Letter From Rome To Florence: Savonarola Should Stop, Oct 16, 1495

Another letter, this time from the Vatican to Friar Savonarola, was more personal and conciliatory, but still gave strict demands. The Friar in Florence need not come to Rome immediately but needed to stop preaching until he could. He would instead turn his efforts to writing and organizing in the city through the winter, seeing this as an opportunity to clarify and strengthen his position.

This letter was a papal brief that cancelled the previous recent letters but tells Savonarola directly that he desist from preaching, both in public and in private. The tone is more familiar and even congenially suasive. This time it is a breviary, as our guide here Martines relates, that explains to the Friar that acts like foretelling the future "... can lead 'simple people' away from the true path and obedience to the Church, and these are contrary times for such preaching." This pope now readily accepts Savonarola's submission, "... delighted to learn that the Friar is ready to submit to the Church's correction ...". It was a little early for that. [p.131]

Lauro Martines explains that prior to this, Cardinal Oliviero Carafa, the official patron in Rome for the 'friars and Prior of San Marco in Florence', had all the while been filling the ear of the Pope with sympathetic stories of the harried Friar at the center of the controversy. This Cardinal at least could counter the constant anti-Savonarola missives that his enemies - including friends of the de'Medici - continually funneled into Rome and the pope's other adviser's ears. Martines suggests this Cardinal must have got to look over the summer's previous letters and given Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, a different viewpoint. 

There was no official admonishment for the preacher to write and that is what Savonarola then spent his time on. There were political problems to find a solution for as well, and he had become an indispensable part of those. The story of these concerns went back well over a year, and according to him meant nothing less than the maintaining and securing of the Republic of Florence as a rather independent Force for Christ. 

In October 1495 for example, Martines quotes a sermon from Savonarola.

"I say that any who fight against this government fight against Christ." [p.109]

Martines helpfully looks into these matters, spreading both theological and political issues and their communication, across several chapters. 

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notes and pagination from Martines, Lauro: Fire In The City: Savonarola and the struggle for the soul of Renaissance Florence ; Oxford University Press, New York, 2006