As the Lenten season of 1497 approached, the Arrabiati prepared to celebrate carnival by such festivities, processions, and songs as had been sanctioned under the Medici. To counter these plans Savonarola’s loyal aide, Fra Domenico, instructed the children of the congregation to organize a quite different celebration. During the week of Carnival—preceding Lent—these boys and girls went about the city in bands, knocked at doors, and asked for—sometimes demanded—the surrender of what they called “vanities” or cursed objects (anathemase)—pictures considered immoral, love songs, carnival masks and costumes, false hair, fancy dresses, playing cards, dice, musical instruments, cosmetics, wicked books like the Decameron or the Morgante maggiore.… On the final day of Carnival, February 7, the more ardent supporters of Savonarola, singing hymns, marched in solemn procession, behind a figure of the Infant Jesus carved by Donatello and borne by four children in the guise of angels, to the Piazza della Signoria. There a great pyramid of combustible material had been raised, 60 feet high and 240 feet in circumference at the base. Upon the seven stages of the pyramid the “vanities” collected during the week, or now brought to the sacrifice, were arranged or thrown, including precious manuscripts and works of art. Fire was set to the pyre at four points, and the bells of the Palazzo Vecchio were rung to acclaim this first Savonarolan “burning of the vanities.”*
The Lenten sermons of the friar carried the war to Rome. While accepting the principle that the Church should have some terra firma of temporal power, he argued that the wealth of the Church was the source of her deterioration. His invective now knew no bounds.
The earth teems with bloodshed, yet the priests take no heed; rather, by their evil example, they bring spiritual death upon all. They have withdrawn from God, and their piety consists in spending their nights with harlots…. They say that God hath no care of the world, that all cometh by chance; neither believe they that Christ is present in the sacrament…. Come hither, thou ribald Church. The Lord saith: I gave thee beautiful vestments, but thou hast made idols of them. Thou hast dedicated the sacred vessels to vainglory, the sacraments to simony. Thou hast become a shameless harlot in thy lusts; thou art lower than a beast; thou art a monster of abomination. Once thou felt shame for thy sins, but now thou art shameless. Once anointed priests called their sons nephews, but now they speak of their sons.†… And thus, O prostitute Church, thou hast displayed thy foulness to the whole world, and stinkest unto heaven.28
Savonarola suspected that such tirades would earn him excommunication. He welcomed it.
Many of ye say that excommunication will be decreed…. For my part I beseech Thee, O Lord, that it may come quickly.… Bear this excommunication aloft on a lance, open the gates to it! I will reply to it: and if I do not amaze thee, then thou mayest say what thou wilt.… O Lord, I seek only Thy cross! Let me be persecuted; I ask this grace of Thee. Let me not die in my bed, but let me give my blood for Thee, even as Thou gavest thine for me.29
These passionate sermons created a furore throughout Italy. Men came from distant cities to hear them; the duke of Ferrara came in disguise; the crowd overflowed from the cathedral into the square, and each striking sentence was relayed from those within to those without. In Rome the people turned almost unanimously against the friar, and called for his punishment.30 In April, 1497 the Arrabiati secured control of the Council, and—on pretext of danger from the plague—forbade all preaching in the churches after May 5. Urged on by Roman agents of the Arrabiati, Alexander signed a decree excommunicating the friar (May 13); but he let it be known that he would rescind the excommunication if Savonarola would obey the summons to Rome. The prior, fearing imprisonment, still refused, but for six months he held his peace. Then on Christmas Day he sang High Mass at San Marco, gave the Eucharist to his friars, and led them in a solemn procession around the square. Many were scandalized at an excommunicate celebrating Mass, but Alexander made no protest; on the contrary he intimated that he would withdraw the excommunication if Florence would join the league to resist a second invasion from France.31 The Signory, gambling on the success of the French, rejected the proposal. On February 11, 1498, Savonarola completed his rebellion by preaching in San Marco. He denounced the excommunication as unjust and invalid, and charged with heresy any man who should uphold its validity. Finally he issued an excommunication himself:
Therefore, on him that giveth commands opposed to charity anathema sit [let there be a curse]. Were such a command pronounced by an angel, even by the Virgin Mary herself and all the saints (which is certainly impossible), anathema sit.… And if any pope hath ever spoken to the contrary, let him be declared excommunicate.32
On the last day before Lent Savonarola read Mass in the open square before San Marco’s, administered the sacrament to a great multitude, and publicly prayed: “O Lord, if my deeds be not sincere, if my words be not inspired by Thee, strike me dead on this instant.” That afternoon his followers staged a second burning of the vanities.
Alexander informed the Signory that unless it could dissuade Savonarola from further preaching he would lay an interdict upon the city. Though now thoroughly hostile to the prior, the Signory refused to silence him, preferring to let the onus of such a prohibition remain with the Pope; besides, the eloquent friar might be useful in combating a pope who was organizing the Papal States into a power too strong for the comfort of its neighbors. Savonarola continued to preach, but only in the church of his monastery. The Florentine ambassador reported that feeling against the friar was so intense in Rome that no Florentine was safe there; and he feared that if the Pope issued the threatened interdict all Florentine merchants in Rome would be thrown into jail. The Signory yielded, and ordered Savonarola to quit preaching (March 17). He obeyed, but predicted great calamities for Florence. Fra Domenico filled the convent pulpit in his stead, and served as the voice of his prior. Meanwhile Savonarola wrote to the sovereigns of France, Spain, Germany, and Hungary, begging them to call a general council for the reform of the Church:
The moment of vengeance has arrived. The Lord commands me to reveal new secrets, and make manifest to the world the peril by which the bark of St. Peter is threatened, owing to your long neglect. The Church is all teeming with abomination, from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet; yet not only do ye apply no remedy, but ye do homage to the cause of the woes by which she is polluted. Wherefore the Lord is greatly angered, and hath long left the Church without a shepherd…. For I hereby testify… that this Alexander is no pope, nor can be held as one; inasmuch as, leaving aside the mortal sin of simony, by which he hath purchased the papal chair, and daily selleth the benefices of the Church to the highest bidder, and likewise putting aside his other manifest vices, I declare that he is no Christian, and believes in no God.33
If, he added, the kings will call a council he will appear before it and give proof of all these charges. One of these letters was intercepted by a Milanese agent, and was sent to Alexander.