ing, had no foresight of the calamities and desolation which were approaching their country. that large cluster of islands called the Lucaya or Bahama Isles. It is situated above 3000 miles to Columbus, who now assumed 'the west of Gomera, from which the title and authority of admiral and viceroy, called the island which he had discovered San Salvador. It is better known by the name of Guanahani, which the natives gave to it, and is one of the squadron took its departure, and only four degrees to the south of it, so little had Columbus deviated from the westerly course which he had chosen as the most proper. THE END OF SAVONAROLA. (Sismondi's History of the Italian Republics.) A.D. 1498. At the moment when Florence ex- | government. Girolamo Savonarola pelled the Medici, that republic took advantage of this state of was bandied between three differ- affairs to urge that the people had ent parties. The first was that of never delegated their power to a the enthusiasts, directed by Giro- balia which did not abuse the lamo Savonarola; who promised trust. "The people," he said, the miraculous protection of the "would do much better to reserve Divinity for the reform of the this power to themselves, and exChurch and the establishment of ercise it by a council, into which liberty. These demanded a demo- all the citizens should be admitted." cratic constitution,-they were His proposition was agreed to: called the Piagnoni. The second more than 1800 Florentines furconsisted of men who had shared | nished proof that either they, their power with the Medici, but who | fathers, or their grandfathers, had had separated from them; who sat in the magistracy; they were wished to possess alone the powers consequently acknowledged citiand profits of government, and who zens, and admitted to sit in the endeavoured to amuse the people general council. This council was by dissipations and pleasures, in declared sovereign on the 1st of order to establish at their ease an July 1495; it was invested with aristocracy,—these were called the the election of magistrates, hitherArabbiati. The third party was to chosen by lot, and a general composed of men who remained amnesty was proclaimed, to bury faithful to the Medici, but, not in oblivion all the ancient dissendaring to declare themselves, lived sions of the Florentine republic. in retirement, they were called Bigi. These three parties were so equally balanced in the balia named by the parliament, on the 2d of December 1494, that it soon became impossible to carry on the So important a modification of the constitution seemed to promise this republic a happier futurity. The friar Savonarola, who had exercised such influence in the council, evinced at the same time an ardent love of mankind, deep respect for the rights of all, great sensibility, and an elevated mind. Though a zealous reformer of the Church, and in this respect a precursor of Luther, who was destined to begin his mission twenty years later, he did not quit the pale of orthodoxy; he did not assume the right of examining doctrine; he limited his efforts to the restoration of discipline, the reformation of the morals of the clergy, and the recall of priests, as well as other citizens, to the practice of the gospel precepts: but his zeal was mixed with enthusiasm; he believed himself under the immediate inspiration of Providence; he took his own impulses for prophetic revelations, by which he directed the politics of his disciples, the Piagnoni.' He had predicted to the Florentines the coming of 1 As an example of the singular degree to which the influence of this reformer was carried, we quote a paragraph from the same author's larger work, Histoire des Republiques Itali ennes du Moyen Age. "On the last day of the Carnival, Savonarola, wishing to change this worldly festival into a day of religious contrition, persuaded a very large number of children to divide themselves into bands, and to go through the town, demanding, from house to house, that the inhabitants should give up to them all immoral books, all indecent pictures, all cards and dice, lutes, harps, and instruments of music, all false hair, musk, and other perfumes and cosmetiques; all these things the children demanded under the name of Anathema: they carried them into the public place, where they made them into an immense bonfire and burned them, singing psalms and religious hymns round the flames." the French into Italy; he had represented to them Charles VIII. as an instrument by which the Divinity designed to chastise the crimes of the nation; he had counselled them to remain faithful to their alliance with that king, the instrument of Providence, even though his conduct, especially in reference to the affairs of Pisa, had been highly culpable. This alliance, however, ranged the Florentines among the enemies of Pope Alexander VI., one of the founders of the league which had driven the French out of Italy; he accused them of being traitors to the Church and to their country for their attachment to a foreign prince. Alexander, equally offended by the projects of reform and by the politics of Savonarola, denounced him to the Church as a heretic, and interdicted him from preaching. The monk at first obeyed, and procured the appointment of his friend and disciple the Dominican friar, Buonvicino of Pescia, as his successor in the church of St. Mark; but on Christmas-day 1497 he declared from the pulpit that God had revealed to him that he ought not to submit to a corrupt tribunal; he then openly took the sacrament with the monks of St. Mark, and afterwards continued to preach. In the course of his sermons, he more than once held up to reprobation the scandalous conduct of the Pope, whom the public voice accused of every vice and every crime to be expected in a libertine so depraved,—-a man so ambitious, perfidious, and cruel,—a monarch and a priest intoxicated with absolute power. In the meantime, the rivalry encouraged by the court of Rome between the religious orders soon procured the Pope champions eager to combat Savonarola: he was a Dominican, the general of the Augustines; that order whence Martin Luther was soon to issue. Friar Mariano di Ghinazzano signalised himself by his zeal in opposing Savonarola. He presented to the Pope, friar Francis of Apulia, of the order of minor Observantines, who was sent to Florence to preach against the Florentine monk in the church of Santa Croce. This preacher declared to his audience that he knew Savonarola pretended to support his doctrine by a miracle. "For me," said he, "I am a sinner; I have not the presumption to perform miracles, nevertheless, let a fire be lighted, and I am ready to enter it with him. I am certain of perishing, but Christian charity teaches me not to withhold my life, if, in sacrificing it, I might precipitate into hell a heresiarch, who has already drawn into it so many souls." This strange proposition was rejected by Savonarola; but his friend and disciple, friar Dominic Buonvicino, eagerly accepted it. Francis of Apulia declared that he would risk his life against Savonarola only. Meanwhile, a crowd of monks, of the Dominican and Franciscan orders, rivalled each other in their offers to prove by the ordeal of fire, on the one side the truth, on the other the falsehood, of the new doctrine. Enthusiasm spread beyond the two convents; many priests and seculars, and even women and children, more especially on the side of Savonarola, earnestly requested to be admitted to the proof. The Pope warmly testified his gratitude to the Franciscans for their devotion. The signoria of Florence consented that two monks only should devote themselves for their respective orders, and directed the pile to be prepared. The whole population of the town and country, to which a signal miracle was promised, received the announcement with transports of joy. On the 17th of April 1498, a scaffold, dreadful to look on, was erected in the public square of Florence: two piles of large pieces of wood, mixed with faggots and broom, which should quickly take fire, extended each eighty feet long, four feet thick, and five feet high ; they were separated by a narrow space of two feet, to serve as a passage by which the two priests were to enter, and pass the whole length of the piles during the fire. Every window was full; every roof was covered with spectators; almost the whole population of the republic was collected round the place. The portico called the Loggia de' Lanzi, divided in two by a partition, was assigned to the two orders of monks. The Dominicans arrived at their station chanting canticles, and bearing the holy sacrament. The Fran were ciscans immediately declared that stancy of the multitude; he was they would not permit the host to arrested with his two friends, Dobe carried amidst flames. They menico Buonvicino and Silvestro insisted that the friar Buonvicino Marruffi, and led to prison. The should enter the fire, as their own Piagnoni, his partisans, were exchampion was prepared to do, posed to every outrage from the without this divine safeguard. populace,- two of them The Dominicans answered, that killed; their rivals and old ene"they would not separate them- mies exciting the general ferment selves from their God at the mo- for their destruction. Even in ment when they implored his aid." the signoria the majority was The dispute upon this point grew against them, and yielded to the warm. Several hours passed away. pressing demands of the Pope. The multitude, which had waited The three imprisoned monks were long, and begun to feel hunger subjected to a criminal prosecuand thirst, lost patience; a deluge tion. Alexander VI. despatched of rain suddenly fell upon the city, judges from Rome, with orders to and descended in torrents from the condemn the accused to death. roofs of the houses,-all present Conformably with the laws of the were drenched. The piles were so Church, the trial opened with the wet that they could no longer be torture. Savonarola was too weak lighted; and the crowd, disappointed and nervous to support it: he of a miracle so impatiently looked avowed in his agony all that was for, separated, with the notion of imputed to him; and, with his having been unworthily trifled with. two disciples, was condemned to Savonarola lost all his credit; he death. The three monks were was henceforth rather looked on burned alive, on the 23d of May as an impostor. Next day his 1498, in the same square where, convent was besieged by the Arab- six weeks before, a pile had been biati, eager to profit by the incon-raised to prepare them a triumph. |