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

by Paul Strathern

  Savonarola may have been fundamentalist, but he had long since learned that when it came to secular matters, pragmatism usually succeeded rather than idealism. Just as Savonarola had foreseen, Valori’s idealistic move proved a disaster. This drastic lowering of the voting age caused an influx into the Great Council of headstrong, hedonistic young men of the merchant class, many of whom had come of age during the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent. They retained the self-confident arrogance of the privileged youth of this era, and detested all that Savonarola stood for. The liberal Bianchi and the pro-Medici Bigi gained control of the Great Council, and at the election for the next gonfaloniere, to take over in March and April, the winning candidate was Bernardo del Nero, the grand old man of the Medici faction. Now seventy-five years old, but still physically able, he was the leader of the Bigi, the party that remained fanatically opposed to Savonarola and all he stood for. Despite this, Bernardo del Nero in fact owed his life to Savonarola; in 1494, after the flight of Piero de’ Medici, del Nero and his family had only been rescued from the fury of the mob as a result of Savonarola’s passionate sermon forbidding any revenge against Medici supporters. Del Nero had not forgotten this, and as a result had always treated Savonarola himself with an air of respect, despite the fact that he abhorred the move towards a wider democracy and the puritan fundamentalism that had accompanied this. He had done his best to restrain the more hotheaded Bigi faction, which was all for the violent overthrow of the government. On the other hand, there would no longer be the usual quiet consultations between the gonfaloniere and the prior of San Marco over the best direction for public policy. Savonarola’s influence over the government of Florence would remain in abeyance, at least for the next two months while del Nero was gonfaloniere. How much popular support the new gonfaloniere could muster during March and April remained to be seen.

  Within just three weeks of Bernardo del Nero taking up office, rumours of all kinds began circulating amongst the citizens. On 21 March Landucci recorded:

  We suspected a plot by Piero de’ Medici, who was said to be intending to enter Firenzuolafn5, where he would give flour and corn to the people, making them cry Palle; but none of this turned out to be true.13

  The city gates were closed as a precaution, but there was no sign of Piero or any Medici forces outside the walls, or even reports of sightings of such forces passing through the countryside on their way to the city. Meanwhile inside Florence the situation continued to deteriorate. As Landucci recorded on 9 April: ‘The price of corn went up to 4 lire 10 soldi.’14 Four days later, he reported: ‘The price of corn went up to 5 lire.’ With twenty soldi to the lire, this meant an increase of more than 10 per cent in just four days. However, Landucci adds on the same day (12 April): ‘I sold a small quantity that I had over, at 4 lire 14 soldi. I regard myself on this account as ungrateful.’ Those who could do so were evidently hoarding supplies, yet even the ones who reckoned they had sufficient to pass on small quantities to friends or neighbours, at prices below the going rates, felt some guilt at making a profit with such over-inflated prices. The citizens of Florence were becoming conflicted in all manner of ways: personal, political and spiritual.

  Then on 25 April, Landucci recorded: ‘We heard that Piero de’ Medici was at Siena with a large number of troops, so that we had to set night guards at the gate and the walls.’ Siena was just forty miles south of Florence, the capital city of the independent territory between Tuscany and Rome, and long regarded as a traditional enemy of Florence. Piero de’ Medici, aided by the power, money and influence of his younger brother Cardinal Giovanni, had at last managed to put together an invasion force, which was evidently marching north from Rome and presumably picking up reinforcements on the way. Although Landucci’s ensuing diary entries were unembellished with details, their very simplicity and haste give an indication of the trepidation that must have swept through Florence:

  27th April. We heard that Piero de’ Medici was at Staggia.fn6 28th April. We heard that he was at Castellina. In fact, before 24 hours had passed he had reached Fonti di San Gaggio, with 2,000 men on foot and on horsebackfn7. Consequently, before the dinner hour the Gonfaloniere and all the leading citizens armed themselves and assembled at the Porto di San Piero Gattolinofn8.15

  Yet things did not turn out quite as Piero de’ Medici had expected. Bernardo del Nero had ordered that the Porto di San Piero be locked and guarded, and had also organised the city’s few pieces of light artillery along the ramparts. In his capacity as gonfaloniere, del Nero was bound by oath to defend the city, and was determined to go through the motions, even if only to avoid any charge of treason. However, elements within the Bigi had sent a message to Piero, assuring him that his very presence would provoke a popular uprising within Florence. This would be followed by an invitation to enter the city, whereupon the gates would then be thrown open and he would be greeted by welcoming crowds as he rode back to the Palazzo Medici and resumed power.

  But no popular uprising took place. Precisely why nothing happened remains uncertain. There would undoubtedly have been much ‘encouragement’ to take to the streets, with rallying calls of ‘Palle! Palle!’ by groups of Bigi organisers riding through their districts. Yet when the moment of truth arrived, even those who most opposed Savonarola appear to have been not quite so keen on a Medici return to power as they had led others to believe. Besides, by now certain relief supplies had begun reaching Florence from the port of Livorno, and the citizens were no longer willing to be bribed into submission by the offer of free corn from Piero de’ Medici. Although there can be no doubt that the population was still deeply divided, it soon became clear that the city was not prepared to welcome Piero. Bernardo del Nero and his ‘armed chief citizens’ (who would have contained many staunch Bigi supporters) watched uncertainly from the walls while the streets of the city remained silent. The gates stayed closed, and Landucci recorded how, later that day:

  at about 21 in the evening (5 p.m.) [Piero de’ Medici] turned back and went away, seeing that he had no supporters in Florence. It was considered a most foolish thing for him to have put himself in such danger, for if we had wished, we could have captured him; if the alarm bell had rung outside, he would have been surrounded. As it was, he returned to Siena, not without fear.

  Landucci’s speculative optimism is certainly open to doubt, yet at the same time there is no doubting the proud Piero’s loss of face, and news of his public humiliation quickly spread throughout Italy. The son of Lorenzo the Magnificent had become a laughing stock. On his return to Rome, Piero was a broken man and sought to obliterate the memory of his disgrace by launching into a bout of dissipation. This would later be recounted in some detail by his close friend Lamberto dell’Antella:

  He here abandoned himself to a licentious and most scandalous life. He would rise from his bed late in the afternoon for dinner, sending down to the kitchen to see if they had prepared any particular dish which took his fancy. If not, he would leave for the San Severino, where every day a sumptuous banquet was served, and he here spent most of his time. When he had finished his meal, it was his custom to retire to a private room with a courtesan until it was time for his evening meal. Or sometimes he would stay there even later, and then head straight out for the streets of Rome with a bunch of dim-witted loose-living companions. After carousing the night away he would return to his wife around dawn. In this way, he dissipated his time and energy in gluttony, gambling, lewdness and all kinds of unnatural vices.16

  By now Piero de’ Medici was living off the last of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s collection of jewels and plate, which his brother Cardinal Giovanni had managed to rescue before fleeing from Florence. Piero’s dissipation led to a serious deterioration in his already headstrong and arrogant personality:

  He expected all with whom he came into contact to be subservient to him and obey his every bullying whim. He showed no gratitude or mercy for any who served him. No matter how faithful or devoted his companions, he was liable to
turn on them at will in the most savage fashion.

  He even turned against his close friend Francesco del Nero, ordering Lamberto dell’Antella ‘to arrange for his assassination’ – probably as an act of revenge against his relative, Gonfaloniere Bernardo del Nero, for not opening the gates of the city to him. Soon Piero would go so far as to turn against his own brother:

  He was liable to treat the Cardinal with such extreme insolence, even when they were in public together, that his brother all but refused to see him. Even so, as soon as the Cardinal received any new income from his many benefices, Piero immediately turned up to claim a share. Within two or three days this would all have been squandered or gambled away.

  So while the increasingly indolent and chubby Cardinal Giovanni often woke at sunrise, taking breakfast in bed and reading till the afternoon, his more athletic older brother seldom took to his bed until after sunrise, and well the worse for wear. Their father too had been capable of similar bouts (of both sorts), but his pride and ambition had enabled him to overcome such behaviour. For this reason, he had recognised early his own faults in both Piero and Giovanni, and had taken great pains to warn them against such lapses. Lorenzo the Magnificent had possessed qualities of greatness, and as we know he had been perspicacious enough to realise that at least one of his two sons might also possess such qualities (‘One is foolish, one is clever’). He had an inkling that as long as they remained close, together they might prove a formidable force, in both Florence and the Church. Yet now Piero and Giovanni were becoming increasingly alienated.

  Despite this, Cardinal Giovanni continued to scheme for his brother’s return to power in Florence. To this end, he cultivated the friendship of the powerful Augustinian Mariano da Genazzano, who remained Savonarola’s sworn enemy and continued to use all his considerable influence with Alexander VI, constantly urging him to take action against Savonarola. By now neither the pope nor anyone close to the Vatican needed much encouragement in this matter. As the permanent Florentine ambassador Ricciardo Becchi had reported: ‘The outrage against Savonarola is increasing amongst all parties in Rome, to such an extent that it is no longer possible to speak in his defence.’17

  fn1 There were twenty soldi to one lire. In normal times a bushel of corn cost less than one lire. It is difficult to compare prices exactly, but informed estimates suggest that an unskilled labourer during these difficult times would only earn enough each day to feed his family (of around eight people) on a loaf of bread and a few vegetables. As well as distribution of free grain by the commune (that is, the city authorities), monasteries such as San Marco passed out bread to the starving as best they could.

  fn2 This ‘monstrous image’4 was also intended as the personification of the previous Carnival, where such effigies had often topped the bonfires around which people danced. Originally this would have been the figure of Pan, the Ancient Greek god associated with sexual licence, fertility and spring. The resemblance between the traditional image of the Devil and the Ancient Greek god Pan was not coincidental. The gods of one religion were habitually either incorporated into the religion that succeeded it (such as Athena, the Ancient Greek virgin goddess, becoming the Virgin Mary) or were co-opted to become its bogey figures (such as Pan becoming the Devil). Pico della Mirandola had recognised this trait, and made it part of his universal philosophy. Savonarola had gone to great pains to ‘cure’ him of such thinking, which undermined the uniqueness of Christianity.

  fn3 Evidently not all classes in Florence were suffering from the scarcity of food and high price of corn.

  fn4 This friar is generally identified as Fra Leonardo da Fivizzano; Santo Spirito was on the Oltrarno and a centre of the Augustinians, who had been Savonarola’s enemies since he had humiliated Fra Mariano da Genazzano, the man who was now superior of their order in Rome.

  fn5 A northern gate in the city walls.

  fn6 Staggia was a small town thirty miles south of Florence.

  fn7 Castellina was a village in the mountains six miles north-east of Staggia. Fonti di San Gaggio was just south of the city walls of Oltrarno. These varied locations evidently came from rumours heard by those who were fleeing the immediate countryside for the comparative safety of the city walls.

  fn8 This was the main gate in the southern city walls of Oltrarno, now known as the Porta Romana, at the southern end of the Boboli Gardens (which of course did not exist at that time).

  18

  ‘On suspicion of heresy’

  JUST SIX DAYS after the failure of Piero de’ Medici’s ‘invasion’, Savonarola was due to deliver the Ascension Day sermon on 4 May 1497 at the cathedral. But Landucci records how:

  a number of Savonarola’s sworn enemies set a vicious trap for him. On the night before he was due to deliver his sermon, they had forced their way into the church, breaking open the door beside the belfry, and entered the pulpit, which they covered with dirt.1

  Burlamacchi confirms this, rather more explicitly informing how the intruders smeared the pulpit with excrement and covered it with a putrefying donkey hide, together with its stinking innards. They also hammered nails up under the lectern, so that if Savonarola made one of his familiar gestures, emphasising his point by banging his fist down on the pulpit, these would stab through his skin. (This latter attempt at sabotage could well have backfired: the self-flagellating Savonarola would certainly not have been distracted from preaching on account of such minor pain, and the sight of his gesticulating hands dripping blood would doubtless have caused a sensation, prompting the more gullible members of the congregation to believe that they were witnessing a miracle – bleeding stigmata, or some such.)

  However, the desecration was discovered next morning and cleared up. Savonarola was adamant that his sermon should go ahead, despite rumours that had begun circulating through the city that he would be assassinated. This was his last chance to preach in public, for the Signoria had issued a decree banning all sermons from 5 May. The increasingly precarious political situation, so easily inflamed, doubtless influenced this decision as much as any anti-Savonarolan members amongst the Signoria. The authorities also had another pressing reason for banning public gatherings. Further isolated cases of the plague had been reported in the slum quarters during the winter, an indication that a more serious epidemic might well break out with the coming of the hot months of summer.

  Savonarola’s Ascension Day sermon saw a packed cathedral, drawing his supporters from all over the city. The event was not to pass off without serious incident. Landucci described the scene that he witnessed:

  about two-thirds of the way through his sermon, there was a noise from over by the choir, like someone banging a stick on a box. We believe that it was done on purpose by those same men who had desecrated the pulpit. Immediately, there was a commotion with everyone crying: ‘Jesu!’ because the people were excited, and just waiting for these bad men to cause a disturbance. Not long after the people had settled down again, there was another cry of ‘Jesu!’ because of a disturbance near to the pulpit, where there were some secretly armed men ready to defend the Frate. They now caught sight of some of the men they suspected, and as these approached the pulpit a man by the name of Lando Sassolini struck another called Bartolomeo Guigni with the flat of his sword.

  Whereupon a riot broke out amongst the congregation. The great doors of the cathedral were swung open and the terrified crowd ran out into the piazza. Some of Savonarola’s supporters hurried to nearby houses, returning with arms, and joined the others gathered around the pulpit, determined to protect him against his armed enemies. Meanwhile Savonarola remained in the pulpit on his knees, praying. Eventually his would-be assassins retreated out of the cathedral, melting away through the streets. The throng of Savonarola’s armed supporters then hurried him on the ten-minute journey up the Via del Cocomero back to the safety of San Marco.

  This event would appear to indicate that a majority of the citizens of Florence still supported Savonarola, and that any attempt
to ‘displace’ him would result in a violent civil war. As a result of the latest elections for the Signoria and the leading councils, at the beginning of May the more extreme Arrabbiati had replaced the Bigi as the most influential faction in the government. Even so, the leading Arrabbiati were determined at all costs to avoid civil conflict, an outbreak that might easily spell the end of Florence as an independent republic. Other hotheads amongst the Bigi and the Arrabbiati (who did not call themselves the ‘Enraged Ones’ for nothing) were still inclined to give vent to their feelings, and the situation remained tense, with a number of violent incidents taking place. On the feast of Corpus Christi, Savonarola’s boys once again marched through the streets carrying red crosses in their hands, but as their procession passed over the Ponte Santa Trinità towards Oltrarno, someone ran out from the crowd, snatched the cross from the leader’s hands, ‘broke it and then threw it into the river, as if he was some kind of infidel’.2