BOOK VII

THE BONFIRE OF VANITIES--1496

'_Dov' è più sentimento, li è più, ne' martiri, gran martire._' LEONARDO DA VINCI.

(He who feels most, is the greatest of the martyrs.)

'A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.' ST. JAMES i. 8.

I

More than a year had passed since Giovanni Boltraffio had been received as a novice in the Convent of San Marco.

On a winter's day towards the close of the carnival of 1496, shortly after noon, Fra Girolamo was writing the account of a vision which had lately appeared to him. He had seen two crosses waving above the city of Rome, one black and enveloped in storm, inscribed--'The Cross of the fury of the Lord'; the other of gleaming azure, with the inscription--'The Cross of the Lord's mercy.'

February sunshine flooded the narrow cell with its white and naked walls, great black crucifix, and the thick parchment books in antique leather. Now and then from the blue sky came the joyous twitter of the swallows.

Fra Girolamo felt unwonted weariness, and now and then trembled. Laying down his pen, he dropped his head on his hands, closed his eyes, and meditated upon what he had that morning heard about Pope Alexander VI. from Fra Paolo, a monk who had been on a secret mission to Rome. Monstrous images like those described in the Apocalypse passed and whirled before the mind of the prior; he saw the blood-stained bull of the shield of the Borgias, reminding him of Apis, the heathen god; the golden calf borne before the pontiff instead of the humble Lamb of God; nightly orgies at the Vatican in the presence of the Holy Father, of his favourite daughter, and of the College of Cardinals; the beautiful Giulia Farnese, mistress of the sexagenarian pope, and the model for contemporary portraits of the saints; his two sons, Cesare the young Cardinal of Valenza, and Giovanni the Duke of Candia, who out of criminal love for Lucrezia their sister, hated each other to the point of fratricide. And haunted by what Fra Paolo had scarcely dared to whisper, the tale of the strange relations between the pope and this Lucrezia his daughter, Girolamo trembled.

'But no, 'tis calumny. It were too great an enormity! God sees that I cannot believe it,' he murmured.

But in the depths of his soul he felt that nothing was impossible in that terrible nest of the Borgias, and drops of cold sweat stood out upon his forehead. He had fallen on his knees before the crucifix, when a low knocking was heard at the door of his cell.

'Who is it?'

'It is I, father.'

He recognized the voice of his trusty friend, Fra Domenico Buonvicino.

'Ricciardo Becchi, secret legate from the pope, prays for an audience.'

'Good. Let him wait. Meanwhile send me Fra Silvestro.'

Fra Silvestro Maruffi was epileptic and of weak intellect, but Fra Girolamo, considering him a chosen vessel of the grace of God, both loved and feared him. He interpreted Maruffi's visions according to the precise rules of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Schoolmen, finding by ingenuity, by the arguments of logic, by enthymemes, apophthegms, and syllogisms, prophetical meaning in the vain babble of an idiot. Maruffi showed no respect for his superior, insulted him publicly, and even struck him; offences which Fra Girolamo received with the utmost meekness. So that if the people of Florence were in the hands of Savonarola, Savonarola was in the hands of the half-witted Maruffi.

Having entered, Fra Silvestro sat on the floor and scratched furiously at his red and naked feet, chanting a monotonous song. His face was freckled, with a sharp nose, and a hanging lower lip. His rheumy eyes of a dull green were melancholy.

'Brother,' said Savonarola, 'the pope has sent me a secret messenger. Tell me, shall I receive him? What should I say? Have you had any voice or vision?'

Maruffi grimaced, barked and grunted. He had great gifts in the imitation of animals.

'Beloved Brother,' said Savonarola, 'be kind! Speak! My soul faints under the burden of mortal sadness. Pray God that He illuminate thee with His spirit of prophecy.'

The other opened wide his mouth and rolled his tongue; his face was strangely contorted; and he burst out angrily:

'Why should you trouble me, you tedious talker, you sheep's-head, you brainless quail? May the rats devour your nose! You have made your bed--lie on it. I am neither prophet nor councillor.'

He paused, looked at Savonarola from under his scowling eyebrows, and continued more quietly:--

'Brother, I'm sorry for you! But as for my visions, how know you if they come from God or from the devil?'

Silvestro closed his eyes. His countenance took an expression of repose. Savonarola held his breath in holy expectancy.

Suddenly Maruffi opened his eyes, slowly turned his head like one listening, looked out of the window, and a smile of good nature, peace, almost of intelligence, brightened his face.

'The birds!' he said; 'do you hear the birds? To be sure, the grass is springing in the meadows, and the first little yellow flowers! 'Tis enough. It's time to think of God now. Come! let us flee this sinful world; let us flee together to the desert!' And rocking himself, he began to sing in a sweet, lazy voice.

Suddenly he sprang to his feet, ran to Savonarola, seized his hand and cried, choking with excitement:--

'I have seen--I have seen--May the rats devour your nose! You head of an ass--I have seen----'

'Speak, dear brother; speak quickly!'

'Flames! Flames!' cried Maruffi.

'Well? And besides?'

'Flames rising from a stake, and in the midst of the flames a man----'

'Who?'

Nodding his head, and motioning with his hand, Silvestro did not reply at once; then fixing his penetrating eyes on the other, he laughed softly and foolishly, and murmured:--

'Thou!'

Fra Girolamo shuddered, paled, and drew back involuntarily. Maruffi turned away, and shambled out of the cell, singing:--

'Hie we to the smiling woods, The shy retreat of spring, Where the streams unsealèd flow, And the yellow-hammers sing!'

Recovering himself, Fra Girolamo gave orders to admit His Magnificence Ricciardo Becchi.

II

This man, Scriptor of the Papal Court of Chancery, entered Savonarola's cell, rustling a long silk garment shaped like the habit of a monk, but of the modish violet colour, and with hanging embroidered sleeves lined with fox-skin, his whole person emitting a perfume of musk. The studied grace of his movements, his pleasant and intelligent smile, his calm eyes, his dimpled and well-shaven cheek, showed him a master of dignified urbanity. He bent in a courtly reverence, kissed the hand of the Prior of San Marco, and asked his blessing; then entered upon a long speech in Latin beflowered with Ciceronianisms and resounding sententiousness. He began with what in the rules of oratory is called the appeal for goodwill, dilating upon the fame of the Florentine preacher; then he gradually approached the mission entrusted to him. The Holy Father, though righteously angered by Fra Girolamo's refusal to present himself in Rome, nevertheless burning with zeal for the Church's good, for the perfect union of the faithful in Christ, and for the peace of the whole world, declared his fatherly readiness, in the event of Fra Girolamo's repentance, to restore him to favour.

Savonarola raised his eyes and said very quietly:--

'Messere, what think you? do you believe that the Holy Father and our lord has faith in Christ?'

Ricciardo allowed this unseemly question to pass without reply; he continued to dilate on his mission, giving the prior to understand that if he submitted himself, the red hat of a cardinal awaited him in Rome; then, bowing a second time, and touching Savonarola's hand with his lips, he added insinuatingly:--

'One little word, Father Girolamo, one little word, and the red hat is yours.'

Savonarola fixed his unflinching eyes on the speaker, and said slowly:--

'And if I refuse to submit, Messere? If I refuse to hold my peace? If the infatuated monk prefer to continue his barkings as the faithful watch-dog of the house of God?'

Raising his eyebrows in a faint grimace, Messer Ricciardo looked at the monk, then turned his eyes to his beautiful almond-shaped nails, and adjusted his priceless rings. Presently he drew slowly from his pocket, unfolded, and handed to the prior a bull of excommunication, to which nothing was lacking but the papal seal. In it Savonarola was called the son of perdition, 'the most contemptible of insects' _neauissimus omnipedum_.

'And you are waiting for an answer?' asked the monk quietly, when he had read the document.

The Scriptor assented with a light nod of his head.

Savonarola rose, and flung the bull at the feet of the emissary.

'There,' he said, 'there is my answer! Return to Rome and tell him who has sent you that I accept his challenge. Minister of Antichrist! We shall see whether he will excommunicate me, or whether it is I who shall drive him out of the pale of the Church!'

The door of the cell was softly opened and showed the head of Fra Domenico who, hearing the sonorous voice, was anxious to know what could be taking place. The monks were massed round the entrance.

Messer Ricciardo, who had cast several furtive glances at the door, now said politely:--

'May I remind you, Fra Girolamo, that I am charged only with a private mission?'

Savonarola moved to the door, and throwing it wide he cried:--'Hear all of ye; for not only to you but to the whole people of Florence I will proclaim the infamous traffic which has been proposed to me, choice between the cardinal's purple and the excommunication of the _Curia Romana_!' Under his low forehead his sunken eyes shone like coals; his ill-shaped lower jaw, trembling with wrath and almost satanic hatred and pride.

'Yea, the hour has come! I will thunder against you, all ye prelates and cardinals of Rome, even as once the holy fathers thundered against the pagans. I will force the key of this unclean house; the Church of God, which you have slain, shall hear my cry: "Lazarus, come forth!" and shall raise its head and issue from its tomb! What need I your mitres and your cardinal's hats? Give me the red hat of death; the blood-stained crown of martyrdom!'

III

Among the monks who crowded to hear these words of Savonarola was the novice, Giovanni Boltraffio. When the company had dispersed, he too descended by the main staircase of the convent, and sat in his accustomed spot under the portico, where at this hour reigned solitude and calm.

The court was surrounded by the white monastery walls, and in it grew laurels, cypresses, and a thicket of damask roses. Report said that these roses were watered by angels. Fra Girolamo loved to preach amongst them.

The novice opened the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, and read: 'Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils.'

Then he rose and paced the cloister, recalling his thoughts and emotions during the year he had spent within the walls of San Marco. After the moral torture of the preceding months, he had at first experienced great peace in this retreat among the disciples of Savonarola.

Sometimes Father Girolamo would lead them out beyond the confines of the city. Following a steep path, which seemed to lead to heaven, they climbed the heights of Fiesole, from whence the City of Flowers, surrounded by smiling hills, appeared like some silver vision. The prior would seat himself in a meadow, enamelled with iris, tulips, and violets; the monks reclined in a circle round him, and talked and danced and frolicked like so many children, or played on viols and citherns, like those which the _beato Angelico_ placed in the hands of his angels, circling as they sing in the choir of heaven. Fra Girolamo did not preach nor play the master, but talked affectionately and took his part in the games and laughter. And Giovanni, looking at the radiant smile on his countenance, there on the retired Fiesole hill, under the heaven of most pure azure, hearing the vibrating tones of the stringed instruments, and the voices blended in holy song, fancied himself an angel in the paradise of God. Sometimes at dawn Savonarola would walk to the edge of the slope, and look down on his Florence, bathed in the morning mist, even as a mother looks on her sleeping babe, and from below would rise the first clanging of the bells announcing the beginning of day, like the sleepy babble of a half-awakened child.

And on summer nights, when the fireflies moved through the embalmed air like the torches of unseen angels, and the roses exhaled their mystic odour in the convent-yard, Fra Girolamo would tell of the stigmata of St. Francis, of the wounds, perfumed like roses, which her divine love had impressed on the tender body of St. Catharine. The brethren sang:--

'Fac me plagis vulnerari, Fac me Cruce inebriari, Ob amorem Filii.'

And Giovanni would tremble in the anguished expectation of miracle--the trembling hope that rays of fire, springing from the cup of the Holy Sacrament, would burn his body likewise with the sacred wounds of the Crucified. '_Gesù, Gesù mio, amore!_' he sighed, fainting in voluptuous ecstasy.

Once the prior sent him on a mission to the Villa Carreggi, two miles from Florence, where Lorenzo dei Medici had long sojourned, and at last had died. In one of the deserted saloons, lit by a ghostly light coming through the chinks of the shutters, Giovanni saw a picture of Botticelli's, called 'The Birth of Venus.'

White as a water-lily, bedewed with the briny freshness of the sea, standing on a pearly shell, the goddess floated over the waves, veiled in the abundant gold of her serpentine tresses, which she gathered in her hand. The fair naked body breathed the enticement of sin; yet was there a strange pathos in the pure childlike lips and the innocent eyes.

Giovanni shuddered; for it seemed to him that the face of the goddess was not new to him; he looked long at it, and remembered that he had already seen that countenance, those ingenuous, dewy eyes, those innocent lips with their tender sadness in another picture by that same Botticelli--a picture of the Mother of God. Inexpressible consternation filled his soul; he averted his eyes and fled from the villa.

Returning to Florence by a narrow lane, he saw at the angle of a cross-way an ancient Rood, and he sank on his knees and prayed for the driving from him of temptation. But at that moment came the trill of a mandoline from the roses behind the wall; a voice cried out, then murmured in a frightened whisper, 'No, no--leave me!' and another voice replied, 'Beloved! Love!--my love!' and then the mandoline fell, and a kiss was heard.

Giovanni sprang to his feet, reiterating, '_Gesù! Gesù_!' but this time he dared not add '_amore_!'

'Here also is _she_!' he said; 'everywhere! in the face of the Madonna, in the words of the holy hymns, in the breath of the roses which crown the crucifix!'

And hiding his face in his hands he fled, as if escaping from an unseen persecution.

Back in the convent, he went to Savonarola and told him all, and the prior exhorted him to fight against the devil by fasting and by prayer; and when the novice sought to explain that this torment was not the temptation of fleshly lust, but the seduction breathing from all the beauty of pagan antiquity, Savonarola, uncomprehending, at first showed astonishment, then told him sternly that he lied in thinking there could be aught in the pagan gods but concupiscence and pride. All beauty was contained in the Christian virtues. And Giovanni, not having found the looked-for comfort, from that day forth was possessed by the demons of restlessness and revolt.

Once Boltraffio heard Fra Girolamo, discoursing on painting, insist that every picture should have some moral utility for men, exciting them to the practice of those ascetic virtues which alone are healthful for the soul. And he added that the Florentines would do a work well-pleasing to God if they should destroy, at the hands of the executioner, all those images which entice to sin.

Then he went on to speak of knowledge:--'That man is a fool,' he said 'who conceives that by logic and by philosophy the truths of faith can be confirmed. Does a strong light need the help of a weak one? or the divine wisdom that of the human? Which of the apostles and the martyrs studied philosophy and logic? An old woman who can neither read nor write, but who prays fervently before the image of a saint, is nearer to the knowledge of God than all the sages and philosophers of the world. Neither logic nor science will stead them in the day of judgment: Homer and Virgil, Plato and Aristotle, all go to their end in the house of the devil; because, like the sirens, bewitching the ear with magic songs, they draw souls to eternal ruin. Science gives men stones for bread, and, verily, if you look at those who follow the teaching of this world, you will find in them that even their hearts are become as stones.'

'Who knows little, loves little. Great love is the daughter of great knowledge!' had said Leonardo da Vinci.

Only now did Giovanni realise the profundity of these words, as he listened to the anathema of the monk against knowledge and art, and remembered the wise reasonings of Leonardo, the calm of his countenance, his cold look, his wise and enchanting smile. Not that he had forgotten the poisoned tree, the Ear, the crane for the Holy Nail, but now he felt that he had not fathomed the depth of his master's soul, had not penetrated into the mysteries of his heart, nor untied the prime knot in which all the threads must meet.

Such were the memories upon which Giovanni looked back at the end of his first convent year. Deep in thought he paced the darkening cloister, till the evening had fallen and the _Ave Maria_ rang through the dusk. The monks wended to the chapel, but Giovanni remained outside, reseating himself.

Then with a bitter smile he raised his eyes to the silent heaven, where shone the evening star, the torch of Lucifer, the most beautiful of angels, the bringer of light, son of the morning.

He returned to his cell and slept: towards the dawning he dreamed. And in his dream he was with Monna Cassandra, astride of a black goat, and fleeting through the morning air, 'To the Sabbath! to the Sabbath!' cried the witch, turning to him her clear amber eyes; and he knew in her the goddess of earthly love, she with the heavenly sadness in her eyes--the _diavolessa bianca_. The full moon shone on her body. Sweet odours almost overpowered him. His teeth chattered with desire and with fear. '_Amore! Amore!_' she cried and laughed, and the black goat-skin sank beneath them. Away! Away! they careered.

IV

Giovanni was awakened by the sun, by the sound of bells and of childish voices. He dressed hurriedly, and descended into the court where was a great crowd of people, and among them children all dressed in white, and carrying olive-branches and small red crosses. It was 'The Sacred Legion of the Child Inquisitors,' founded by Savonarola to watch over and reform the purity of morals in the town. Giovanni mixed in the crowd, and listened to their talk.

Then a wave passed over the ranks of the sacred troop; innumerable small hands waved the olive-branches and the red crosses above their heads, acclaiming Savonarola, who was entering, and a chorus of silver voices intoned a psalm in his honour:--

'_Lumen ad revelationem gentium et gloriam plebis Israel._'

The children made a circle round the Prior, covering him with a rain of violets and anemones, and they knelt before him, kissing his feet. Illumined by a ray of the sun, silently, with a tender smile, the worn-faced Savonarola blessed them.

'Long live Christ, King of Florence! Hallelujah to Christ, the King of Florence. Hail Mary, Blessed Virgin, and our Queen!' shouted the young voices.

The captains gave the order to march, drums beat, flags fluttered, and the sacred troop moved off. For in the Piazza della Signoria was prepared the pyre for the burning of the vanities, and the children were once more to make the circuit of the city to collect 'vanities and things under anathema.'

V

When the court was clear, Giovanni saw Messer Cipriano Buonaccorsi, Master of the noble Guild of the Calimala, the lover of pagan antiquities, on whose property by the Hill of the Mill the marble figure of the goddess of Love had been found. They greeted each other warmly, and spoke for some time. From Messer Cipriano Giovanni learned that Leonardo had come from Milan, charged by the duke to purchase such works of art as could escape the Legion of Children. Giorgio Merula was with the painter. Presently Messer Cipriano asked Giovanni to conduct him to Savonarola. The master of the Calimala entered Fra Girolamo's cell, and Giovanni waiting outside heard their talk. Messer Cipriano offered twenty-two thousand gold florins if he might buy all the books, the pictures, the statues, and other treasures which were ordained for the burning. Savonarola refused. Messer Cipriano increased his offer by eight thousand florins. To this the Monk deigned no reply; only his stern and rigid face became yet sterner and more rigid. Buonaccorsi's toothless mouth quivered. He wrapped his fox-skin cloak round his shivering knees; he sighed heavily, and closing his myopic eyes, he said in his quiet voice: 'Well, Father Girolamo, I will ruin myself. I will give you all I possess: forty thousand florins.'

Savonarola grimly raised his head. 'And what were your profit,' he asked, 'if you ruined yourself?'

'I was born in this city,' replied Messer Cipriano. 'I love my land; and for no condition in the world can I endure that we, like the barbarian hordes, should destroy the masterpieces of wisdom and of art.'

'Would that thou didst love thy heavenly country as thou lovest thine earthly one, my son!' exclaimed the Monk, turning on the old man a look full of admiration; 'but be consoled, only things meet for burning shall be burned. What induces to wickedness and vice cannot include anything of beauty, as, indeed, your same wise ancients have said.'

'Alas, father!' returned the merchant, eagerly, 'are you certain that babes can distinguish so precisely between the evil and the good?'

'Truth and innocency is in the mouth of babes. "Except ye become as children ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." Is it not written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent"? Messere, I pray day and night that God may enlighten my babes, so that by His Holy Spirit their minds may be opened to discover all the vanities of science and of art.'

'I beseech you to consider--perhaps even a part----'

'You are wasting your breath, messere. My decision is unalterable.'

Again Messer Cipriano's old lips moved, but Savonarola heard only one word--'Madness!'

'Madness?' he echoed, his eyes flashing; 'and the golden calf of the Borgias offered to the pope in his sacrilegious festivals--is that not madness? And the elevation of the Holy Nail, to the glory of God, by a diabolical machine at the command of an impious assassin and usurper--is that not madness? You dance madly round the golden calf in honour of your God, which is Mammon; let us, then, who are poor in spirit, be mad in honour of our God, who is Christ Jesus the Crucified. You bemock the monks who on the piazza dance around the cross. Wait! There are other spectacles which wait for you. What will you wise men say when I lead not only the monks, but the whole people of Florence, adults as well as children, men and women, to dance around the Cross-Tree of Salvation, as of old David danced before the Ark of the Covenant to the glory of the Most High!'

VI

Leaving the prior's cell, Giovanni Boltraffio turned his steps towards the Piazza della Signoria. In Via Larga he met the sacred troop. The children had stopped a palanquin carried by black slaves, in which reclined a woman gorgeously attired. A lapdog slept on her knee, a parrot and a monkey were on perches by her side, the litter was followed by servants and by guards. She was a courtesan, Lena Griffi, not long come from Venice, one of those whom the most Serene Republic called '_meretrix honesta_,' or playfully 'Mammola' (little dear); and whose name in the placard, drawn up for the convenience of travellers, was set down in large characters and in a place of honour at the top of the list.

Lolling on her cushions like Cleopatra, or a Queen of Sheba, Lena was reading a love-missive from a youthful bishop. Its postscript was a song ending thus:--

'Listening to thy voice I rise From this globe towards the skies, Plato's Sphere of Ecstasies.'

The courtesan was meditating on a return sonnet, for she was an accomplished versifier, and used to say that had it depended on herself, she would gladly have passed her whole existence in the _Accademia degli vomini virtuosi_--in the Academy of the Virtuous.

The sacred troop of children encircled the litter. Dolfo, the leader of one of the bands, advanced raising his red cross, and cried: 'In the name of Jesus, the King of Florence, and of the Blessed Mary our Queen, we bid you strip off these sinful ornaments, these vanities and anathemata. And if you refuse, may you fall under the malediction of God!'

The dog suddenly awakened began to bark, the monkey chattered, the parrot, flapping its wings, screamed out a verse it had learned from its mistress:--

'Amor che a nullo amato amar perdona!'

Lena was about to bid her attendants rid her of the crowd when her eyes fell on Dolfo, and she beckoned to him.

The boy came, his eyes on the ground.

'Away with these ornaments!' shouted the children. 'Away with the vanities and the anathemata.'

'Ah, you handsome boy!' said the courtesan softly, disregarding the cries of the crowd. 'Mark you, my little Adonis, I would willingly give you all my poor toys, but the matter is they are not mine own!'

Dolfo raised his eyes; and Lena, with a scarcely perceptible smile, nodded as if confirming his secret thoughts, then added caressingly, in her soft Venetian accent: 'In the Vicolo de' Bottai, near the Santa Trinità, ask for Lena, the lady from Venice. I'll be expecting you.'

Dolfo looked round and saw that his followers had become involved with a party of Savonarola's enemies (called the _Arrabbiati_, the Enraged), and had forgotten the courtesan. It was his duty to bid them fall upon her, but suddenly he felt himself vanquished, and flushed and hung his head.

Lena laughed, showing her white teeth; and behind the sumptuous Cleopatra and Queen of Sheba there shone out the Venetian 'Mammola,' the saucy street-girl, mischievous and naughty.

The slaves lifted the litter and she pursued her way unmolested, spaniel on lap; the parrot settled down on his perch; only the monkey still grimaced, and tried to snatch the pencil with which the courtesan was beginning verses to the bishop:--

'My love is purer than a seraph's sigh....'

Dolfo, meantime, preceding his company, but without his former braggadocio, mounted the stair of the Palazzo dei Medici.

VII

In the dark, silent, and spacious halls of the Medicean palace, where all breathed the solemn grandeur of the past, the children became awestruck. But when the shutters had been flung open, the trumpets had blared, and the drums beat, then the youthful inquisitors scattered themselves through the rooms, shouting and laughing, and singing hymns, and executing the judgment of God on the sins of learning and art, gleefully prying into vanities by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Giovanni watched them at work, and noted some who, with frowning foreheads, hands decently folded, and the gravity of judges, paced among the statues of the philosophers and heroes of pagan antiquity. 'Pythagoras, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus,' read one of the boys from the Latin inscriptions on the marble bases.

'Epictetus?' said Federici, with the tone of a profound connoisseur, 'that is the particular heretic who permitted all pleasures and denied the existence of God. He merits burning; 'tis pity he is marble.'

'Never mind,' cried the cross-eyed Pippo, 'we'll have him in to the feast.'

'Nay,' interposed Giovanni; 'you are confounding Epictetus with Epicurus.'

He was too late; down came Pippo's hammer so clean on the philosopher's nose that the boys yelled in admiration.

'Epictetus or Epicurus, it's all one! If it isn't the broth, it's the sippets of bread! They shall all go to the house of the devil,' they cried, quoting Fra Girolamo.

However, contention arose before a picture of Botticelli's. Dolfo declared it was the naked Bacchus pierced by the shafts of love, but Federici, whose eye for 'anathemata' rivalled Dolfo's, examined the picture attentively and pronounced it a portrait of Stephen the proto-martyr.

The children stood round in perplexity, for the attire and the expression of the figure in nowise suggested a saint.

'Don't you believe him!' cried Dolfo; ''tis Bacchus, the abominable Bacchus!'

'You blasphemer!' shouted Federici, raising his crucifix for weapon, and the two boys fell upon each other with such goodwill that their followers could hardly separate them. The picture was left for future consideration.

Standing in wondering groups, the children rummaged amongst the properties of old carnivals--amongst the horrid masks of satyrs, grapes for bacchantes, bows, amongst quivers, and wings of Eros, the wands of Hermes, the tridents of Poseidon. Finally, drawing them forth amid shouts of laughter, they lighted on the wooden, gilded, cobwebbed thunderbolt of Jupiter Tonans, and the moth-eaten body of the Olympian eagle, with moulted tail, and wires and nails protruding from his perforated crop. A rat jumped out from the dusty golden wig once worn by Aphrodite, girls screamed, jumped on the couches and gathered up their petticoats. The shadows of terrified bats beating against the ceiling seemed the wings of unclean spirits, and a chill of horror and repulsion settled on the children as they touched this heathen lumber, this sepulchral dust of deities.

Dolfo running up announced that there was yet another room, its door guarded by a little, bald, furious, red-nosed, detestable man, who was hurling blasphemy and curses, and would permit no one to pass. The troop filed off to reconnoitre; and Giovanni, following them, found in the janitor his friend the bibliophile, Messer Giorgio Merula.

Dolfo gave the signal for attack; Messer Giorgio stood before the door preparing to defend it with his body. The children fell upon him, rolled him over, beat him with their crosses, searched his pockets till they had found the key, and opened the door. It was a small room with a library of precious books.

'Here, here!' suggested Merula, cunningly, 'the books you seek are in this corner. You needn't waste your time over the top shelves. There's nothing there.'

But the inquisitors heeded him not. All that came to hand they piled in a vast heap, especially the books in rich bindings. Then they opened the windows and flung the fat folios straight into the street, where carts were being loaded with 'vanities.' Tibullus, Horace, Ovid, Apuleius, Aristophanes, rare copies, unique editions flew through the air before Merula's very eyes. He rescued one small volume and hid it in his bosom. It was the history of Marcellinus, containing the life of Julian the Apostate. Seeing on the floor a delicately-illuminated manuscript of the tragedies of Sophocles, he snatched it up and made piteous supplication:--

'Children, dear children! spare Sophocles. He is the most innocent of poets. Let him alone! Let him alone!'

And he pressed the precious leaves convulsively to his breast, but finding them tear beneath his too loving hands he burst into sobs and groans, dropped his treasure, and cried in impotent fury:--

'Know, ye sons of dogs, that one line of this inestimable Sophocles is worth all the prophecies put together of your madman, Fra Girolamo.'

'Old man, if you don't want to be taken by the heels and thrown after your pagan poets, you'll hold your tongue!' cried the children, dragging him from the library.

Then leaving the palace, they passed by Santa Maria del Fiore, and marched to the Piazza della Signoria.

VIII

In front of the dark and slender tower of the Palazzo Vecchio the pyre stood ready. It was thirty cubits in height, one hundred and twenty in circumference; an octagonal pyramid with at least fifteen steps. On the lowest were the comic masks, dresses, wigs, and other carnival properties; on the next three, profane books from Anacreon and Ovid to the _Decameron_, and the _Morgante Maggiore_ of Messer Luigi Pulci. Above the books were the instruments of female beauty--washes, essences, mirrors, puffs, curling-tongs, hair-pins, nail-nippers. Still higher were lutes and mandolines, cards, chessmen, balls, dice--all the games by means of which men serve the devil. Then came drawings, voluptuous pictures, portraits of light women; lastly, on the summit of the pyramid, the gods, heroes and sages of pagan antiquity, made of wood and of coloured wax. Above the pile, towering higher than anything else, the figure of Satan was enthroned, the lord of all 'vanities and things accursed,' a monstrous puppet, filled with gunpowder and sulphur, with goat's legs and a hairy skin, like Pan, the ancient god of the woods.

It was evening: the air was cold, but serene and clear, and one by one the stars were beginning their nightly shining. The crowd in the piazza surged and swayed, and pious murmurings filled the air. Hymns went up from Savonarola's followers--_Laudi spirituali_--which retaining the rhymes, the metre, and the air of carnival songs, had been radically changed in words and sense. Giovanni listened, and the incongruity between the lively music and the gloomy words resounded in his ears like some barbarous funeral chant.

'Hope with Faith and Love agrees, Take three ounces each of these; Two of tears, and mix them well On the fire of Fear. Let them boil for minutes three, Spice them with Humility, Adding Grief to make the spell Of this madness clear; Lo! my soul, I offer thee A most sov'ran remedy, Worthy cure for every ill, Called by man a madness still.'

A man on crutches, paralysed but not old, his face quivering like the wing of a wounded bird, approached Fra Domenico Buonvicino and handed him a parcel.

'What is it,' asked the friar; 'more drawings?'

'A matter of anatomy. Yesterday I forgot to hand it over, but to-night a voice reproved me: "Sandro," it said, "you have still some 'vanities and anathemata' in the loft above your shop." So I got up and hunted for these drawings of nude bodies.'

The monk took the parcel with a good-natured smile.

'We shall light a famous fire, Ser Filippepi!' he said.

The paralytic looked at the pyramid and heaved a profound sigh.

'Lord! Lord! have mercy on us miserable sinners! And to think that but for Fra Girolamo we should be still in our sins! And even now, who knows if we shall save our souls?'

He crossed himself and murmured prayers, fingering his rosary.

'Who is that?' Giovanni asked of Fra Domenico.

'Sandro Botticelli,' was the answer, 'son of Ser Mariano Filippepi, the tanner.'

IX

When at last the curtain of night had fallen upon Florence, a whisper ran through the crowd.

'They come! They come!'

Slowly, silently, without torches, without hymns, the procession advanced. Before the white-robed troop of the child inquisitors was borne the waxen image of the child Jesus, pointing with one hand to his crown of thorns, with the other blessing the people. After the children came monks, the clergy of the whole town, the _gonfalonieri_, the magnificent gentlemen of the Council of Eighty; the cathedral canons, the doctors of theology, the magistrates, the cavaliers, the guards of the Bargello, the heralds and trumpeters. Upon reaching the piazza the procession stood still, and a deathly silence came over the multitude, such as precedes an execution. Then Savonarola mounted the _Ringhiera_, a stone platform before the Palazzo Vecchio, lifted the crucifix, and commanded in sonorous tones:--

'In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, kindle the flame!'

Four monks approached the pyre with torches, and immediately fire broke out at the four opposing corners. The flames crackled, and a smoke at first grey, then blackening, rose in wreaths to heaven. Trumpets sounded, the monks chanted a canticle in honour of the Lord, and the children sang in chorus:--

'Lumen ad revelationem gentium et gloriam plebis Israel.'

The great bell of the Palazzo Vecchio rolled a solemn and majestic sound upon the air, and was answered from all the belfries of the town. The fire rose ever fiercer and more brilliant; and the delicate parchment leaves of the old books curled up and perished. From the lowest step a bunch of false hair rose flaming and floated away, amid the jeers and laughter of the crowd. Among the people were some who prayed, some who wept; others screamed and danced, and waved their arms and kerchiefs and caps; others prophesied.

'Sing, brothers, sing unto the Lord a new song!' shouted a limping shoemaker with wild eyes: 'All the world is crumbling! burning, burning to a horrible destruction, even as these vanities in the purifying fire--all--all--all!--Church, laws, governments, powers, arts, learning--one stone shall not be left upon another!--there shall be a new heaven and a new earth; and God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor weeping nor sickness! O Lord Jesus, come! come!'

A young woman, with a thin and suffering face, pregnant, no doubt the wife of some poverty-stricken artisan, fell on her knees, spreading her hands towards the flame, as if in very truth she saw in it a vision of the Christ Himself; then starting up and calling like one possessed, she cried:--

'My Jesus! my Jesus! Come, Lord Jesus! Come!'

X

Among the objects burning at the stake Giovanni could not take his eyes off a picture lighted up but not yet touched by the flame. It was by Leonardo: a shining white Leda, lying on the waves of a mountain-girdled lake, among the low-toned reflections of twilight. A great swan spread his wings over her, bending his long neck, and filling the sky and the earth with his triumphant hymn of love, while Leda watched her twin sons. Giovanni stared at the advance of the flame, his heart beating high in nervous horror.

Just then the monks elevated a sombre cross in the centre of the square, and in honour of the Trinity made themselves into three circles, joining their hands; then testifying to the spiritual joy of the faithful, they danced, first slowly, then faster and faster, till at last they were as a mighty whirlwind, and they sang the while:--

'_Ognun gridi com' io grido! Sempre pazzo, pazzo, pazzo!_'

'Each and all with me cry out, Ever madly, madly shout! All that wise men follow after Jesu's fools delight in spurning, Riches, honour, feasting, laughter, Pomp and pleasure, golden earning-- Unto those things fondly turning That to wisdom hateful be: Grief, and pain, and penury. Christians still may boast of madness-- Never was there greater gladness, More delightsome solace never Than for love of Jesu ever Thus to rage in holy madness.'[3]

[3] Hieronymo Benivieni.

The heads of the spectators reeled, and their hands and feet were set in motion; suddenly children, men, feeble women joined in the frantic dance. One old and unwieldy monk, like an aged faun, tripped, fell, and was hurt so that the blood flowed; he was flung aside, barely escaping trampling, and the dance rolled on. The fire's crimson and flickering glow lighted convulsed faces: a vast shadow was thrown by the crucifix, the moveless centre of the whirling circles.

'If of wit my mind doth show, Jesu, in thy courtesie, Rid it thence and let me know Ever only phrenesie! For of all philosophie, Wisdom, prudence, and the rest, Loathing such hath me possessed That I would only ask for madness.

Jesu mine, it doth appear Wisdom all and man's contriving In God's sight is folly mere; All things else but vainest striving, Saving Thee, Thou fount reviving, Whence flow out such waters rare, That who slakes his thirst once there For love of Thee is seized with madness.'

At last the creeping flame had reached the Leda, with its scarlet tongue had licked the pure body, flushed as if living, and grown momentarily yet more mystic and exquisite. Giovanni gazed, shuddering and turning pale, and for him Leda smiled her last smile; then dissolving in the fire, like a cloud in the sunrise, she was lost for ever.

And now the flame had attained the huge devil on the apex of the pyramid: its paunch, filled with powder, burst with a tremendous crash. A pillar of fire rose to the sky. The monster tottered on his blazing throne, bowed, fell, and was scattered in a powder of dying embers.

Drums and trumpets sounded. All the bells pealed, the crowd raised a roar of triumph, as though Satan himself had perished in the flames of the holy pile, together with all the falsehood, pain and sins of the whole earth. Giovanni clapped his hands to his temples and would have fled. But a hand was laid upon his shoulder; he turned and looked: beside him stood Leonardo, with his quiet untroubled face. The Master took him by the hand and drew him forth from the crowd.

XI

They moved from the square, pervaded by clouds of stifling smoke, and, lit up by the glow of the dying bonfire, by an obscure lane they took their way to the banks of the Arno. Here all breathed quietness and calm: the stream glided by, gently murmuring: the stars scintillated, coldly brilliant, and the moon bathed the hills in a flood of silver glory.

'Giovanni,' said Leonardo, 'why did you forsake me?'

The disciple raised his eyes and tried to speak; but his voice died in his throat, his lip trembled, and he burst into tears.

'Master--forgive me!'

'You have done me no wrong.'

'I knew not what I did,' murmured Boltraffio. 'How, O God! how could I have left you?'

He would have told his sufferings, his madness, the anguish of his terrible doubts. But as when at Milan he had stood before the Colossus of Francesco Sforza, he felt that Leonardo would have no comprehension; and in hopeless entreaty he looked into his eyes--eyes clear, calm, and alien as the stars.

As if divining the conflict in his soul, the Master did not question him; he smiled with infinite kindness, and laying his hand on the young head he said:--

'God help you, my poor boy: you know I have ever loved you as my favourite son! Will you come back to me? I will receive you with joy.'

Then, scarce audibly, as if speaking to himself, he added:--

'The deeper the sensitiveness, the greater the grief. A martyr among the martyrs!'

From afar came the clash of the bells, the scream of the chant, the cry of the frenzied mob. But Master and pupil were happy.