by dreams; by the inscription we know it to be the face of Giro
lamo Savonarola, one of the grandest men and at the same time
the strangest man that Italy has ever known. Born at Ferrara,
in x 452, the son of a courtier, he was fitted for a similar station in
life. But, though the court of that city was the gayest and the
aristocracy the most magnificent in all Italy, it was within the pre
cincts of that very palace that he learned to hate alike the vices
and the despotic cruelty of the times.
The elegant youth , of Ferrara, with their bright garments and
their black hearts, filled with deeds of lust and violence, were no
associates for him. He was so filled with disgust, with hatred for
evil that he cried: " The whole world is in confusion; all virtue
is extinguished and all good manners; I find no living light
abroad, nor one who blushes for his vices." This is the keynote
of his life and it was this intolerable sense of sin which dominated
his future career.
Austere and haggard, consumed with the zeal of the Lord, he
was unable )longer to endure the enormous wickedness of the
blinded people of Italy. And now, his hot young heart, im
patiently yearning for rest, was swayed by the attractions of the
cloistor and at the age of twenty-three he assumed the robe of a
Dominican friar. But, alas ! there was no rest for that anguished
soul as God had chosen instead of bringing him into calm waters,
to cast him on a tempest-swollen sea. Who can know the feelings
of that man, voiceless, powerless, unconscious of his genius, tor
tured by the fierce desire to reform the church, to free Italy of her
despots, and, above all, to bring man nearer to God ?
Let us, however, lower the curtain upon these vicissitous years
and raise it again upon the man in Florence, the theatre in which
was enacted the tragedy of his life. Florence was the city dearest
to his heart. " The charm of the hills and the gardens of Val
durno, the loveliness of Giotto's tower, the amplitude of Brunell
schi's dome " sank deep into his soul. But overshadowing all was
Lorenzo de Medici, the very incarnation of paganisni, a man
" whose policy it was to stifle freedom by caressing the follies,
vices, and intellectual tastes of his people." Savonarola recog
nized in him the enemy of God and the despot of Florence, and
the fires which had been smouldering in his soul burst forth in a
powerful conflagration. He was now no longer voiceless, power-
SAVONAROLA