276 SIGNS AND WONDers. B. III. at the hands of Savonarola, though by so doing they quitted the pale of the Romish Church. Yet these successes were not obtained without vehement opposition; perpetual changes in the municipal government occasioned corresponding variations in the power of the Piagnoni. War threatened from abroad; discontented clamours disturbed the state; famine and disease exasperated the miseries not only of Florence, but of all Italy; so that there was every where a disturbed and timid spirit, equally prone to violence and superstition. Guicciardini, writing of this period, says, Astrologers predict great and more frequent alterations, more strange and horrid circumstances than have been seen for many years in any part of the world. In Puglia by night three suns appeared in the midst of the heavens, surrounded by clouds, with terrific thundering and lightning. In Arezzo, during many days, there passed visibly through the air innumerable armed men, upon immense horses, with a fearful uproar of drums and trumpets. In many parts of Italy the statues evidently sweated; monsters were born, and many other things took place, contrary to the course of nature.' Ignorant fanaticism, savage fighting, dishonourable intrigues, detestable licentiousness, characterized the dark age in which Savonarola and his followers groped their way among a thousand obstacles towards the dim and distant light of civil and religious freedom. Much was effected in reviving a sense of religion; but the political tumults in Florence were little short of the horrors of internal war. The Compagnacci ranged the streets ready to snatch at every pretext for a quarrel; and either inflicted summary punishment on their adversaries by their own swords, or dragged them to a hasty and partial tribunal for the semblance of justice. In some obscure quarter resounded the cry of Palle, palle!' where the Medici, too few to CH. X. VIOLENT FANATICISM. 277 be the assailants, were yet too brave to be offended with impunity. The very children assembled at the hour when Savonarola passed from San Marco to preach in San Liperata; and in their baby rage, mocked and threw stones at each other, the Piagnoni raising the accustomed shout, 'Viva Christo!' These infantine warriors drew grave men into their contests. Giuliano Ridolfe, one of the most honourable citizens of Florence, rushed out furiously, on one occasion, from a neighbouring house, into the midst of the rioters, with an axe on his shoulder, shouting, ' Viva Christo !" B b CHAPTER XI. EXCOMMUNICATION. Savonarola appeals to the princes of the earth for a council of the Church-Ludovico Sforza-Letter to the Pope from the Signory-Machiavelli to a friend.-Conspiracy to restore the Medici--Execution of conspirators-Savonarola insulted while preaching-Riots-Excommunication pronounced-General interest excited. Ir is rightly remarked by Savonarola's latest biographer, that he had to contend with three enemies, who had now come forth against him in visible opposition-servility, lasciviousness, and crime.' He had declared war on all three: their antagonism was but reaction. The blow he had dealt was mortal, but not immediately so; even while dying they had power to wound, nay, to kill. They were the demons that respectively possessed the popular mind, the Medicean party, and the papal chair. If in the battle he committed some errors, we must recollect that those spiritual influences which had seduced others, left himself not untempted; that he had to contend against them as much in himself as in others. There was a spell cast over Florence, over Italy; by which, while dissipating it, he was surrounded. It required strong virtue to breathe at all in the polluted atmosphere; things good in themselves had been perverted by it. Poetry, which he had so much loved CH. XI. COUNCILS. 279 and had so well practised; art which, in its legitimate uses, he could not but have honoured,—all had been led by infernal agency to pander to the lusts of the flesh, the world, and the devil. Above them all, above all external manifestations,-even Vocal Prayer itself, he had ever set the mind, the soul, the spirit whence they emanate; and where there was a tendency to substitute the processes and their results for the agent of which rightly they are but ministers, he hastened to condemn it. Should he now forbear, when means had been mistaken altogether for ends, and the salvation of the race of man was not only endangered, but suspended,-while heaven was lamenting and hell rejoicing-Christ absent from his Church, and Satan present in the consecrated place? GOD forbid! Of all things most repugnant to the ears of popes had ever been the mention of a Council: such assemblies had maintained their credit with princes and states, for the very reason that the chair of St. Peter was always disinclined to them. They militated against the infamous dogma perpetually propounded, and thus expressed by Bellarmine, that it is altogether a matter of necessity for every human creature to be subject to the pontiff,' and that though the Catholic faith teaches that every virtue is good and every vice evil, yet if the pope should fall into error by commanding vices or prohibiting virtues, that then the Church would be bound to believe that vices were good and virtues evil, unless she wished to sin against conscience; for the Church is bound in doubtful things to acquiesce in the judgement of the pope, and to do what he commands, and not to do what he prohibits ; and lest by chance she should sin against conscience, she is bound to believe good what he commands, and bad what he prohibits.' Now of all popes whatever, Alexander VI. had most need of such a dogma for 280 EPISTLES TO CHRISTIAN PRINCES. B. III. his defence, and was the least prepared to meet an assembly of the Church. Princes, in their contests with the papal see, were desirous of the corroboration of spiritual authority, and a council was just the sort of ally that they required. Such was the dread felt of a council in the court of Rome, that the mere apprehension of it, on a subsequent occasion, had the effect of reducing the price of all vendible offices; and at the time of which we are writing, it would doubtless have shaken the state of things altogether, and given a very different hue to the history of succeeding periods. Clear enough it is, that Alexander VI. wished to get rid of the thought that there existed such a living adversary and invincible witness as Savonarola; but Savonarola had ventured on a step which precluded all compromise. Foreseeing that the court of Rome and the corrupt clergy would never undertake their own reformation, he felt driven to the adoption of the only means by which the nobler and abler sons of the Church, since the beginning of the century, had seen the only chance of deliverance-an appeal to the assembly of a free Christian council-that the business might be laid to the heart of the principal princes of Christendom, as the protectors and supporters of the Church. Accordingly, in the beginning of the year 1497, Savonarola wrote letters to the kings of Spain, France, Hungary, England, and the emperor of Germany, wherein he lamented the necessities of the Church, and invoked them, in the name of God, not to neglect their duty as Christian princes. Fortunately two of these letters are extant, one to the emperor and the other to the king of Spain, both involving the reasons why the matter between him and the pope had become now an affair of life and death. 'We have' (so run these important epistles)' the gracious promise of God from old time, that he will |