A cap of blood Mary O’Regan remembers Girolamo Savonarola

A cap of blood

Mary O’Regan remembers Girolamo Savonarola

Florence, May 1498. A scaffold was erected in Piazza della Signoria where the infamous Dominican, Girolamo Savonarola was to be hanged.

Conveniently enough for the corrupt Pope Alexander VI, Savonarola had been supposedly found guilty of heresy. A bishop came to degrade Savonarola from the clerical state, and said, “I remove you from the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant.” Savonarola contemptuously replied, “Not from the Church Triumphant, that is not within your power.” Before the noose strangled him, Savonarola withdrew the false testimony he had given under torture where he had “admitted” to having acted out of personal ambition and not divine inspiration.

After he was strangled, a burning pyre licked the flesh off his bones until his body was reduced to ash and swiftly flung into the River Arno, where it dissolved before anyone had a chance to collect his last remains. The life of a loud and influential critic of the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI was snuffed out. He was only 45.

Perhaps his most accurate criticisms were of the financial malfeasance and corruption of Pope Alexander VI’s reign. Savonarola charged the Spanish born Pope with simony, that he had bribed certain cardinals to vote him into the Chair of Peter, which historians down through the ages have credited as true. Savonarola unflinchingly decried Alexander VI’s “execrable crime of simony”. He repeatedly denounced the Pope’s lustfulness, he made hay with the fact that Alexander VI had fathered several children with his mistresses.

From his pulpit, Savonarola railed against Alexander VI, and called him, “this pestilence”, and even declared, “This man is not a Christian, he does not even believe there is a God.” Savonarola was not very tactful, or subtle. His conclusions were sometimes tainted with personal dislike. He held the Pope in contempt, and truly Alexander was contemptible, but Savonarola’s conclusion that he was an atheist was surely beyond his ability to tell.

Savonarola was no sycophant. He was certainly not complicit in the corruption or a tacit observer, and for that a debt of gratitude is owed him. The words he used were vile, but he did so because the Church was in a vile state. I, however, am a recovering papal sycophant. To my shame, in years gone by, I was in a bid to outdo myself to pour praise on past and present bishops of Rome. But my conscience has made me eat my sweet words, and I find something medicinal in the way Savonarola’s words put into perspective the dire situation of Pope Alexander VI’s papal court. I am not saying modern Popes share the misdemeanours of Alexander VI, rather I see the necessity of open criticism of high-ranking men of the cloth.

Savonarola’s criticisms would not have ruffled the Pope much, had he been a small-time preacher with a tiny audience. But no, for a handful of years Florence was under the firm control of the implacable Savonarola who ruled as moral leader or “dictator” as his critics hyperbolically claim. He sought to cleanse the city of prostitution, gambling, drunkenness and debauchery. He employed a league of youths to spy on citizens; he never tried to flatter his congregation. During one sermon he held forth on why Florence was like a donkey.

The validity of his methods still stirs debate and even people who warm to him are conflicted about his tactics and some of his teachings, as am I. He was keen to preach that natural consequences of vice were signs of God’s vengeance. There was a syphilis epidemic, and he taught that this was a punishment from God.

At the height of his power, he organized a bonfire of the vanities where he instigated the burning of objects, from cards and dice to immodest items of clothes. Most jarringly, he burned works of art with levels of nudity that breached his standards. His critics often assert as fact that Savonarola reduced to ash several masterpieces – well, he definitely wanted the destruction of pieces of art that depicted Our Lady in an unchaste and impure manner, and thus he defended the Blessed Virgin’s honour.

Savonarola most threatened Alexander was his campaign for a council that would depose the Pope. Such a council could have revealed Alexander's simony, and shown his election to be invalid, maybe even led to him being forced to resign, and led to a cleansing of the curia. One view is that this might have prevented the Reformation.

Alexander grew weary of this diehard Dominican. He sent Savonarola an invitation to come to Rome and explain himself, whichthe Dominicanrebuffedon grounds that he was needed in Florence. Next the Pope forbade Savonarola from preaching, but the Dominican continued to preach and denounce the Pope in ever more vituperative terms. When the Pope charged Savonarola with disobedience, Savonarola preached that if the Pope commands something wrong, then he must be disobeyed. His excommunication followed shortly but he fought it off, pointing out that excommunications were easily bought.

Savonarola was thrown in jail where he was tortured for 45 days before his execution. Savonarola had always wanted to be martyred. When the philandering Alexander VI tried to buy Savonarola by making him a cardinal, Savonarola sharply refused the red hat saying, “I want a cap of blood.” Savonarola was a priest, unsuited to his times, because he could not be bought.