R. Nisbet Bain - The Cambridge Modern History

Before Charles VIII moved up the Arno, two great events had befallen Florence. The Medici had been expelled, and Pisa was in full revolt. The lives of the Florentine envoys and officials were in no small danger. When Charles VIII at length entered Florence, Savonarola seems to have taken no part in the negotiations; the hero of the week was not the Friar, but the merchant, statesman and soldier, Piero Cap-poni, who tore the draft of the shameful treaty in two before the French King’s face, crying, “Blow your trumpets and we will clang our bells.” Yet the ultimate conditions were sufficiently humiliating, for all the Florentine coast fortresses were left in French hands, and the city was pledged to a huge subsidy. She had, however, at least escaped the restoration of the Medici, although she was forced to withdraw the price upon their heads. The main desire was to rid Florence of her dangerous guests. The treaty was signed on November 28; but on the 29th Charles showed no signs of stirring. Then it was that Savonarola went to warn him that it was God’s will that he should leave. More efficacious, perhaps, were the arguments of the Scotch general Stuart d’Aubigni, who had led a French corps from the Romagna into the Arno valley. He very bluntly told the King that he was wasting time, and that he must push on to Naples. Thus on November 30 the French marched out, to their hosts1 infinite relief.

The next task was the reform of the constitution. The Palace bell summoned a Parlamento, a mass meeting of the people, to the great piazza, and the Signoria from its platform proposed a BaTia, or provisional government. The Medicean institutions, the Councils of the Hundred and of the Seventy, and the Otto di Pratica, a standing Committee for State affairs, which had already been suspended, were now abolished, while the members of the Otto di BaTia, the Ministry of Justice, were deposed. A board of Twenty was nominated to select the Signoria for one whole year; under the title of the Ten of War a commission was to be appointed for the subjection of Pisa. Within the year a register was to be drawn up of all citizens qualified for office, and at its expiration the popular traditional practice of appointing to all magistracies by lot should be resumed. This provisional government was virtually the substitution of oligarchy for monarchy; a group of aristocrats now held the power which Lorenzo de’ Medici had striven to secure. Nevertheless the proposal was passed by acclamation in the Parlamento, and confirmed by the two older Councils of the People and the Commune.

It was impossible that such a piece of patchwork should stand the wear and tear of a restless people. The Councils of the Hundred, and of the Seventy, and the Otto di Pratica had been successively introduced, not merely for family or party purposes, but to strengthen administrative efficiency. The old municipal constitution was unequal to the needs of an expanding territory and of complicated international relations. This had been the justification for the rule of a family, or of groups of families who had no official place in the Constitution, of the Parte Guelfa, the Albizzi, the Medici. All the really operative elements in the State, whether official or non-official, were now removed; the normal constitution would be worked by twenty individuals with no coherence, and not much experience, divided by family and personal rivalries. Oligarchies, wrote Aristotle, fall from internal divisions, and almost invariably one section will appeal to the people for support against its fellows. It was certain from the first that this would happen at Florence, where in spite of monarchy or oligarchy there was a democratic atmosphere, and where, in the absence of soldiers or efficient police, public opinion could at any crisis find expression. Even before Piero’s fall some of the aristocracy had paid their addresses to the people. And now the populace was in a dangerous state; unsatisfied with fire and plunder, it pleaded for blood; none had been let in Florence since the short fever of the Pazzi plot. The oligarchs sacrificed one of the Medicean government officials, Antonio di Bernardo, who was hanged from a window above the great piazza. His hands were clean, but his origin low, his manners rough, and his office-that of the public debt- the most unpopular in Florence. Others were condemned to imprisonment for life. To flatter the ingrained love of equality, the Twenty nominated insignificant persons to the chief magistracy, the Gonfaloni-erate of Justice. So again, men of no repute were sent on important embassies; Ludovico il Moro gibed at the diplomatic methods of the new republic. But all this was not enough; the oligarchs must satisfy not only the populace but each other, which was indeed impossible. One of the cleverest, the most experienced, the most ambitious aristocrats, Paol’ Antonio Soderini, had been excluded from the Twenty, probably by the influence of his rival Piero Capponi. On the death of Lorenzo de1 Medici he had tentatively resisted the advance of the monarchy, but when young Piero showed his teeth he shrank from the encounter. He now intrigued for the fall of the Twenty; and it was no difficult task to make the provisional government impossible. Soderini had just returned from an embassy to Venice; it was natural that he should sing the praises of her constitution. The cry caught up in the street was echoed from the pulpit. Soderini, it is said, first persuaded Savonarola to advocate a popular government on the Venetian model. It need not be assumed that Soderini was a hypocrite. He was virtuous and serious; but virtue and sobriety cast fantastic shadows which assume the forms of ambition and intrigue.

During and after the French occupation Savonarola had been untiring in preaching for the poor, especially for those who were ashamed to confess their poverty. He implored the idling artisans to return to work. Unity, peace, and mercy were his perpetual theme. The people, however, threatened to extend their vengeance from the financial officials to all adherents of the Medici. The more moderate aristocrats became alarmed; already exiles were returning, the victims of themselves or of their fathers; and titles to property confiscated in the past were endangered. The exiles might well bid for popular support. It was felt that the new oligarchy, the Whites, must stand by the Greys (Bigi), the families who still had Medicean proclivities. But these oligarchs could not stay the flood of popular hatred; if they stemmed it, they would be swept away in their turn. Their leader, Piero Capponi, turned for aid to Savonarola, and the Friar succeeded where others must have failed. Of all his claims to the gratitude of his adopted city this is the strongest.

Savonarola now fairly entered into politics. He had striven as a Ferrarese, he declared, to have nothing to do with the Florentine State; but God had warned him that he must not shrink, for his mission was the creation of the spiritual life, and this must have a solid material edifice wherein to dwell. To his political sermons he summoned the magistrates, admitting none but men. He sketched not only the form of the new constitution but the main lines of legislation, ethical and economic. Monarchy, he admitted, might be the ideal government, but it was unsuited for people of temperate climates, who had at once too much blood and too much cleverness to bear a king,—unsuited above all to high-spirited and subtle Florentines, for whom the Venetian popular government was the natural type. He suggested that the citizens should gather under their sixteen companies (gunfaloni), that each company should draft a scheme, that of these the sixteen gonfaloniers should select four, and from them the Slgnoria should choose the best: this, he assured his congregation, would be after the Venetian model.