g trial, during which he was often tortured; but
whatever might be wrung from him in this way, he afterwards declared
that it was not to be believed, because the weakness of his body could
not bear the pain of torture, and he confessed whatever might be asked
of him. This trial was carried on under the authority of the wicked Pope
Alexander VI.

Although no charge of error as to the faith could be made out against
Savonarola, his enemies were bent on his death; and he and two of his
companions were sentenced to be hanged and burnt. Like Huss, they had to
go through the form of being degraded from their orders; and at the end
of this it was a bishop's part to say to each, "I separate thee from the
Church militant" (that is, from the Church which is carrying on its
warfare here on earth). But the bishop, who had once been one of
Savonarola's friars at St. Mark's, was very uneasy, and said in his
confusion, "I separate thee from the Church triumphant" (that is, from
the Church when its warfare has ended in victory and triumph).
Savonarola saw the mistake, and corrected it by saying, "from the
militant, not from the triumphant; for _that_ is not thine to do."

Savonarola's party did not die out with him, but long continued to
cherish his memory. Among those who were most earnest in this was the
great artist, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, who had been one of his hearers
in youth, and even to his latest days used to read his works with
interest, and to speak of him with reverence.

CHAPTER XXIX.

JULIUS II. AND LEO X.

A.D. 1503-1521.

Alexander VI. was succeeded by a pope who took the title of Pius III.,
and lived only six and twenty days after his election. And after Pius
came Julius II., who was pope from 1503 to 1513, and Leo X., who lived
to the year 1521.

Julius, who owed his rise in life to the favour of his uncle Sixtus IV.
(one of the popes who had come between Pius II. and Alexander VI.), was
desirous to gain for the Roman see all that it had lost or had ever
claimed. He was not a man of religious character, but plunged deeply
into politics, and even acted as a soldier in war. Thus, at the siege of
Mirandola, in the winter of 1511, he lived for weeks in a little hut,
regardless of the frost and snow, of the roughness and scantiness of his
food; and when most of those around him were frightened away by the
cannon-balls which came from the walls of the fortress, the stout old
pope kept his place, and di