and the renaissance of conscience

when the first warm days of may come to a land chilled through with the frosts of winter, all pastures and meadows, all vineyards and orchards, even the desert and the mountain rift awake to a new bloom and beauty. the revival of learning which culminated in that golden age known as the renaissance was ushered in by the poet dante, with his love for beatrice and his immortal poem called the divine comedy. dante has been likened unto that angel who descended from heaven and, standing with one foot on the sea and one on the land, lifted the trumpet to his lips, and wakened the whole world. to dante belongs the double glory "of immortalizing in verse the centuries behind him, while he inaugurated a new age and created a new language." but if dante's face was turned upward and backward, his work was taken up by the great humanist, petrarch, whose face was toward the future. soon the whole land was awake, and while other[pg 35] countries were held in the grip of ice and winter, full summer burst upon italy.

scholars have interpreted the renaissance from many different angles. students of literature identify it with the discovery and reproduction of the manuscripts of the greek and latin authors. artists associate it with giotto's paintings and tower, with michael angelo's moses and last judgment, and with the names of alberti and leonardo. scientists point toward the discoveries of copernicus and columbus, just as jurists think of the rise of popular freedom and the overthrow of tyranny. practical men associate the new era with the art of printing and the manufacture of paper and gunpowder, with the use of the compass by mariners, and the telescope by astronomers. but none of these interpretations fully suffice to explain the new era, with its new energy of the intellect and its outburst of unrivalled genius.

the mental and emotional condition of europe at the beginning of the fifteenth century may be likened to the vague longings in the heart of that child, who, legend hath it, was carried away from his father's castle by a band of gipsies. the gipsies carried the boy to spain, and there they taught him to ride and hunt and steal after the gipsy fashion.[pg 36] but he had the blood of his ancestors within him, and there was something burning and throbbing within. sometimes in his dreams he saw a beautiful face leaning over him, and heard the bosom pressure words of his mother, who could not be forgotten. not otherwise was it with society at the beginning of the fifteenth century. for centuries the books, the arts, the tools, once so familiar to virgil and horace, to m?cenas and c?sar augustus had lain neglected on the shores of that dead sea called the dark ages. vague and uneasy memories haunted europe. imagination increased the value of the lost treasure. looking backward through an atmosphere roseate through fancy, helen's face took on new loveliness. achilles became the ideal knight, ulysses a divine hero, and penelope the sum of all the gifts distributed among ideal women.

but in the middle of the fifteenth century occurred the fall of constantinople, that saragossa sea into which had been drawn the literary treasures of the preceding centuries. constantinople had become a treasure-house in which were assembled the manuscripts that had been carried away by the citizens of rome fleeing from the huns. as the centuries came and went, merchants, bankers,[pg 37] rich men from far-off provinces had taken their jewels, carved furniture, ivories, paintings, bronzes, marbles, rugs, silks, laces, and housed their treasure in palaces, looking out upon the bosphorus. so that in 1452, when the advancing saracens approached the city, the scholars and rich men of constantinople fled to their boats, and spreading canvas sailed into the western sun. months passed before these fugitives dropped anchor at the mouth of the po. one morning, an old man, wrapped in a cloak stained with the salt seawater, stepped from a little boat to the wharf of florence. being poor and also hungry he made his way to a bread-shop. having no money, he drew from beneath his cloak a parchment. when the bread-shop was filled with listeners he began to read the story of helen's beauty and achilles' courage; the story of ulysses' wanderings and penelope's fidelity; the tale of blind ?dipus, and of his daughter's loving care. he recited the oration of pericles after the plague in athens, and told the story of the wanderings of ?neas. with ever-increasing excitement the men of florence listened. at last, waking from the spell, they lifted the stranger upon their shoulders and carried him to the palace of a merchant prince, and bade him tell the[pg 38] story, and soon the merchant's house was crowded with young men preparing pages of vellum and sheets of leather, while writers copied the poems and the dramas of the old manuscript, and artists turned the vellum pages into illuminated missals. the spark became a flame. learning became a glorious contagion. the fires spread from village to village, and city to city. the dawn of the modern world had come.

in the city of florence, circumstances and climate were singularly favourable to the new movement. florence was the city of flowers; it lay upon the banks of the arno, set amidst orange groves, and its palaces, art galleries, and churches, when the vineyards were in full bloom, looked like a string of pearls lying in a cup of emeralds. all that athens had been to the age of pericles, florence was to be to the era of savonarola. neither time nor events have availed to lessen the hold of florence upon the great men of earth. because of her rich associations with genius and beauty, the greatest souls of the earth have often turned feet toward florence, as the birds of paradise leave the desert to seek out the oasis with its fountain and flowers. florence was the city of dante with his divine comedy, the city of giotto, with his tower, of gioberti, with the[pg 39] gates of wrought iron that are so beautiful that michael angelo said they were worthy to be the gates of paradise. to florence in after years went robert browning, to write the ring and the book, and elizabeth barrett, with the finest love sonnets in literature. to florence centuries later went george eliot, to write her romola, and in florence, keats and shelley dreamed their dreams of song and verse. to florence came cavour, the statesman, and mazzini, the reformer, garibaldi, the soldier, to build the new italy. many the scholar and patriot who has said with robert browning, "italy is a word graven on my heart." and it was to florence that there came in the year 1490 savonarola, the greatest moral force the city ever knew.

savonarola was a man of almost universal genius. he was an orator, and the fire of his eloquence still burns in the sermons he has left the world. he was a reformer, and descended upon the sins of his age like a flame of fire, shaking italy like the stroke of an earthquake. he was a prophet, and he dreamed dreams of a new italy and of a golden age in morals. he was a statesman and he was created a preacher, and he fulfilled the dreams of a divine orpheus, who[pg 40] drew all things to him by the mystery and magic of his speech. he was a martyr, and wore, not the red hat of the cardinal, but the fire that belonged to the chariot of flame, in which his soul rode up to heaven to meet his god. like all men of the first order of genius he was great on many sides. it was his glory that he awakened the moral sense and brought the life of god into the soul of man. savonarola was like the matterhorn or the breithorn that lift their peaks so high that they look out upon the rhine of the north and the po of the south, upon the vineyards of france and the valleys of austria.

in the very year that constantinople fell, and the scholars fled, carrying their manuscripts—as sparks fly from the hammer falling upon an anvil—savonarola entered into being in the beautiful little city of ferrara. his grandfather was a physician, a teacher of the youth of his town, and a member of the council. he had achieved some honour as a scholar, and won much gold and favour as a skillful surgeon. to his father's house came a few leading men of the villages round about to read the pages of dante and to talk about the manuscripts that had thrown all italy into a fever of excitement. the boy had a hungry mind, and rose early and sat up late to read[pg 41] the copies of the few books that his father had in the little library. his native town was the capital of the little state, and the duke of este was his father's friend. when the boy was six years of age, pope pius ii passed through ferrara on his way to a celebration in venice, and in preparation for his coming a crimson canopy was stretched above the street, while in the public square a throne was erected, and when the pope had taken his seat therein a procession of children passed by, strewing flowers at the feet of the pope. young men and women sang songs in his honour, and chanted hymns of his praise, midst clouds of golden incense filling all the air. on the outskirts of the crowd stood the miserable poor, the half-starved peasants, the ragged children, the miserable lepers. their faces were gaunt, their eyes hollow, their bread, crusts, their garments, rags, and the spectacle of gluttony, drunkenness and luxury, in contrast with the vast multitude of starving poor, created such a revulsion in the mind of the boy that from that hour all should have known that it was only a question of time when this gifted youth would become an ascetic and a reformer.

the revulsion in the heart of savonarola was inevitably deepened by the lust and cruelty laid to the door of the church itself.[pg 42] that was a dark hour for the papacy and italy. paul ii was a venetian merchant, greedy, ambitious, who, in middle age, saw that the pope was incidentally an ecclesiastic, but essentially an emperor, a statesman and a banker. everything he touched in business turned to gold. he had agents out in all the world buying diamonds, pearls, rubies and emeralds. he hired architects, sculptors and painters, and made the church an art gallery. "once the church had wooden cups and plates for the communion, but golden priests. now," wrote savonarola, "the church has golden cups and plates, but wooden-headed priests." the rome of that time was a rome of art and vice, gold and blood, cathedrals and mud huts. the least shocking page in the papal history of the time describes alexander vi, and his son c?sare and his daughter lucretia, standing in the open window of the papal palace, looking down into the courtyard, filled with unlucky criminals. these prisoners, sentenced to death, ran round and round the court, while c?sare let fly his arrows, and the pope and lucretia applauded each lucky hit. the scene is one of many, and the knowledge of such scenes inevitably brought about rebellion in the soul of savonarola.

[pg 43]at the beginning of his career, the young reformer attracted but little attention. he entered a monastery and became a monk, and his novitiate was chiefly marked by a fervour of humilities. he sought the most menial offices, and did penance for his sins by the severest austerities. he was soon worn to a shadow, but his gaunt features were beautified by an expression of singular force and benevolence. luminous dark eyes sparkled and flamed beneath his thick brows and his large mouth was as capable of gentle sweetness as of power and set resolve. but the spectacle of the sensualism, drunkenness, cruelty, theft, ignorance and wretchedness of florence, that had a handful of aristocrats at one extreme and thousands of paupers at the other, gradually filled his soul with burning indignation. he began to see visions and to make prophecies which afterward were mysteriously fulfilled. his first success as a preacher came when he was thirty-one and the following year at brescia, in a sermon on the apocalypse, he shook men's souls by his terrible picture of the wrath to come. a halo of light was reported to have been seen about his head, and when, six years later, he returned to florence, to preach in the cathedral, his fame as an orator had gone before him and the cloister[pg 44] gardens were too small to contain the crowds that flocked to hear him.

the occasion of his first sermon in the cathedral was one long remembered in the city. the vast multitudes saw a gaunt figure whose thick hood covered the whole head and shoulders. from deeply sunken eye-sockets there looked out two eyes that blazed as with lightning. the nose was strong and prominent, with wide nostrils, capable of terrible distention under the stress of emotion. the mouth was full, with compressed, projecting lips, and large, as if made for a torrent of eloquence. the speaker was a visionary, and a seer. at one moment he melted his audience to tears, at another he stirred them to horror, again quickening their souls with prayer and pleadings, that had in them the sweetness of the very spirit of christ. soon the walls of the church re?choed with sobs and wailings, dominated by one ringing voice. one scribe explains fragments of the sermon with these words: "here i was so overcome with weeping that i could not go on." the poet, mirandola, tells us that savonarola's voice was like a clap of doom: a cold shiver ran through the marrow of his bones, and the hair of his head stood on end as he listened. the theme that morning was this: "repent! a judgment of[pg 45] god is at hand. a sword is suspended over you. italy is doomed for her iniquity." the speaker prophesied coming bloodshed, the ruin of cities, the trampling down of provinces, the passage of armies, and the devastating wars that were about to fall on italy.

the great man of florence at this moment was lorenzo the magnificent. lorenzo was the most powerful figure in italy, the most widely-travelled, and the richest man of his time. tiring of luxury and flattery, he was ambitious to be called the patron of art and literature. he had fitted up a great banqueting-room in his palace, in which he could assemble painters, sculptors, architects, actors, poets, philosophers. his seat at the head of the table was after the fashion of a throne, and he had made himself a kind of dictator in the realm of learning. always open to flattery, he was surrounded by a group of citizens who never ceased burning incense at the altar of his egotism. he was at once a politician, a poet, an amateur actor, dramatist, and singer. at his table sat ficino, who translated plato's works into latin, and pico della mirandola, who was the idol of florentine society. it was the latter's boast that a single reading fixed in his memory any language, any essay or poem, and made it his[pg 46] forever. other guests were leo alberti and leonardo, the two men of comprehensive genius in all the group that lived in the palace of the prince. constant adulation made lorenzo arrogant and vain to the last degree. in disguise he led a group of dissipated young men in the carnival fêtes. he wrote licentious carnival songs and so degraded were his followers that they went everywhither shouting his praises as a poet superior to dante. and when, in july of the following year, savonarola was elected prior of st. mark's, lorenzo sent messengers to him, bidding him to show more respect to the head of the state.

savonarola refused to do so. one day the prince was seen walking in the garden of the monastery. an attendant came in to savonarola, and announced that lorenzo the magnificent was in the garden. "does he ask for me?" "no," replied the young monk. "then let him walk." shortly afterward the prince sent a deputation to wait on the new prior, telling him that it was not good form to preach against the prince, who was the patron of st. mark's, to which savonarola replied, "did i receive my position from lorenzo, or from almighty god?" savonarola's eyes blazed, and he spake in tones of[pg 47] thunder and the answer was, "from almighty god." "then," went on the prior, "to almighty god will i render homage."

lorenzo, as it chanced, was drawing near to the end of his life. one day a messenger came from the palace announcing his dangerous illness. because lorenzo had usurped the liberties of his country, had robbed and oppressed his own people, savonarola would not go. then a second messenger came, saying that the prince was dying and asked absolution. the prior found the prince propped up upon velvet pillows, and lying in a great silken chamber. all his life long, lorenzo had been accustomed to soft words and pliant service. now this stern prophet of duty towered above his couch like a messenger of god. the prior told him absolution could not be granted except upon certain conditions. "three things are required of you; you must have a full and lively faith in god's mercy; you must restore your ill-gotten gains; you must restore liberty to florence." twice the prince assented, but the third time his face went white. he shivered, as if in fear, and at length, in silence, he turned his face toward the wall. savonarola turned his back. he would not grant absolution. lorenzo died. the news was spread through the city by the[pg 48] relatives and servants standing about the bedside of the dead prince. the event heaved the soul of florence as the tides heave the sea.

the prior was now the most influential man in italy. his sermons took on a new boldness, and his denunciation of vices filled the city with excitement. ever increasing his power as a preacher, he now added certain addresses as a patriot. he hated the tyranny of the medici with an undying hatred. taking upon himself full responsibility, he sent a letter of welcome to charles viii and his french army, believing that if florence opened her gates to the french, the florentines might recover their own liberty. having expelled the family of the medici, he found it necessary to write a constitution for florence, and his influence in shaping that constitution was the most powerful influence exerted in that critical time. leaving to others the task of writing the code, he told the people plainly that, of necessity, a government by one man strengthened the single ruler toward despotism and autocracy, while self-government, through the choice of representatives, worked for the diffusion of strength and responsibility. he proposed a grand council of 3,000 citizens appointed by the city judges, a body that answers to our house of representatives,[pg 49] and another superior council of eighty citizens, all over forty years of age, who, in turn, were to share with the magistrates the task of appointing the higher officers of the state. then he brought about a reform of taxation, full amnesty for political offenders, made usury a treasonable act, founded a bank that loaned money to the poor on their character and to the rich on their collateral. he organized a movement against licentious plays, against luxury, extravagance, ostentatious dress and houses. and when the exiled princes made an alliance with the pope, he denounced the crimes of the papacy.

little by little, a great moral revival swept over florence and italy, a revival that culminated in the coming together of the florentines in the public square, where the people threw upon a blazing fire their vanities, with all the implements of gambling, fraud, and trickery, of vice and drunkenness. without being himself an ascetic, without making any sweeping attack upon pleasure through music or the drama, savonarola was an opponent of every form of sensuality, and the gilded vices that undermine sound morals. he was first of all a preacher, changing men's lives and, incidentally, stating the reasons for their personal reformation. luther changed men's[pg 50] thinking first, and showed men why this was wrong, and that was right, and therefore wrought fundamental changes. but savonarola was less of a thinker and more of an evangelist. he had all the action of demosthenes, all the earnestness of peter the hermit, all the voice, the gestures and the manner of whitefield. he believed that the inevitable end of sin was the inferno of dante, and therefore his language was full of fire, his voice full of tears, and he plead with men to flee from vanity fair as lot fled from sodom.

his uncompromising spirit had long since aroused the hatred of political adversaries as well as of the degraded court of rome. even now, when his authority was at its height, when his fame filled the land, and the vast cathedral and its precincts lacked space for the crowds flocking to hear him, his enemies were secretly preparing his downfall. from the beginning it was plain that socrates was fighting a losing battle against the wicked judges of athens. from the beginning it must have been plain to dante that his cunning and insidious foes, who felt that he alone stood between them and their own enrichment, would drive him an exile from florence. and when savonarola came into collision with pope[pg 51] alexander vi, it was like a bird of paradise going up against some gibraltar of granite and steel.

pope alexander's two ambitions were the advancement of his family and the strengthening of his temporal power. it was alexander who, knowing that the sultan had a rival in the person of the young prince djem, seized the young noble and put him in jail, on condition that forty thousand ducats yearly should be paid for his jail fee. it was to alexander that, later, the turk sent dispatches offering three hundred thousand ducats if he would do away with the youth. history has extenuated many of the crimes of alexander, but this traffic in murder for the turks can never be forgiven. it was alexander also who made impossible liberty of the press, by forcing printers to submit their books to the control of archbishops. it was alexander who maintained a harem in the vatican. it was alexander whose spies were in every inn, in every village. his secret agents were in all the audiences of savonarola. alexander looked upon the prior as a traitor, disloyal and dangerous to the papacy. at first he sent agents to florence, and offered bribes to savonarola, asked if he would accept a cardinal's hat, and invited him to rome to visit[pg 52] the vatican. savonarola answered by redoubling his attacks. he called rome a harlot church, till the pope ordered his excommunication. and at length, becoming alarmed for their city, the magistrates of florence forbade savonarola's preaching, and closed the cathedral to his work.

retiring to st. mark's, the great leader wrote letters to the crowned heads of europe, and called for a general council. he reviewed the crimes of which the pope had been guilty, and the list of vices was long and black. his letters to various princes were intercepted, and taken to alexander. then agents, with large sums of money, were sent to florence to organize a movement to destroy the prior. every conceivable plot was organized against him, but he escaped poison, the knife, and the assassin's club. his enemies challenged him to the ordeal by fire, and when he asked that he might be allowed to carry the crucifix and the sacrament in his hand they withdrew the challenge. thrown into prison, the inquisitors subjected him to the most cruel torture. he was drawn up to the ceiling by a rope fourteen times, and then suddenly dropped, until muscles, tendons and bones were all but torn from their sockets. he was denied food and water and sleep. and finally[pg 53] his reason gave way. bodily pain so injured and inflamed the brain that it refused its action. among his last words were the words of the dying saviour, "in thee, o lord, have i trusted. let me never be confounded."

when he was condemned to the flames, he appealed to the government of florence, but the rulers hastened to support the papal decree, and insisted upon the execution of the sentence. on the morning upon which he was to die, the great public square in florence was crowded with citizens. multitudes who had wept during his sermons and whose lives had been changed by his teachings, stood in grief and trepidation around the funeral pyre, just as the multitudes in jerusalem stood in fear about the cross of christ. in pronouncing the sentence of death, the bishop of verona, overwhelmed with fear and confusion, said, "i separate thee from the church militant and the church triumphant." to which savonarola answered, "from the church militant, yes, but from the church triumphant, that is not given unto you." the soldiers pushed the lowest dregs of the city, thieves, drunkards, diseased criminals, close to his scaffold, and encouraged them to assail him with vile words and vile deeds. at ten o'clock of the 23d of may, 1498, his[pg 54] enemies achieved his death. like elijah he ascended unto heaven in a chariot of fire. but soon thereafter the guilty leaders of the church discovered that his work had just begun. he had aroused the conscience of the people, who followed luther in a revolt against the sale of indulgences that gave the right for the crime and sin. his assertion of personal liberty put strength into luther's arm and faith into the heart of calvin. erasmus borrowed from savonarola his teachings of reasonableness and light. in exalting the bible as the final source of authority, he had enthroned that book and the teachings of jesus above all popes and cardinals and bishops. practical men, galileo, and bacon, and erasmus, and tyndale, borrowed courage from his life and writings. and to this day the influence of this preacher, prophet, martyr, is still potent, not alone in italy, but throughout the world.