In later September 1495, a letter was sent from Rome to the Franciscan convent of Santa Croce in Florence. The letter spoke of schisms and heresies and a certain Friar Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican Friar then preaching that a 'New Jerusalem' was dawning in Florence. This formerly 'unattractive' cleric had found himself that year in the center of Florentine politics, and an adversary of sorts to Rome and the current pope, Alexander VI.
The letter itself, author Lauro Martines tells us, was penned by a 'clerk in the papal bureaucracy', Bartolomeo Floridi who, 'afterwards became a well-known forger'. But this letter took an extra long time to get to Florence, Martines assures us, dated on September 8. Whether by the writer's inability to deliver it to the right place, the Franciscan hesitation (or decisions) upon its delivery to them, or whatever methods used to ascertain its veracity, the whole city found out about it. And so did Savonarola. And he responded as well.
Previously, in July, Savonarola had received an invitation to come to Rome and visit with the pope. The Friar in the letter dated 31 July, complained of his ailments and the potential threats to the City or to himself, if he were to travel to Rome. This exchange came after the Battle of Fornovo and the slow retreat of the French train that summer of tired, hungry soldiers into the far reaches of northwestern Italy, near Asti. With the French out of the way for now, this Borgia pope, Alexander VI, found time to send a rebuking brief to this source of madness that came through the preaching of various heresies.
Friar Savonarola had been a popular preacher in Florence for some time. He had been preaching for the coming of the French King to Italy and against this Spanish-born Pope, also for quite awhile. He had allies and adherents, critics and enemies. He preached against the de'Medici, saw them deposed, he preached for the French King to come to Italy and save them all, and he did, and he preached against the wealth and depravities of Rome. His story and Florence's love affair with this extremely popular preacher, takes some time to explain. But for now, the reception of this letter set the city off, once again.
Savonarola had to stop preaching, the letter said, an official inquiry was to be set up by Sebastiano Maggi - the Friar's former mentor and confessor - and, most significantly, his monastery enclave San Marco in Florence would be reunited under the see of the Lombard Congregation whose centers lay outside the city. This would make these Lombard overseers Friar Savonarola's new bosses and his behavior and person placed under their jurisdiction. Savonarola's chief advisers were also to be removed from the city and sent to Bologna, and then, to separate sees in the Lombard Congregation, and outside Florentine territory.
Savonarola's reply is immediate, Martines says, using a concise, step by step rebuttal. He addressed his prophecies, his individual talks with God, the slurs about his supposed errors in judgement. He asserted that the pope was misled by dishonest men and that there were ten thousand in Florence that could attest to his orthodoxy and his personal recititude. He restates his reasons for not going to Rome and makes further claim that he could not leave his convent without an armed guard. The Vicar General of the Lombard Congregation amd his friars, his new bosses, he thought to be 'most suspect'. Friar Savonarola equated his personal safety with that of the entire City of Florence, since if he were to leave and his enemies captured him, then tyranny would ensue there. But if the pope sent someone who could question and point out his inaccuracies, he would recant, both in private and in public, and in front of everyone.
Savonarola would continue to preach and seek to 'renew' the church and thereby make Florence a 'New Jerusalem'. And while he would fail in that, he managed to open up discussion in the greater populations in how to and not to reform the church. Meanwhile, Florence would remain in the midst of another revolution even after the French left Italy.
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pp. 127-9; Martines, Lauro: Fire In The City: Savonarola and the struggle for the soul of Renaissance Florence Oxford University Press, Inc.,NY 2006
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