led populace
against the vices of the past. Yet the historian is bound to pronounce
that the reform effected by Savonarola was rather picturesque than
vital. Like all violent revivals of pietism, it produced a no less
violent reaction. The parties within the city who resented the
interference of a preaching friar, joined with the Pope in Rome, who
hated a contumacious schismatic in Savonarola. Assailed by these two
forces at the same moment, and driven upon perilous ground by his own
febrile enthusiasm, Savonarola succumbed. He was imprisoned, tortured,
and burned upon the public square in 1498.

What Savonarola really achieved for Florence was not a permanent
reform of morality, but a resuscitation of the spirit of freedom. His
followers, called in contempt _I Piagnoni_, or the Weepers, formed the
path of the commonwealth in future; and the memory of their martyr
served as a common bond of sympathy to unite them in times of trial.
It was a necessary consequence of the peculiar part he played that the
city was henceforth divided into factions representing mutually
antagonistic principles. These factions were not created by
Savonarola; but his extraordinary influence accentuated, as it were,
the humours that lay dormant in the State. Families favourable to the
Medici took the name of _Palleschi_. Men who chafed against
puritanical reform, and who were eager for any government that should
secure them their old licence, were known as _Compagnacci_. Meanwhile
the oligarchs, who disliked a democratic Constitution, and thought it
possible to found an aristocracy without the intervention of the
Medici, came to be known as _Gli Ottimati_. Florence held within
itself, from this epoch forward to the final extinction of liberty,
four great parties: the _Piagnoni_, passionate for political freedom
and austerity of life; the _Palleschi_, favourable to the Medicean
cause, and regretful of Lorenzo's pleasant rule; the _Compagnacci_,
intolerant of the reformed republic, neither hostile nor loyal to the
Medici, but desirous of personal licence; the _Ottimati_, astute and
selfish, watching their own advantage, ever-mindful to form a narrow
government of privileged families, disinclined to the Medici, except
when they thought the Medici might be employed as instruments in their
intrigues.

XX

During the short period of Savonarola's ascendency, Florence was in
form at least a Theocracy, without any titular head but Christ; and as