own ruin. So
he refused to enter the fire except with Savonarola himself, and, playing
this terrible game in his own person, would not allow his adversary to
play it by proxy.

Then a thing happened which certainly no one could have anticipated. In
the place of Fra Francesco, who would not tilt with any but the master,
two Franciscan monks appeared to tilt with the disciple. These were Fra
Nicholas de Pilly and Fra Andrea Rondinelli. Immediately the partisans of
Savonarala, seeing this arrival of reinforcements for their antagonist,
came forward in a crowd to try the ordeal. The Franciscans were
unwilling to be behindhand, and everybody took sides with equal ardour
for one or other party. All Florence was like a den of madmen; everyone
wanted the ordeal, everyone wanted to go into the fire; not only did men
challenge one another, but women and even children were clamouring to be
allowed to try. At last the Signoria, reserving this privilege for the
first applicants, ordered that the strange duel should take place only
between Fra Domenico Bonvicini and Fra Andrea Rondinelli; ten of the
citizens were to arrange all details; the day was fixed for the 7th of
April, 1498, and the place the Piazza del Palazzo.

The judges of the field made their arrangements conscientiously. By
their orders scaffolding was erected at the appointed place, five feet in
height, ten in width, and eighty feet long. This scaffolding was covered
with faggots and heath, supported by cross-bars of the very driest wood
that could be found. Two narrow paths were made, two feet wide at most,
their entrance giving an the Loggia dei Lanzi, their exit exactly
opposite. The loggia was itself divided into two by a partition, so that
each champion had a kind of room to make his preparations in, just as in
the theatre every actor has his dressing-room; but in this instance the
tragedy that was about to be played was not a fictitious one.

The Franciscans arrived on the piazza and entered the compartment
reserved for them without making any religious demonstration; while
Savonarola, on the contrary, advanced to his own place in the procession,
wearing the sacerdotal robes in which he had just celebrated the Holy
Eucharist, and holding in his hand the sacred host for all the world to
see, as it was enclosed in a crystal tabernacle. Fra Domenico di Pescia,
the hero of the occasion, followed, bearing a crucifix, and all the
Dominican monks, their red cr