DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0382
362
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
prison hung high in air over their heads, where a great
soul in noble trust yet sadness approached its Maker, what
a difference ! Lover and friends had forsaken him, honor
and credit were gone from him, his very brothers had
lifted up their heel against him, and God had not owned,
as once he had hoped, his devoted service. But yet God
was true, though all men were liars ; God was true though
He hid His face. The soldier of Christ had been over-
borne in the fight, broken and cast down ; but not less
did be trust in his leader and his cause, which one day
should overcome.
This quiet lasted till the pope’s commissioners arrived,
who were at last to give a good deliverance, on Florentine
soil, to the three prisoners. They came into Florence on
the 19th of May—Romolino, a bishop after Alexander’s
own heart, and Torriano, the general of the Dominicans-
boasting that they had the sentence ready, and were about
to make a famous blaze (un bel fuoco). Nothwithstanding
this foregone conclusion, as his enemies still hankered after
something to justify themselves, Savonarola was again
“examined” before them, and all the tortures which he
had already gone through were repeated, the answers given
by him in this case being entirely falsified, and bearing no
trace or show of reality. The minutes of this latest
examination were not even signed or acknowledged by any
one, being too bad to obtain even a pretense of belief. On
the 22nd of May the sentence of death was published, and
that same evening was communicated to the condemned.
It was their last night on earth. Domenico received the
news as if it were an invitation to a feast; poor Silvestro
was full of agitation ; but Savonarola took it with perfect
calm, expressing neither pleasure nor reluctance. No
doubt the three days’ torture which had intervened had
deadened every bodily feeling in him. The record of this
last night is very full. One of the penitents of the order
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
prison hung high in air over their heads, where a great
soul in noble trust yet sadness approached its Maker, what
a difference ! Lover and friends had forsaken him, honor
and credit were gone from him, his very brothers had
lifted up their heel against him, and God had not owned,
as once he had hoped, his devoted service. But yet God
was true, though all men were liars ; God was true though
He hid His face. The soldier of Christ had been over-
borne in the fight, broken and cast down ; but not less
did be trust in his leader and his cause, which one day
should overcome.
This quiet lasted till the pope’s commissioners arrived,
who were at last to give a good deliverance, on Florentine
soil, to the three prisoners. They came into Florence on
the 19th of May—Romolino, a bishop after Alexander’s
own heart, and Torriano, the general of the Dominicans-
boasting that they had the sentence ready, and were about
to make a famous blaze (un bel fuoco). Nothwithstanding
this foregone conclusion, as his enemies still hankered after
something to justify themselves, Savonarola was again
“examined” before them, and all the tortures which he
had already gone through were repeated, the answers given
by him in this case being entirely falsified, and bearing no
trace or show of reality. The minutes of this latest
examination were not even signed or acknowledged by any
one, being too bad to obtain even a pretense of belief. On
the 22nd of May the sentence of death was published, and
that same evening was communicated to the condemned.
It was their last night on earth. Domenico received the
news as if it were an invitation to a feast; poor Silvestro
was full of agitation ; but Savonarola took it with perfect
calm, expressing neither pleasure nor reluctance. No
doubt the three days’ torture which had intervened had
deadened every bodily feeling in him. The record of this
last night is very full. One of the penitents of the order