What was worse, for Florence, was that by setting a truce with the League (on February 25), Charles VIII had effectively abandoned the City to its neighbors. Already they circled around her and her interests.
"Without at least the threat of a new French expedition the city was instantly more vulnerable to the pressure of the pope and the League and its hope of recovering Pisa was severely diminished. Having steadily proclaimed Charles as the New Cyrus, Savonarola's own credibility as a prophet suffered accordingly. Moreover the pope and the League could feel they had a freer hand to settle accounts with him." [p. 219]During such a truce Venice could effectively strengthen its hold over Pisa, which it had temporarily secured over the winter. This, for Florence, would mean little commerce or profits for another year or more from its once numerous, profitable holdings and channels there. The word from Rome was just as bad. Excommunication was threatened and the court in Rome thought Savonarola ruled in Florence. After all, he had cheered the most when the French had come to Italy.
When the pope told him to stop preaching, he had refused. When word of the reorganization of the Lombard Congregation had been sent, Savonarola had drawn up a petition from hundreds of his brethren that begged out of that. Now, after what seemed the clearly partisan Francesco Valori was seen holding such a chief, if temporary, office in Florence, reports in Rome had reached another crescendo.
As a member of the League in Italy with Venice, the Spanish sovereigns, and Milan, in order to support Naples and drive out the French, the pope, having agreed to the truce with the French in February, was dealing with a political reality. If Milan was widely seen as playing both sides in The Italian Wars, Florence had advocated the invasion of France, through the pulpit of Savonarola.
Savonarola would be quick to rightly claim he had no such political power. He had long preached that it was God who brought the French. In politics he had striven for neutrality. Against Rome he had preached only against corruption, not specific persons. Detailing all this and countering the anti-Savonarolan voices in the Roman curia and court was Ricciardo Becchi.
Messer Becchi had been Florentine envoy in Rome, tasked with the difficult project of bridging the interests of Florence with papal initiatives. Both Martines and Weinstein show how within a year, Becchi had gone from Savonarolan apologist in Rome, to the voice of Roman critics for Florence. From there, by March 1497, Becchi was warning how low Florentine opinions had sunk within the papal court.
Such a warning came March 19, Weinstein writes, when Becchi alerted the Signoria that
"... the League's ambassador were urging the pope to have no further dealings with the Florentines since they refused "to declare themselves good Italians," and the Venetian envoy had assured him personally that without the good will of his government Pisa would never be restored to them. The pope and the whole court, Becchi continued, were convinced that fra Girolamo governed everything in the city.... That he [S.] continued to prophesy the destruction and renewal of the Church and of Rome was intolerable. Moreover, if he persisted in refusing to comply with the papal order creating the new Tusco-Roman Congregation, they would initiate proceedings to censure and excommunicate him." [pp. 219-20]Ricciardo Becchi would not be able to convince Rome of Savonarola's better intentions and, later, Savonarola would admit not trusting him as an ally for his cause. The missives of Becchi can be found in Alessandro Gherardi, Nuovi documenti e studi intorno a Girolamo Savonarola. Florence (1887): 154-6. [Opinions at Rome, a year earlier, providing more context of how far Becchi had come, are also found in Gherardi, 123-42.]
Already in Florence, a new Gonafalonier had been selected for the months of March and April. Bernardo Del Nero was seen as a Medicean partisan with an eye toward finding fiscal solutions. One popular notion which Del Nero could accept was expanding the role of public office to those who paid taxes. This method was understood as returning to sortition, a process by lot selection of filling public office, and to many, as an anti-Republican proposal since more d'Medici allies could then assume office again.
On March 18, the Council of Eighty agreed to a practica to discuss the issue. As a measure of Valori's (and Savonarola's) sudden loss of power, Valori could hold off debate only ten days. By April 4, he could only agree to sit on a committee with the Arrabbiati opposition that would look at the 'matter of elections' and make a report. When they did, a vote was held and the Council of Eighty supported it, but the Great Council did not. Enough had thought the measure had not gone far enough.
"Weeks of reports, proposals, counterproposals, and recriminations followed until both sides were exasperated and at a loss what to do next." [p.221]It had been increasingly clear that Florence had a lack of leadership crisis. Savonarola could not hold together his coalition of allies. Outside forces agitated and made warnings. In late April, Piero de Medici, hearing of more claims of starvation in the City and, with the more friendly Del Nero as Gonfalonier in that post, decided to move. Once again he expected the City would rise up and welcome him. He too would be mistaken.
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quotes and pagination, footnotes in Donald Weinstein: Savonarola: the rise and fall of a renaissance prophet , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011
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