mittebant. Ex eis quadam quae cupiditate lucri
adolescentem admiserat, deprehensa, aliae meretrices ita illius nates
nudas corrigiis percusserunt, ut sanguinem emitteret.'[2] Ferrara
exhibited a like devotion in 1496, on even a larger scale. About this
time the entire Italian nation was panic-stricken by the passage of
Charles VIII., and by the changes in states and kingdoms which
Savonarola had predicted. The Ferrarese, to quote the language of their
chronicler, expected that 'in this year, throughout Italy, would be the
greatest famine, war, and want that had ever been since the world
began.' Therefore they fasted, and 'the Duke of Ferrara fasted together
with the whole of his court. At the same time a proclamation was made
against swearing, games of hazard, and unlawful trades: and it was
enacted that the Jews should resume their obnoxious yellow gaberdine
with the O upon their breasts. In 1500 these edicts were repeated. The
condition of Italy had grown worse and worse: it was necessary to
besiege the saints with still more energetic demonstrations. Therefore
'the Duke Ercole d' Este, for good reasons to him known, _and because it
is always well to be on good terms with God,_ ordained that processions
should be made every third day in Ferrara, with the whole clergy, and
about 4,000 children or more from twelve years of age upwards, dressed
in white, and each holding a banner with a painted Jesus. His lordship,
and his sons and brothers, followed this procession, namely the Duke on
horseback, because he could not then walk, and all the rest on foot,
behind the Bishop.'[3] A certain amount of irony transpires in this
quotation, which would make one fancy that the chronicler suspected the
Duke of ulterior, and perhaps political, motives.

[1] See Muratori, vol. xxiii. p. 839.

[2] _Annales Bononienses._ Mur. xxiii. 890.

[3] _Diario Ferrarese._ Mur. xxiv. pp. 17-386.

It sometimes happened that the contagion of such devotion spread from
city to city; on one occasion, in 1399, it traveled from Piedmont
through the whole of Italy. The epidemic of flagellants, of which
Giovanni Villani speaks in 1310 (lib. viii. cap. 121), began also in
Piedmont, and spread along the Genoese Riviera. The Florentine
authorities refused entrance to these fanatics into their territory. In
1334, Villani mentions another outburst of the same devotion (lib xi.
cap. 23), which was excited by the preaching of Fra Venturino da
Berg