22
May 1498 A.D. The last
interrogation of Savanarola
Mr. Graves tells the story.
Graves, Dan. “Savarola’s Interrogation and
Sentence.” Christianity Today. Apr
2007. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1201-1500/savonarolas-interrogation-and-sentence-11629904.html. Accessed Apr 23, 2014.
The young man left home secretly
at 23, without parental approval, flinging aside years of medical and
philosophical education, to join the Dominicans. Convinced of the reality of
the after-life, with its dismal doom or glorious salvation, he became morose. An urgent
sense of right drove him to denounce the morals of the day. At first his
messages were too scholarly for the masses, but in time they gained power.
Audiences pressed into chapel to hear him utter dark prophecies of the future
of Italy and Florence.
Savonarola became one of the
great names of his age. Pietro de Medici of Florence was a weak man.
Savonarola's allies deposed the ineffectual tyrant and the priest became the
city's effective leader, and a gadfly in the side of the corrupt Renaissance
Pope, Alexander VI. He denounced papal iniquity and took political sides
against the pope. Worst of all, from the Pope's point of view, he called upon
Europe's leaders to dethrone the pontiff.
Alexander in turn sought to bring
down the puritanical friar who spoke with such vehemence against his pleasures
and vices. Yet he was patient and could bide his time, for he saw that the
political tide must soon turn against Savonarola.
For a time, Savonarola triumphed.
A Florentine republic was formed. Savonarola's bullies burned the
"vanities" of the city-- art works and books. No building had
sufficient capacity to hold the thousands who came for his sermons. By 1498 all
had changed. Poorly conceived policies, by no means all Savonarola's fault, starved
the city. Its coffers were empty. Alexander VI threatened interdiction. While
many of Savonarola's predictions came true, others failed.
The Florentines turned against
the preacher they had lauded. A Franciscan challenged Savonarola to an ordeal
by fire. Savonarola's disciple Domenico da Pescia accepted as his surrogate.
Crowds gathered. The Franciscan backed out and used every device to prevent the
test. Cheated of their spectacle, the crowds blamed Savonarola. The next day he
was arrested.
Between April 9th and May 23rd
Savonarola was tortured repeatedly and forced to recant. Each time, when he
recovered from the torments, he renounced his recantations, the last time with
such boldness that his interrogators quailed. On this day, May 22, 1498, he was
interrogated one last time. Seeing that he could not be moved, his
interrogators sent him shackled back to his cell and sentenced him to death.
The sentence was carried out the
next day. Savonarola and two friars were hung and burned. Scoffers shouted,
"If you can work miracles, work one now!" After he was dead, his hand
flew up, two fingers extended, as if blessing the crowd. The crowd panicked and
fled the square, crushing several children to death.
Bibliography:
1. Foster, K. "Savonarola,
Girolamo." New Catholic Encyclopedia. New York : Thomson, Gale, 2002 - .
2. Lord, John. Beacon Lights of
History. New York: J. Clarke, 1888-1902.
3. Roeder, Ralph. The Man of the
Renaissance; four lawgivers: Savonarola, Machievelli, Castiglione, Aretino.
Cleveland and New York: World Publishing, 1967, 1933.
4. "Savonarola, Girolamo."
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A.
Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
5. Uden, Grant. Anecdotes from
History: being a collection of 1000 anecdotes, epigrams, and episodes illustrative
of English and world history. Oxford, Blackwell, 1968.
6. Various encyclopedia articles.
Last updated April, 2007.
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