DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0316
296
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
man so deep in the counsels of heaven that he had seen all
along this trouble coming. With one accord they rushed
to the cathedral. “ Such a dense mass of people had never
been seen in it; they were so closely packed that no one
could stir.” The man in the pulpit to whom they all
looked, might no doubt have led that dark moving mass-
Italian crowd of men, always remarkable to behold, throng-
ing there in all the dim corners, scarcely visible except by
the thrill of breath and motion, the gleam of dark eyes and
stern faces—to meet the invader, and perhaps by mirac-
ulous momentary passion to turn him back; or might,
with a spirit more congenial to the time and place, have
given just the stimulus that was wanted to make the
injured people avenge itself terribly upon its tyrants. He
did neither. Stretching out his arms over the crowd, with
the emotion of one who shared their every tremor and
pang, he called out to them to repent and pray. The
scourge had come, the blow had descended; but yet
Florence was in the hand of a God never slow to pardon.
“ Repent,” he cried, “ for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand; ” and again, “Pardon, oh Lord, pardon those Floren-
tines who desire to be thine.” This was how Savonarola
took the tide at its flood. He might have made himself
autocrat—dictator—and so, indeed, for a time he was—-
and taken whatever revenge he pleased upon his enemies ;
but the only revenge he bade his fellow-sufferers take was
upon themselves, whose sins had caused this chastisement;
and the remedy was reformation, not of the state only,
but of every individual. The excited mass calmed down
under this wonderful appeal. Their vows of vengeance
against their betrayers died on their lips. In gravity and
humility they dispersed to await the event, whatever it
might be, with something like national dignity. The best
men of the city, so long kept under, came to the front in
this moment of general agitation ; and the sense of tremen-
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
man so deep in the counsels of heaven that he had seen all
along this trouble coming. With one accord they rushed
to the cathedral. “ Such a dense mass of people had never
been seen in it; they were so closely packed that no one
could stir.” The man in the pulpit to whom they all
looked, might no doubt have led that dark moving mass-
Italian crowd of men, always remarkable to behold, throng-
ing there in all the dim corners, scarcely visible except by
the thrill of breath and motion, the gleam of dark eyes and
stern faces—to meet the invader, and perhaps by mirac-
ulous momentary passion to turn him back; or might,
with a spirit more congenial to the time and place, have
given just the stimulus that was wanted to make the
injured people avenge itself terribly upon its tyrants. He
did neither. Stretching out his arms over the crowd, with
the emotion of one who shared their every tremor and
pang, he called out to them to repent and pray. The
scourge had come, the blow had descended; but yet
Florence was in the hand of a God never slow to pardon.
“ Repent,” he cried, “ for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand; ” and again, “Pardon, oh Lord, pardon those Floren-
tines who desire to be thine.” This was how Savonarola
took the tide at its flood. He might have made himself
autocrat—dictator—and so, indeed, for a time he was—-
and taken whatever revenge he pleased upon his enemies ;
but the only revenge he bade his fellow-sufferers take was
upon themselves, whose sins had caused this chastisement;
and the remedy was reformation, not of the state only,
but of every individual. The excited mass calmed down
under this wonderful appeal. Their vows of vengeance
against their betrayers died on their lips. In gravity and
humility they dispersed to await the event, whatever it
might be, with something like national dignity. The best
men of the city, so long kept under, came to the front in
this moment of general agitation ; and the sense of tremen-