File:Life and times of Girolamo Savonarola (1888) (14579817287).jpg

Identifier: lifetimesofgiro00vill (find matches)
Title: Life and times of Girolamo Savonarola
Year: 1888 (1880s)
Authors: Villari, Pasquale, 1827-1917 Villari, Linda White Mazini, 1836-1915
Subjects: Savonarola, Girolamo, 1452-1498
Publisher: London : T.F. Unwin New York : C. Scribner's
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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though the church itselfwere fallino: down.1 This conspiracy was certainly extraordinary in all itsdetails ; remarkable for the sagacity and daring of itsplan; the moment chosen for its execution; the high rankof those engaged in it; and the number of victims slain,both at the time and afterwards. Most astonishing of allwas the number and rank of the ecclesiastics implicated inthe plot. The dagger that was to despatch Lorenzo deMedici was entrusted to a priest ; Archbishop Salviati wasthe leader of the conspiracy in Florence and Rome; and,according to public rumour, the Holy Father, Sixtus IV.,himself was one of the hottest and most determined ofits promoters. He had hoped to increase his nephewspower by this means, and infuriated by the failure of theplot, threw all other considerations to the winds and madeopen war upon the Florentines as their declared enemy. It was in these times and amid these events that the 1 A. Politiani, De Pactiana conjuratione, Historia sive commen-iarium.
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o :?: o < 0Sw o FIRST SERMONS OF SA VONAROL. I. 29 mind of Savonarola grew into shape. The state of theworld and the Church filled him with a horror-strickengrief, only to be relieved by prayer and study. Owing to the increasing esteem felt for him by his superiors, he waspromoted from his office of instructor to that of preacher.He undertook the task with great ardour ; for his originalintention of remaining in silence and solitude was begin-ning to yield to an imperious need of moral and intel-lectual activity, and he therefore rejoiced to find a newfield for his young and abounding energies. In his first sermons he seems to have adopted the samestyle as in his lectures, although giving more space topractical remarks and moral precepts. Then, graduallydiscarding Aristotelian rules, he drew nearer and nearer to the Bible, which was soon to become his sole and insepar-able guide. Nothing more is known of these sermons ;and they cannot have had much success, since no writer ofthe time

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