Christendom for the
convening of a Council. Lorenzo, however, was a man of supreme insight
into character, and knew how to value his antagonist. Therefore, when
the hour for dying came, and when, true child of the Renaissance that he
was, he felt the need of sacraments and absolution, he sent for
Savonarola, saying that he was the only honest friar he knew. The
magnanimity of the Medici was only equaled by the firmness of the monk.
Standing by the bedside of the dying man, who had confessed his sins,
Savonarola said: 'Three things are required of you: to have a full and
lively faith in God's mercy; to restore what you have unjustly gained;
to give back liberty to Florence.' Lorenzo assented readily to the two
first requisitions. At the third he turned his face in silence to the
wall. He must indeed have felt that to demand and promise this was
easier than to carry it into effect. Savonarola left him without
absolution. Lorenzo died.[1]

[1] It is just to observe that great doubt has been thrown on
the facts above related concerning Lorenzo's death. Poliziano,
who was with Lorenzo during his last illness, does not mention
them in his letter to Jacobus Antiquarius (xv. Kal. Jun. 1492).
But Burlmacchi, Pico, Barsanti, Razzi, and others of the
Frate's party, agree in the story. What Poliziano wrote was
that Savonarola confessed Lorenzo and retired without
volunteering the blessing. Razzi says the interview between
Savonarola and Lorenzo took place without witnesses; Pico and
Burlamacchi relate the event as they heard of it from the lips
of Savonarola. We have therefore to judge between the testimony
of Poliziano, who held no communication with the friar, and the
veracity of several narrators, biassed indeed by hostility
toward the Medici, but in direct intercourse with the only man
who could tell the exact truth of what passed--the confessor,
Savonarola, who had been alone with Lorenzo. Villari, after
sifting the evidence, arrives at the conclusion that we may
believe Burlamacchi. The Baron Reumont, in his recent _Life of
Lorenzo_, vol. ii. p. 590, gives some solid reasons for
accepting this conclusion with caution, and Gino Capponi
expresses a distinct disbelief in Burlamacchi's narration.

The third point insisted upon by the friar, Restore liberty to Florence,
not only broke the peace of the dying prince, but it also afterwards for
ev