ty, noble, decent and in proper taste. I can
swear that during all the hours I spent in listening to their nightly
dialogues, I never heard a word that was not comely and of good
repute. Indeed, it seemed to me very remarkable, among such crowds of
young men, to overhear nothing but virtuous conversation."

At the same period, Michelangelo fell under very different influences;
and these left a far more lasting impression on his character than the
gay festivals and witty word-combats of the lords of Florence. In 1491
Savonarola, the terrible prophet of coming woes, the searcher of men's
hearts, and the remorseless denouncer of pleasant vices, began that
Florentine career which ended with his martyrdom in 1498. He had
preached in Florence eight years earlier, but on that occasion he
passed unnoticed through the crowd. Now he took the whole city by
storm. Obeying the magic of his eloquence and the magnetism of his
personality, her citizens accepted this Dominican friar as their
political leader and moral reformer, when events brought about the
expulsion of the Medici in 1494. Michelangelo was one of his constant
listeners at S. Marco and in the Duomo. He witnessed those stormy
scenes of religious revival and passionate fanaticism which
contemporaries have impressively described. The shorthand-writer to
whom we owe the text of Savonarola's sermons at times breaks off with
words like these: "Here I was so overcome with weeping that I could
not go on." Pico della Mirandola tells that the mere sound of the
monk's voice, startling the stillness of the Duomo, thronged through
all its space with people, was like a clap of doom; a cold shiver ran
through the marrow of his bones the hairs of his head stood on end
while he listened. Another witness reports: "Those sermons caused such
terror, alarm, sobbing, and tears, that every one passed through the
streets without speaking, more dead than alive."

One of the earliest extant letters of Michelangelo, written from Rome
in 1497 to his brother Buonarroto, reveals a vivid interest in
Savonarola. He relates the evil rumours spread about the city
regarding his heretical opinions, and alludes to the hostility of Fra
Mariano da Genezzano; adding this ironical sentence: "Therefore he
ought by all means to come and prophesy a little in Rome, when
afterwards he will be canonised; and so let all his party be of good
cheer." In later years, it is said that the great sculptor read and
meditate