pous shows which
greeted AEneas Sylvius, more like a Roman general than a new-made Pope,
on his entrance into Ferrara. Since then he had seen the monster Sixtus
mount the Papal throne. No wonder if he, who had fled from the world to
the Church for purity and peace, should need to vent his passion in a
song. 'Where,' he cries, 'are the doctors of old times, the saints, the
learning, charity, chastity of the past?' The Church answers by
displaying her rent raiment and wounded body, and by pointing to the
cavern in which she has to make her home. 'Who,' exclaims the poet, 'has
wrought this wrong?' _Una fallace, superba meretrice_--Rome! Then indeed
the passion of the novice breaks in fire:--

Deh! per Dio, donna,
Se romper si potria quelle grandi ale!

The Church replies:--

Tu piangi e taci: e questo meglio parmi.

No other answer could be given to Savonarola's impatient yearnings even
by his own hot heart, while he yet remained a young and unknown monk in
Bologna. Nor, strive as he might strive through all his life, was it
granted to him to break those outspread wings of arrogant Rome.

The career of Savonarola as a preacher began in 1482, when he was sent
first to Ferrara and then to Florence on missions by his superiors. But
at neither place did he find acceptance. A prophet has no honor in his
own country; and for pagan-hearted Florence, though destined to be the
theater of his life-drama, Savonarola had as yet no thundrous burden of
invective to utter. Besides, his voice was sharp and thin; his face and
person were not prepossessing. The style of his discourse was adapted to
cloisteral disputations, and overloaded with scholastic distinctions.
The great orator had not yet arisen in him. The friar, with all his
dryness and severity, was but too apparent. With what strange feelings
must the youth have trodden the streets of Florence! In after-days he
used to say that he foreknew those streets and squares were destined to
be the scene of his labors. But then, voiceless, powerless, without
control of his own genius, without the consciousness of his prophetic
mission, he brooded alone and out of harmony with the beautiful and
mundane city. The charm of the hills and gardens of Valdarno, the
loveliness of Giotto's tower, the amplitude of Brunelleschi's
dome--these may have sunk deep into his soul. And the subtle temper of
the Florentine intellect must have attracted his own keen spirit by a
secret sympath