Martines:
"Savonarola's view of the Church and of society was both moral and political. The corruption of the Church, as he saw it, was so complete and had so contaminated Italian society that only a divine scourging -- punishment by murderous war and 'barbarian' armies -- could cleanse and renew Rome, the Church, and Italy. The same armies would overthrow Italian princes, and governing elites, and the people of Italy would then pass over into a new age."
"...Florence's anger and passions ... a great city-republic, confused and frightened, but also furious with its leaders... [e]ven if they had not been confronting an invasion, the people of Florence longed for honest government.
[¶] The scene, in short, held the makings of a political revolution, and its central force was a demand for moral principle." [p.91]
On S's preaching method:
"One of the principle devices for preachers in the art of holding the attention of listeners was the imaginary dialogue, the exchange with a fictional heckler or interlocutor in the assembled crowd. Savonarola was extraordinarily fond of this ploy. He used it to explain doctrine, to accuse enemies, to defend himself, to fix attention, to win sympathy, to answer likely questions, or to add touches of lightness, humanity, and even humour to his preaching." [p. 96]
For example, in the Exodus sermons in March 1498:
"Well, you'll say,
come here, friar, do you think this excommunication is valid? Clarify this point for us. -- No, it has no value. --
Oh, who told you so? God told me. I say to you God told me. See how I speak to you. ...
O father, it's true that the excommunication is not valid, but we're afraid to lose our benefices -- So then, you love your benefice more than you love Christ and his truth. You're meant to risk your life for the truth and for Christ, not for your benefice. ...
Oh, if I should die, how then would I win? -- I answer that to die for Christ is the supreme victory." [p 100]
The mood in Florence in these days by Martines. Savonarola's opinion on solutions.
"Florence, in a word, was haunted by rising taxes, war, famine, unemployment, disease, and severe political strain, although of course there were ups as well as downs. Savonarola's solution was to call for repentence, for more prayer, faith, charity, generosity from the rich, and commitment both to the General Council and to King Charles VIII [of France]. His prophecies and his vision of Charles as 'the New Cyrus'... had pinned him to French ambitions in Italy." [p. 148]
After these tumultuous years of the invasion and retreat of France, of the attacks by the changing members of the Holy League, to the famines and
sickness within the city,
the brutal execution of nobles in the city, and
loss of most revenues from Pisa and the rest of the world, Savonarola thought to appeal for a new Church Council. Others, such as Paolantonio Soderini and Giovanbattista Ridolfi still wanted a return to greater control in the City by the elite. Others still wanted a Medici again, while some, like Guidantonio Vespucci and Piero Capponi thought Florence should join the Holy League with Venice and the Pope against the French King. Others like Piero Parenti (one of our direct sources) supported the Great Council but largely rejected the Friar's loudest preaching.
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Weinstein gives us more examples of this imaginary dialogue, concerning the excommunication. Again from the March 1498 Exodus sermons:
"
Oh, are you speaking ill of the pope? -- Not I! --
They who used to say bad things about the Roman court are now saying that it ought to be obeyed in everything- -- Oh, if he commands you to commit fornication would you obey? -- 'Sure I would', says that one. --
Oh, frate, he is God on earth and the vicar of Christ. -- True, but God and Christ command that one love his brother and act righteously. Maybe you believe that the pope isn't a man? ... Don't repeat that the head has to be obeyed in everything-- only in what is good." [pp. 261-2]
Continuing to explain the leverage Savonarola sought by appealing to his congregation
and, leaders elsewhere, to call for a Church Council, Weinstein gives a brief overview.
"Calling for a renewal of the Church in head and members was daring; calling upon the Holy Roman Emperor and their Christian Majesties to seize the initiative from an atheistic pope and convene a general council for reform of the Church was a move "to shock the world". At the Council of Basel fifty years earlier, the century long debate between conciliarists and papalists over Church sovereignty had ended with a victory for papal supremacy." [p. 262]
The Council of Basel had stretched for eighteen years and addressed several distinct issues regarding and surrounding the powers of Rome. That story is elsewhere but involved reconciling three different popes, what
property ownership meant for clerics, who would retain temporal (military) power. and how general reform should move forward. For many, not enough had been done. By 1460 Pope Pius II threatened to throw out of the Church anyone who might call for another Council (other than a pope), but this seemed little more than a paper proclamation. The issues of
who was in charge, who owned what, and how armies could be called and utilised, would all remain complex and ... disputed.
In the sermons Weinstein says that Savonarola gave in March, the little friar complained aloud.
"No one remembers what a council is anymore or knows why they are no longer held... What is a council but a congregation of elders such as Moses summoned when he wished to report the Lord's words and signs? It consists of all good churchmen and worthy laymen, for a true council must have the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this is why people say that councils can no longer be held: the reformers must first be reformed." [p.262]
This is what Savonarola sought at the end: to verbally attack and disrupt his perceived enemies, and to seek a higher power (both temporal and God Himself) to bring judgment upon them. But he had been doing that all along, only now his time had run out.
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quotes and pagination of Donald Weinstein: Savonarola: the rise and fall of a renaissance prophet , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011
and,
from Martines, Lauro: Fire In The City: Savonarola and the struggle for the soul of Renaissance Florence Oxford University Press, Inc.,NY 2006
