The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici (30 page)

In future, carnivals must be religious pageants to the glory of God in whose name ‘vanities’ must be destroyed in sacrificial bonfires. And so they were. During one well-remembered carnival, processions of white-robed children marched through the streets, carrying olive branches and red crosses, singing hymns and dancing, ‘so that it seemed’ to Cinozzi that ‘the angels had come down to earth to rejoice with the children of men’. A statue by Donatello of Jesus as a boy, holding the crown of thorns in his hands, was carried from church to church. Later an enormous scaffold in the shape of a pyramid was erected opposite die Palazzo della Signoria. Around the base of the pyramid was arranged a garish collection of expensive dresses and fancy costumes once worn for masquerades, looking-glasses, velvet caps, wigs, masks, false beards, scent bottles and pomade pots, jars of rouge, beads, fans, necklaces, bracelets and trinkets of every kind. On top of these were piled profane books and drawings that might engender lascivious thoughts, chessboards and diceboxes, packs of cards and manuals of magic, busts and portraits of celebrated beauties; sensual pictures by Lorenzo di Credi, Botticelli and Fra Bartolommeo sacrificed by the now reformed artists themselves. At the very summit was an effigy of a Venetian merchant who had offered 20,000
scudi
for the works of art now about to be consigned to the flames. The huge pile was surrounded by guards, and while the
Signoria
looked down from a balcony the whole was set alight. The flames rose to the chanting of a choir, the blowing of trumpets and the ringing of countless bells.

Naturally there were those who objected to such demonstrations of piety, who condemned Savonarola’s dedicated adherents as
masticapaternostri
(prayer mumblers) or
piagnoni
(snivellers). They beat drums and made ‘all sorts of noise’ to drown his voice when he was preaching, and they encouraged urchins to throw stones at his followers. But there were many more who saw Savonarola as a great reformer; who shared his dream of a world, simple and pure, in which all men would turn to Christ; who agreed with Cinozzi that
Florence was then ‘a glorious place’; who, like Luca Landucci, were proud to have children among those ‘blessed bands and held in such reverence that everyone abstained from scandalous vice’; who, like Giorgio Vespucci, uncle of the navigator, and the Strozzi brothers, hoped one day to see Florence made ‘a new Jerusalem’.

King Charles VIII met little opposition on his march south. Rome fell without a struggle; and Ferrante’s son, King Alfonso II, terrified by weird dreams and portents, haunted by the ghostly victims of his brutality, and hearing the stones beneath his feet cry out ‘
Francia! Francia!
’, abdicated and fled to a Sicilian monastery. The French army crossed the Neapolitan frontier, massacring the people of Monte di San Giovanni and setting fire to the town as a warning of the dreadful fate that awaited all opponents. They filled the whole kingdom with the greatest terror, so Guicciardini said, by a way of making war that ‘had not been practised in Italy for many centuries’. Choosing to regard him as their deliverer from the House of Aragon, the Neapolitans gave Charles as enthusiastic a welcome as he had enjoyed in Florence. Indeed, the welcome of the people and the delights of their city were so beguiling that all thoughts of going on to Jerusalem as Charles had originally intended were now abandoned. The King settled down to enjoy the pleasures of his new domain and a succession of pretty mistresses, whose portraits he had bound together in a big book. But, as he languished beneath the Neapolitan sun, his rivals to the north were busily plotting his downfall.

None of these rivals was more active than the new Pope, Roderigo Borgia, Alexander VI. He was fat and bald, plain and flamboyant, yet it was not only his riches and his influence that made him attractive to women. He had an undeniable charm, an invigorating energy, a kind of childlike eagerness in his profligacy that endeared him to numerous mistresses. Like so many of his predecessors, he was determined to use his office for the benefit of his family, in particular for the advancement of his six sons of whom the sinisterly beguiling Cesare Borgia was the most talented and the most ambitious. But the Pope recognized that before these ambitions could be fully realized,
an attempt must be made to unite Italy against the foreign invader. Accordingly he set about forming what he liked to term a Holy League, dedicated to the expulsion of the French.

It was an alliance that Lodovico Sforza was only too anxious to join. For Il Moro was now deeply regretting the consequences of having enticed the French into Italy where the Duke of Orleans, jealous of Charles VIII’s success in Naples, was making claims upon the Duchy of Milan. As well as Milan, Venice joined the Pope’s Holy League, so did the Emperor Maximilian, so did Ferdinand King of Aragon and Castile. Despite this threat to their position in Naples, the French army did not withdraw from the city immediately. It was not, in fact, until seven weeks after the Holy League had been established that Charles, leaving a large garrison behind him to hold the kingdom in his name, led his army north again.

It was a long, slow march. May passed and the whole of June, 1495. July began and still the French army, accompanied by a mule loaded with treasure to every two men, had not crossed the Appenines. By now the Holy League had managed to bring a strong army together under command of the fierce-looking, bulging-eyed Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. Slowly the two armies drew closer together; and this time there would be no deft avoidance as in the earlier fashion of Renaissance warfare. As Francesco Guicciardini observed, the French invasion had for ever ended those prolonged, choreographic campaigns so beloved by the old
condottieri
who had protracted their wars – as one of them, Jacopo Piccinino, himself admitted – in order to increase their pay, who had safeguarded their men by spending ‘most of their time retreating to the security of river banks and ditches’, who, when they had fought at all, had fought for prisoners rather than to kill. The picture of Italian warfare before the French invasion as a bloodless parade has, of course, been exaggerated. In the battle of Anghiari in 1440, for instance, about nine hundred men were killed, not ‘one man’ as Machiavelli claimed. But all the same, it was not unusual for engagements, in which thousands of men took part, to end without a single casualty and with congratulatory handshakes exchanged between the rival commanders. The Italian soldier fought bravely when he had to fight; but most of
the time his commanders made sure that he occupied himself in plundering rather than in conflict, in driving cattle with his lance rather than in shooting at the enemy with his cross-bow. Troops of infantry pass through the pages of contemporary chronicles, wearing smart jerkins and parti-coloured tights, marching along to the music of drum and fife, occasionally shouting the name of the prince who paid them, looking more like strolling players than men of war. In sharp contrast, the soldiers of Charles VIII’s army were experienced, professional, trained to kill. ‘They would face the enemy like a wall without ever breaking rank.’ Above all, as Guicciardini said, they had brought with them

a great quantity of artillery of a sort never before seen in Italy [which] rendered ridiculous all former weapons of attack… These were called cannon and they used iron cannon balls instead of stone as before, and this new shot was incomparably larger and heavier than that which had previously been employed. Furthermore, they were hauled on carriages drawn not by oxen as was the custom in Italy but by horses… and were led right up to the walls and set in position there with incredible speed. And they used this diabolical weapon not only in besieging cities but also in the field.

When the French and Italian armies finally clashed by the banks, of the river Taro in July 1495, the mercenary troops of the Holy League were no match for King Charles’s artillerymen and cavalry. The battle was short and ferocious, more savage and bloody, indeed, than any battle fought in Italy since the end of the thirteenth century. Italian losses were enormous; and, as the greatly outnumbered French army continued its northward march, hundreds of French camp-followers ran on to the field with knives and axes to hack apart the screaming, wounded Italians. Since he retained possession of the battle-ground and had captured the French baggage train – which included a sword and helmet said to have belonged to Charlemagne, jewels and plate, the royal seals, a piece of the Holy Cross, a sacred thorn, a vest of the Blessed Virgin, a limb of St Denis and a book depicting naked women ‘painted at various times and places… sketches of intercourse and lasciviousness in each city’ – the Marquis
of Mantua claimed the victory. But by the end of August Charles and his army, still a powerful force, though mauled and weary, were across the Alps and safely home in France, leaving the Italians shocked by the realization that for all their virtues, talents, wealth, past glory and experience, for all their skill as military engineers, they had been utterly unable to withstand the advance of the ruthless men from the north.

In this traumatic campaign Florence had played no part. Firm in his allegiance to ‘God’s instrument’, Savonarola had declined to have anything to do with the Holy League. Amazed that an obscure Dominican should wield such influence, and annoyed not only by his sermons in support of the invader but also by his claims to be God’s chosen mouthpiece, the Pope asked Savonarola to come to Rome to explain himself. Savonarola replied that Florence could not spare him, that he was not well enough to travel, and that, in any case, it was contrary to God’s will that he should do so. Thus had begun a correspondence which, growing increasingly less restrained, had ended with the Pope’s forbidding Savonarola to deliver any further sermons. For a time Savonarola had obeyed the Pope’s commands, his place in the pulpit being taken by his devoted disciple, Fra Domenico da Pescia; but in February 1496, choosing to suppose that the Pope’s ban was no longer in force, Savonarola began a course of sermons which were given every day in the Cathedral until 3 April.

The Pope used every means at his disposal to bring Savonarola to heel. He gave instructions that the Tuscan Dominicans, who had been granted independence, should revert to Roman control since this would enable him to send Savonarola to another monastery far from Florence. Savonarola declined to accept the Pope’s jurisdiction in the matter. Alexander even offered him a cardinal’s hat if he would give up preaching his sermons. Savonarola replied that another sort of red hat would suit him better, ‘one red with blood’.

At length, in June 1497, the Pope took the final step and excommunicated him. For six months Savonarola pondered his dilemma, fasting and praying, until God guided him to the decision that it was his duty to defy the Pope. On Christmas Day he did so publicly by celebrating High Mass in the Cathedral. Alexander responded by
demanding of the
Signoria
that they either dispatch ‘that son of iniquity, Fra Hieronymo Savonarola’ to Rome or lock him up in Florence. If they did not do so, he would lay the entire city under an interdict.

‘You have not listened to my expositions,’ Savonarola replied to the Pope.

I can no longer place any faith in your Holiness, but must trust myself wholly to Him who chooses the weak things of this world to confound the strong. Your Holiness is well advised to make immediate provisions for your own salvation.

With the
Signoria
, whom he considered to have been far too mild in their response to the Pope’s threats, Savonarola was even more harshly admonitory. ‘Tell those who are seeking to make themselves great and exalted that their seats are prepared for them – in Hell… Tell them that the rod has come. Someone has his seat in Hell already.’

But the Pope had timed his threat well. Savonarola’s supporters were losing ground in Florence where, indeed, they had been only partly responsible for the impermanent changes which had taken place in the government of the city. There had been poor harvests that year in Tuscany; starving people had fallen down and died in the streets; there had also been an outbreak of plague. Savonarola’s hero, King Charles, had not returned Pisa to Florence as he had promised to do, but had handed it over instead to its inhabitants who had taken up arms to defend their independence. And the subsequent war, fought as usual by ill-paid mercenaries, dragged on indeterminately. Making much of these calamities, Savonarola’s opponents had been more and more outspoken in their criticisms of his regime. A party of high – spirited young men known as
Compagnacci
, mostly sons of rich families, had gone so far as to smear the Cathedral pulpit with grease, hanging round it the putrid skin of an ass, and to contrive the fall of a heavy chest which came crashing down to the stone floor of the nave, sending the panic-stricken congregation rushing out of the Cathedral in the middle of the Prior’s sermon.

It was one of the last sermons which Savonarola was to deliver; for it had been decided in Florence that, in view of the Pope’s
warnings, he must be asked to preach no more. He agreed to desist on condition that he be allowed the opportunity of vindicating himself. He attempted to do so on 18 March in a sermon in which he insisted on his right to resist unlawful authority, made reference to the fulfilment of his prophecies and castigated the Church as a Satanic institution for the promotion of whoredom and vice. He had not preached because he wanted to but because he had been compelled to by a raging fire within the very marrow of his bones: ‘I feel myself all burning, all inflamed with the spirit of the Lord. Oh, spirit within! You rouse the waves of the sea, as the wind does. You stir the tempest as you pass. I can do no other.’

After this final sermon the Franciscans, who had long challenged the Dominicans’ claims to a special relationship with God, renewed their request that Savonarola should produce some evidence of His peculiar favour. Fra Francesco da Puglia, a Franciscan monk, in particular insisted that Savonarola’s claims to divine inspiration were false, and that he could not prove they were otherwise. He offered to walk through fire in company with Savonarola to satisfy the world that the Dominican was not under God’s protection. Savonarola declined to take part in the ordeal, protesting that he was reserved for higher work; but he agreed that his passionately devoted supporter, Fra Domenico da Pescia, might represent him. Fra Domenico eagerly accepted the challenge. Fra Francesco, however, refused to match himself with anyone other than Savonarola; so another Franciscan, Fra Giuliano Rondinelli, was found to take his place.