cia!" The days passed in feasting and splendour, Charles began to
talk of restoring the Medici, nor were riots infrequent in Borgo
Ognissanti; in Borgo S. Frediano the Switzers and French pillaged and
massacred, and were slain too in return. Florence, always ready for
street fighting, was, as we may think, too much for the barbarians. On
24th November the treaty was signed, an indemnity being paid by the
city, but the rioting did not cease. Landucci gives a very vivid account
of it. Even the King himself was not slow to pillage: he was
discontented with the indemnity offered, and threatened to loot the
city. "_Io faro dare nelle trombe_," said he; Piero Capponi was not slow
to answer, "_E noi faremo dare nello campane_"--and we will sound our
bells. The King gave in, and Florence was saved. On 26th November he
heard Mass for the last time in S. Maria del Fiore, and on the 28th he
departed--_si parti el Re di Firenze dopo desinare, e ando albergo alla
Certosa e tutta sua gente gli ando dietro e innanzi, che poche ce ne
rimase_, says Landucci thankfully.

Then the city, free from this rascal, who carried off what he could of
the treasures of Cosimo and Lorenzo, turned not to Piero Capponi but to
another foreigner, Girolamo Savonarola. The political eagerness of this
friar now came to the point of action. He set up a Greater Council,
which in its turn elected a Council of Eighty; he refused to call a
parliament, since he told them that "parliament had ever stolen the
sovereignty from the people." Then, on the 1st of April, he said that
the Virgin Mary had revealed to him that the city would be more
glorious, rich, and powerful than ever before, and, as Landucci says,
"_La maggiore parte del popolo gli credeva."_ He also said that the
Greater Council was the creation of God, and that whoever should attempt
to change it would be eternally damned. Nor was this all. If it were
right and splendid for Florence to be free, free as she always had been
from the domination of any other city, so it was for revolted Pisa. Yet
this fanatic Ferrarese told the people that he had had a vision in which
the Blessed Virgin had told him that Florence should make treaty with
France, and thus regain Pisa. This was on the return of the King from
Naples with Piero de' Medici in his train. However, he met the King at
Poggibonsi, told him Florence was his friend, that God desired him to
spare it, and with other tales succeeded in keeping Charles out