s of the excommunicated
monk would be refused communion and confession; and as when they died
they would be contaminated with heresy, in consequence of their spiritual
intercourse with a heretic, their dead bodies would be dragged on a
hurdle and deprived of the rights of sepulture. Savonarola appealed from
the mandate of his superior both to the people and to the Signoria, and
the two together gave orders to the episcopal vicar to leave Florence
within two hours: this happened at the beginning of the year 1498.

The expulsion of Leonard's dei Medici was a new triumph for Savonarola,
so, wishing to turn to good moral account his growing influence, he
resolved to convert the last day of the carnival, hitherto given up to
worldly pleasures, into a day of religious sacrifice. So actually on
Shrove Tuesday a considerable number of boys were collected in front of
the cathedral, and there divided into bands, which traversed the whole
town, making a house-to-house visitation, claiming all profane books,
licentious paintings, lutes, harps, cards and dice, cosmetics and
perfumes--in a word, all the hundreds of products of a corrupt society
and civilisation, by the aid of which Satan at times makes victorious war
on God. The inhabitants of Florence obeyed, and came forth to the Piazza
of the Duoma, bringing these works of perdition, which were soon piled up
in a huge stack, which the youthful reformers set on fire, singing
religious psalms and hymns the while. On this pile were burned many
copies of Boccaccio and of Margante Maggiore, and pictures by Fro
Bartalommeo, who from that day forward renounced the art of this world to
consecrate his brush utterly and entirely to the reproduction of
religious scenes.

A reform such as this was terrifying to Alexander; so he resolved on
fighting Savonarola with his own weapons--that is, by the force of
eloquence. He chose as the Dominican's opponent a preacher of recognised
talent, called Fra Francesco di Paglia; and he sent him to Florence,
where he began to preach in Santa Croce, accusing Savonarola of heresy
and impiety. At the same time the pope, in a new brief, announced to the
Signaria that unless they forbade the arch-heretic to preach, all the
goods of Florentine merchants who lived on the papal territory would be
confiscated, and the republic laid under an interdict and declared the
spiritual and temporal enemy of the Church. The Signoria, abandoned by
France, and aware th