f rhetoric that flows to waste upon the lips
of shallow preachers, but marshaling the phalanx of embattled arguments
and pointed illustrations, pouring his thought forth in columns of
continuous flame, mingling figures of sublimest imagery with reasonings
severest accuracy, at one time melting his audience tears, at another
freezing them with terror, again quickening their souls with prayers
and pleadings and blessings that had in them the sweetness of the very
spirit of Christ. His sermons began with scholastic exposition; as they
advanced, the ecstasy of inspiration fell upon the preacher, till the
sympathies of the whole people of Florence gathered round him,[2] met
and attained, as it were, to single consciousness in him. He then no
longer restrained the impulse of his oratory, but became the mouthpiece
of God, the interpreter to themselves of all that host. In a fiery
crescendo, never flagging, never losing firmness of grasp or lucidity of
vision, he ascended the altar steps of prophecy, and, standing like
Moses on the mount between the thunders of God and the tabernacles of
the plain, fulminated period after period of impassioned eloquence. The
walls of the church re-echoed with sobs and wailings dominated by one
ringing voice. The scribe to whom we owe the fragments of these sermons,
at times breaks off with these words: 'Here I was so overcome with
weeping that I could not go on.' Pico della Mirandola tells us that the
mere sound of Savonarola's voice, startling the stillness of the Duomo,
thronged through all its space with people, was like a clap of doom: a
cold shiver ran through the marrow of his bones, the hairs of his head
stood on end, as he listened. Another witness reports: 'These sermons
caused such terror, alarm, sobbing, and tears that every one passed
through the streets without speaking, more dead than alive.'

[1] Engravings of the several portraits may be seen in
Harford's _Life of Michael Angelo Buonarroti_ (Longmans, 1857
vol. i.), and also in Villari.

[2] Nardi, in his _Istorie di Firenze_ (lib. ii. cap. 16),
describes the crowd assembled in the Duomo to hear Savonarola
preach: 'Per la moltitudine degli uditori non essendo quasi
bastante la chiesa cattedrale di santa Maria del Fiore, ancora
che molto grande e capace sia, fu necessario edificar dentro
lungo i pareti di quella, dirempetto al pergamo, certi gradi di
legname rilevati con ordine di sederi,