread, he was known as a powerful but sympathetic character and had many qualities of leadership. Alas, he was not a man of great intelligence, and the few times when he came up with an original idea it was prone to become an obsesssion. In the words of Guicciardini, who would have known him, Valori ‘imposed his views regardless of what other people thought, bullying and abusing anyone who disagreed’.12 One of his first ideas, at the start of his two-month term as gonfaloniere, was to extend the democratic scope of the Great Council by lowering the age of election to its membership from thirty to twenty-four. At first sight this seemed a highly commendable idea, and Valori was surprised and disappointed when Savonarola advised him against such an unprecedented move. He refused to listen to Savonarola’s canny political advice and went ahead with his plan regardless.