DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0274
254
TILE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
was swelling, or of the need of them ; but only how to
get the most wealth, honor, pleasure, fine robes, and pranc-
ing horses, and beautiful things, and power. Outside the
gates on the river side, the youth wandered solitary, tears
in those great eyes, which were resplendenti, e di color
celeste, his rugged features moving, his strong heart beating
with that high and noble indignation which was the only
sign of life amid the national depravity. In the midst of
these deep musings there came a moment, the historians
say, when the music and the freshness of existence came
back to the boy’s soul, and the gates of the earthly paradise
opened to him, and all the evil world was for a moment
veiled with fictitious glamour, by the light which shone out
of the eyes of a young Florentine, the daughter of an exiled
Strozzi. How long this dream lasted, no one knows ; but
one of his early biographers informs us that it ended with
a scornful rejection of the young Savonarola, on the ground
that his family was not sufficiently exalted to mate with
that of Strozzi, one of the proudest and most powerful
houses in Florence.
After this little episode of happy delusion, when the
magical mist and glamour, which might have blinded him
temporarily at least to the evils around him, dispersed into
thin air, his darker musings came back with renewed
power. He describes to his father, in the touching letter
which intimates his entrance into the cloister, the motives
which moved him, “ in order that you may take comfort
from this explanation, and feel assured that I have not
acted from a juvenile impulse, as some seem to think.”
These were: the “great misery of the world, the iniquities
of men, . . , . . so that things have come to such a pass
that no one can be found acting righteously. Many times
a day I have repeated with tears the verse,
“ ‘ Heu fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum ! ’
TILE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
was swelling, or of the need of them ; but only how to
get the most wealth, honor, pleasure, fine robes, and pranc-
ing horses, and beautiful things, and power. Outside the
gates on the river side, the youth wandered solitary, tears
in those great eyes, which were resplendenti, e di color
celeste, his rugged features moving, his strong heart beating
with that high and noble indignation which was the only
sign of life amid the national depravity. In the midst of
these deep musings there came a moment, the historians
say, when the music and the freshness of existence came
back to the boy’s soul, and the gates of the earthly paradise
opened to him, and all the evil world was for a moment
veiled with fictitious glamour, by the light which shone out
of the eyes of a young Florentine, the daughter of an exiled
Strozzi. How long this dream lasted, no one knows ; but
one of his early biographers informs us that it ended with
a scornful rejection of the young Savonarola, on the ground
that his family was not sufficiently exalted to mate with
that of Strozzi, one of the proudest and most powerful
houses in Florence.
After this little episode of happy delusion, when the
magical mist and glamour, which might have blinded him
temporarily at least to the evils around him, dispersed into
thin air, his darker musings came back with renewed
power. He describes to his father, in the touching letter
which intimates his entrance into the cloister, the motives
which moved him, “ in order that you may take comfort
from this explanation, and feel assured that I have not
acted from a juvenile impulse, as some seem to think.”
These were: the “great misery of the world, the iniquities
of men, . . , . . so that things have come to such a pass
that no one can be found acting righteously. Many times
a day I have repeated with tears the verse,
“ ‘ Heu fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum ! ’