In turn, this new brief of 1496 plainly countered those previous moves and gave Savonarola's House a new overseer. The reason promoted by Rome was for a 'smoother functioning of the bureaucracy' of these houses. But it turned out, with its implied threats, to be another crucial event for Savonarola and he took it quite seriously.
"The brief closed with the threat of excommunication latae sententiae, to be levelled against anyone who contradicted or impeded or tried to work against the new arrangement. ... The vicar of the new congregation was announced in December and he was a Sicilian." [p. 138]This simple reorganization made by the brief received in Florence on November 7, 1496, made Savonarola's pulpit at San Marco no longer independent. What should have been good news was that it was Cardinal Oliviero Carafa who was placed by the pope as vicar of this new enlarged congregation. He had been in Rome on Savonarola's behalf, an influential Neapolitan noble doing his best to dissuade this Spanish Pope Borja not to deal too harshly with the little friar in Florence the year before. This time Savonarola would be sceptical of the good Cardinal's direction. As Lauro Martines puts it,
"Rightly suspicious, Savonarola opposed the change from the start. ... At the end of 1496, Savonarola was still committed to seeing King Charles and 'the barbarians' return to Italy to complete the 'scourging'. In Florence, the aristocrats who wanted his head were seeking, on the contrary, to draw the republic back under their control or under the domination of the Medici,...".Whether through various alliances, by weakening or changing the great Council, or through a coup, the oligarchy grew more determined to oust Savonarola. [p. 139]
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
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Again, a bit more detail in citing both Romeo de Maio (1969) and the collection of documents of Alesandro Gherardi (1887), Weinstein in his biography Savonarola shows the San Marco House of Dominic to be steadfast. The only way the friar thought he could counter this papal brief from Rome was from the ground up. An Apologeticum was sent to Rome and this pope from all 250 friars of the Congregation of San Marco asking for this reorganization to not transpire. At first it was thought by Cardinal Carafa and ambassador Becchi that perhaps, in becoming part of a larger congregation, spreading down the length of Italy could spread 'God's work' as Savonarola once had wished.
"As they saw it, there was more at stake for the Church than the independence of a single friar, however dedicated he might be. Conflicts within the Dominican Order had to be resolved and papal authority upheld. But to Savonarola submission was not an option; he could only see it as the abandonment of God's work." [p. 210]Weinstein tells us that here, in this Dominican Congregation which Cardinal Carafa would lead, Savonarola's response began to look more like that of some self-centered friar. One who had become an over-reaching, self-important character, rather than a servant of the church. Much had changed since Cardinal Carafa had petitioned the pope in 1493. This most recent act of this papal breve sent from Rome (and its consequences in Florence) would reverberate. And this news had come at the end of several days of intense preaching from Friar Savonarola.
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from Donald Weinstein: Savonarola: the rise and fall of a renaissance prophet , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011
