who search after truth for truth's sake, for the accomplishment, or the effort to accomplish, grand objects of reform and correction of abuses: a man most holy, most highly gifted, most heroic in the mission to which he seemed to have been specially called by God; a man whose whole life was devoted to the interests of religion, of morality, of letters, and of arts: a member of a renowned religious order, and one of its brightest ornaments an honour to his country and to humanity, whose heart was set on the purification of religion, and the renovation of his Church-the most illustrious of all true monks, Girolamo Savonarola."

The power of truth was very signally manifested soon after the death of the friar, in the failure of all efforts on the part of the Franciscans, and certain dignitaries of the church of Florence, to get the Pope, Alexander the Sixth, to issue a condemnation of the works of the deceased friar. We are told by Nardi, that all the works of Savonarola were prohibited by the spiritual authorities of Florence, and people were commanded to bring them to the archbishopric, on pain of excommunication and pecuniary fine. But the matter being referred to the Pope, "his holiness (says Nardi) had not the courage to decree and determine anything against those works, and the doctrines of the man whom he had even condemned to death."*

So the writings of Savonarola were given back to their owners. 'The 23rd of May, 1498, Alexander the Sixth sent Savonarola before the judgment seat of God, to answer for his efforts to renovate religion. The 7th of August, 1518, Leo the Tenth cited Luther to appear at Rome, to answer for a revolution commenced against the church.

Twenty years had only elapsed since the attempted renovation was quenched in blood, and before the revolution broke out that was to shake the pillars of Catholicity, and even Christianity itself.

The sentence of death was ratified by the Pope's commissaries. They must have acted on Alexander's authority, or their act Nardi, Hist. di Firen. p. 82.

must have been repudiated by him. It was competent alone for the highest ecclesiastical authority to ratify that sentence, and it was ratified by it.

With respect to the date of the execution of Savonarola, Bayle says: "I am of opinion that it was the 23rd of May, as several authors affirm. Perhaps it will be objected to me, that Porcacchi tells us, that Peter Delphino, general of the Camaldules, takes notice in his letters, that Savonarola was executed on the very day of Ascension; and that since he makes this remark, in a letter purposely written the 26th of July, 1498, on the death of that friar, we have reason to believe that he is not mistaken. Now, Ascension day that year was the twenty-fourth of May. They may say what they will: I rather choose to believe John Francis Picus and Bzovius, who tell us that Savonarola was executed on Ascension-eve. Porcacchi quotes this letter of Peter Delphino for no other reason but to start an objection against Guicciardini, whom he supposes to have affirmed that Savonarola was put to death on Palm Sunday, the 9th of April. But it is not true that Guicciardini says so he only says that the authority of that friar came to an end on the day after that on which Charles the Eighth died, being Palm Sunday.

"Finè il di sequente a quello, terminò la vita di Carlo, (giorno celebrato dá Christiani per la solemnità delle palme) in Firenze l'autorita del Savonarola." One cannot tell to what his parenthesis relates: whether it be to the day on which Charles the Eighth died, or to the day following; but we may be very well assured that he intended to say that the 8th of April was the last day of Savonarola's authority; for he had just before observed, that Charles the Eighth ended his life on the day before the 8th of April. There is also reason to believe that he places on the day after that monarch's death, not the death of Savonarola, but his imprisonment; and that the criticism of Porcacchi is not well grounded. I think there are some little failures in Guicciardini's words, and am therefore more inclined to follow the dates of John Burchard, according to which, Savonarola was imprisoned the 9th of April, two days after the great shew

for making the proof by fire; and as besides, it is certain that Saturday, the 7th of April, being the eve of Palm Sunday, was the day on which Charles the Eighth died, one does not see how Guicciardini could say that Palm Sunday was either the day of that prince's death, or of the ruin of Savonarola's power."* Both Burlamacchi and Mirandola narrate many signal examples of the divine retribution falling on the persecutors and most violent of the adversaries of Savonarola.

The notary Ceccone, we are told by the former, who falsified the process, falling sick at his villa in Mugello, a very lonely and desert place, two Dominican monks, who were questing in that neighbourhood, called at the house for assistance, not knowwhose it was. The servant informed them her master was grievously ill, and implored them to visit the sick man.

The friars, on approaching his bedside, began to administer spiritual consolation to him, seeing him evidently in the last agony. But the word mercy seemed to recall some terrible reminiscences to his mind. There was no mercy, he said, for his guilt. 'Judas," he exclaimed, “had betrayed only one just man, but he had betrayed three." No words of comfort or exhortation had any effect on him; he died in the presence of the two Dominicans, despairing of salvation.

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The chief executioner of Girolamo and his companions, Maestro Francesco, perished on the scaffold in the performance of his duty of headsman, being stoned to death by the populace, after beheading, in a bungling manner, a young brigand, for whom much sympathy was felt by the spectators.

One of the examiners, who, on the trial, upbraided Fra Girolamo with his false predictions, Piero Corsini, lived only long enough to see the predictions accomplished, which he called in question, and died in a state of frenzy.

Tanai de Nerlo, who, with his son, took a leading part in the sacking of San Marco on the night of the tumult, and was the principal instigator of the Signoria in the affair of the removal of the great bell of San Marco to the Franciscan convent, was

Bayle's Crit. Dict. art. Sav. tom. v.

found dead in his bed, with his head hanging downwards; and the first toll of the great bell of San Marco, in the convent of San Francesco, was for the burial of old Nerlo, in the church of that convent.

Another of the persecutors, Giovanni Maretti, one of the examiners of Fra Girolamo, and who was present at his torture, on one occasion, when he had the indecency as well as the cruelty to aggravate the sufferings of the prisoners by a scandalous indignity, perished miserably, without hope or sacraments, crying out, in terrible anguish of mind, "Oh, this hand! this hand! The friar is torturing me."*

Of Romolino's subsequent career, we learn from Burlamacchi that "a chaplain of Monsignor Pandolfo della Luna, who lodged with Romolino, one of the commissaries of the Pope in San Pietro Chiraggio, in Florence, related that the night before the death of Fra Girolamo, several citizens carried large sums of money to the said commissary, and, among the rest, one person carried to him 1,000 ducats, with which money he returned to Rome, as it was reported, and bought a cardinal's hat. It was reported moreover," says Burlamacchi, "that he became ultimately. repentant, and that he used to read the works of Fra Girolamo, and to bewail his death."* But we learn from others, that he died in Naples a very miserable death.

Hafe states that Romolino, doctor of laws, and councillor to the government and court of Rome, who had acted the part of commissary so efficiently at Florence in 1498 for Alexander the Sixth, was rewarded for his services by a cardinal's hat in 1508, and that he died of the same dreadful sickness as Ulric de Huttin, in 1518.

The Franciscans received their reward from the Signoria, for all their opposition to the Father, and their successful efforts to effect his ruin: the monthly pittance of sixty livres from the state, given to San Marco for the table of the community, was transferred to them in testimony of their triumph over the Dominicans. And when the first payment was made to them, it is reported Burlamacchi, p. 577.

+ Ibid.

that the chamberlain said, as he was handing over the money, "Take the price of the blood of the just."

Many of the friends of the father were exiled. The brethren of San Marco were confined to their convent, and not allowed to go abroad. The laity were not suffered to enter San Marco. The great bell of the convent was taken down, and transported, by the orders of the Signoria, to the Franciscan convent.

In subsequent times the Franciscans were deprived of the illgotten property of the Dominicans.

The great bell, after remaining forty years in their possession, was ordered to be given back to the friars of San Marco, and the monthly allowance of the pietanza was restored to them also. "When all these events," says Burlamacchi," came to the Pope's knowledge, he rejoiced at their occurrence, as if of things ardently desired by him."

Savonarola had no sooner been condemned, than the advocates and panderers to the vices of the reigning Pontiff set to work to murder his reputation by all kinds of slander. Numbers, even of his own brethren, joined in the base attempts to destroy his reputation. We are told that nearly one half of the community of St. Mark turned traitors to his memory.

Touron, on the authority of Bzovius, states erroneously, that of the whole community of San Marco, consisting of three hundred friars and eighty novices at the time of Savonarola's death, there was not one who did not remain faithful to his memory, and the spirit of his rule and teaching.

That statement is certainly not conformable with the accounts of other writers.

Bzovius confines his statement of the fidelity of the community to the eighty novices.

He states likewise that after the death of Savonarola, full license was given to all writers to slander Fra Girolamo and the deceased friars in the most scandalous manner, till Hercules D'Este, the reigning duke of Ferrara, caused one of those literary assassins—a poet who had shamefully calumniated Fra Girolamo-to be put to death-donec Hercules Aestinus, Dux Fer