nalysis in theory, and in practice to over-confident reliance
on personal ability. The individual has attained to freedom; but he has
not learned the necessity of submitting his volition to law. At all
points the development of the Italians strikes us as precocious, with
the weakness of precocity scarcely distinguishable from the decay of old
age. A transition from the point attained in the Renaissance to some
firmer and more solid ground was imperatively demanded. But the fatality
of events precluded the Italians from making it. Their evolution,
checked in mid career by the brilliant ambition of France and the
cautious reactionary despotism of Spain, remained suspended. Students
are left, face to face with the sixteenth century, to decipher an
inscription that lacks its leading verb, to puzzle over a riddle whereof
the solution is hidden from us by the ruin of a people. It must ever be
an undecided question whether the Italians, undisturbed by foreign
interference, could have passed beyond the artificial and exceptional
stage of the Renaissance to a sounder and more substantial phase of
national vitality; or whether, as their inner conscience seems to have
assured them, their disengagement from moral obligation and their mental
ferment foreboded an inevitable catastrophe.

CHAPTER IX.

SAVONAROLA.

The Attitude of Savonarola toward the Renaissance--His Parentage, Birth,
and Childhood at Ferrara--His Poem on the Ruin of the World--Joins the
Dominicans at Bologna--Letter to his Father--Poem on the Ruin of the
Church--Begins to preach in 1482--First Visit to Florence--San
Gemignano--His Prophecy--Brescia in 1486--Personal Appearance and Style
of Oratory--Effect on his audience--The three Conclusions--His
Visions--Savonarola's Shortcomings as a patriotic Statesman--His sincere
Belief in his prophetic Calling--Friendship with Pico della
Mirandola--Settles in Florence, 1490--Convent of San Marco--Savonarola's
Relation to Lorenzo de' Medici--The death of Lorenzo--Sermons of 1493
and 1494--the Constitution of 1495--Theocracy in Florence--Piagnoni,
Bigi, and Arrabbiati--War between Savonarola and Alexander VI.--The
Signory suspends him from preaching in the Duomo in 1498--Attempts to
call a Council--The Ordeal by Fire--San Marco stormed by the Mob--Trial
and Execution of Savonarola.

Nothing is more characteristic of the sharp contrasts of the Italian
Renaissance than the emergence not only from the same society,