minations: these changes had been effected in spite of
two other factions, the 'Arrabiati', or Madmen, who, consisting of the
richest and noblest youths of the Florentine patrician families, desired
to have an oligarchical government; and the 'Bigi', or Greys, so called
because they always held their meetings in the shade, who desired the
return of the Medici.

The first measure Alexander used against the growing power of Savonarola
was to declare him heretic, and as such banished from the pulpit; but
Savonarola had eluded this prohibition by making his pupil and friend,
Domenico Bonvicini di Pescia, preach in his stead. The result was that
the master's teachings were issued from other lips, and that was all;
the seed, though scattered by another hand, fell none the less
on fertile soil, where it would soon burst into flower. Moreover,
Savonarola now set an example that was followed to good purpose
by Luther, when, twenty-two years later, he burned Leo X's bull of
excommunication at Wittenberg; he was weary of silence, so he declared,
on the authority of Pope Pelagius, that an unjust excommunication had no
efficacy, and that the person excommunicated unjustly did not even need
to get absolution. So on Christmas Day, 1497, he declared that by the
inspiration of God he renounced his obedience to a corrupt master; and
he began to preach once more in the cathedral, with a success that
was all the greater for the interruption, and an influence far more
formidable than before, because it was strengthened by that sympathy of
the masses which an unjust persecution always inspires.

Then Alexander made overtures to Leonardo dei Medici, vicar of the
archbishopric of Florence, to obtain the punishment of the rebel:
Leonardo, in obedience to the orders he received, from Rome, issued a
mandate forbidding the faithful to attend at Savonarola's sermons. After
this mandate, any who should hear the discourses 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