After the announcement in June 'with bell, book and candle' in five great churches of the status of friar Savonarola, opinions flared again. Published pamphlets mocked, people in the streets hurled passing insults, and the youth brawled in the public spaces. Weinstein has Piero Parenti report that,
Nighttime demonstrators flung insults and threats at the walls of San Marco. Scurrilous verses and obscene cartoons littered the streets.... Other speakers warned that the city would pay for harboring an excommunicant.Franciscans, Augustinians, Conventual Dominicans, as well as his regular opponents the "Mad Dog" Arrabbiati, and others surely, spread the cry against Savonarola. [p.231] But in letters sent all summer, the man himself seemed undeterred. [pp. 233-4] A petition was circulated by his supporters. This, passed out on the streets by the faithful was so hated that the Arrabbiati complained to the Signoria. It was a way to collect intelligenza they said about potential voting blocs, an idea which had been struck out as a way to influence the Republic's still fragile democractic body. The plague of June intensified into July.
quotes and pagination from Donald Weinstein: Savonarola: the rise and fall of a renaissance prophet , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011
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But despite the efforts of some, politics was anything but a monolithic affair of one family or another, even in the age of the famous de'Medici. Many families, many names, many ages of personalities among family members found themselves aligned with this or that group for shorter or longer bits of time or, over this or that cause. With the exile of the latest great name, many of their former followers found it hard to come up with other things to do. Many remained quiet partisans until such time might come when, they might coalesce again to advance a cause. The failed attack by Piero de'Medici in the spring was followed by news from Rome of Savonarola's excommunication. Meanwhile, many of the city leaders in the Signoria had repeatedly tried to increase the voter franchise, in order to lessen the relative power of the various fluid factions.
In this rocky summer, Lamberto dell'Antella had written a letter asking permission to return. Secretly tracked and arrested just a few miles outside he was brought as a prisoner back into the City. From a famous and ancient family that had long supported and prospered with the de'Medici, and as an ardent supporter of Piero himself, Lamberto had been exiled from the City, called a rebel, an outlaw. In the wake of the attack in the springtime that year, Lamberto and his brother had left the field and ended up in Siena. But having caused more trouble than aid, Piero asked the Sienese to imprison the brothers for safe-keeping. Lamberto wrote that he wanted to return to his native City and tell what he knew about the goings of the ungrateful Piero.
Instead, Lamberto dell'Antella was tortured, hung up with ropes by his armpits and then dropped several feet with a jolt that could dislocate the shoulders. At first, a tumble of names came out. Wealthy men, prominent men, names with important family ties all drawn in the calumnious storm. As word got out, sceptics were quick to deflect and accuse. He had a lot of enemies, he needed money, his brother in Siena needed help. Yet he was full of gossip about Piero. The lifestyle, the parties, even a list of those who Piero wanted to take out when he returned. Hard pressed he gave up two more names of notables. These were captured and in turn tortured. They gave up more names and stories, even implicating that spring's Gonfalonier Bernardo del Nero.
The Signory sent their messengers and called for him, and many of these others, to come at once to help a government matter. They willingly went expecting to act, out of a sense of duty.
"Fearing the escape of the chief suspects, the Signory and Eight resorted to trickery. Served with invitations, Del Nero, Ridolfi and Lorenzo Tornabuoni were accompanied to the Palace by messengers of the Signory ... expecting a consultation or a simple round of questioning. If they went without suspicion, a surprise awaited them, for on ascending the main staircase of the palace and reaching a certain landing, instead of moving on to the audience chamber of the Priors, they were suddenly turned the other way and led into the quarters of the Eight." [p. 185]They too were arrested and then harshly interrogated. Ridolfi was the brother to Giovanbattista Ridolfi, a well-known adviser to friar Savonarola. A few lesser known men were hung over the findings of the interrogations while the process of information gathering and punishment continued. By mid month a trial had been called for five men: the two that Dell'Antella gave up, Giannozzo Pucci and Giovanni de Bernardo Cambi, as well as Bernardo del Nero, Niccolo Ridolfi, and Lorenzo Tornabuoni. This went on four days while the City raged. Petitions poured in to support them and begged for mercy. But they were executed in the middle of the night. This too had its consequences for many among the powerful and influential there. One medievalist claims that previous state executions were a rare thing but was used more often after this affair.
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quotes from pp. 182-7, in Martines, Lauro: Fire In The City: Savonarola and the struggle for the soul of Renaissance Florence Oxford University Press, Inc.,NY 2006
