er ruled the conduct of Savonarola. From this time his life is that of
a statesman no less than of a preacher. What Lorenzo refused, or was
indeed upon his deathbed quite unable to perform, the monk determined to
achieve. Henceforth he became the champion of popular liberty in the
pulpit. Feeling that in the people alone lay any hope of regeneration
for Italy, he made it the work of his whole life to give the strength
and sanction of religion to republican freedom. This work he sealed with
martyrdom. The spirit of the creed which he bequeathed to his partisans
in Florence was political no less than pious. Whether Savonarola was
right to embark upon the perilous sea of statecraft cannot now be
questioned. What prophet of Israel from Samuel to Isaiah was not the
maker and destroyer of kings and constitutions? When we call him by
their title, we mean to say that he, like them, controlled by spiritual
force the fortunes of his people. Whether he sought it or not, this
role of politician was thrust upon him by the course of events: nor was
the history of Italian cities deficient in precedents of similar
functions assumed by preaching friars.[1]

[1] It is enough to allude to Arnold of Brescia in Rome, to Fra
Bussolari in Pavia, ami to John of Vicenza. Sec Appendix iv.

To Lorenzo succeeded the incompetent Piero de' Medici, who surrendered
the fortresses of Tuscany to the French army. While Savonarola was
prophesying a sword, a scourge, a deluge, Charles VIII. rode at the head
of his knighthood into Florence. The city was leaderless, unused to
liberty. Who but the monk who had predicted the invasion should now
attempt to control it? Who but he whose voice alone had power to
assemble and to sway the Florentines should now direct them? His
administrative faculty in a narrow sphere had been proved by his reform
of the Dominican Convents. His divine mission was authenticated by the
arrival of the French. The Lord had raised him up to act as well as to
utter. He felt this: the people felt it. He was not the man to refuse
responsibility.

During the years of 1493 and 1494, when Florence together with Italy was
in imminent peril, the voice of Savonarola never ceased to ring. His
sermons on the psalm 'Quam bonus' and on the Ark of Noah are among the
most stupendous triumphs of his eloquence. From his pulpit beneath the
somber dome of Brunelleschi he kept pouring forth words of power to
resuscitate the free spirit of his Flo