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rials, were built. All Florence was present to witness the spectacle. The Franciscans and Dominicans marched in solemn processions to the spot. The ordeal was set for eleven o'clock, but there was delay. Objection was made to Domenico's going through the fire wearing his priestly garments, on suspicion that they had been bewitched. The Dominicans yielded. The second objection was made that Domenico should not carry a crucifix or the host with him. The parleying was protracted. Rain fell, the day was declining, and the Franciscan challenger did not appear. The seigniory declared the ordeal abrogated. The spell of Savonarola's influence was gone. The mob now treated him as a coward or an impostor. Florence was mad with anger. A few, like Landucci, were bowed with disappointment and sorrow. The neat day St. Mark's was assaulted. The resistance offered by the monks, even with firearms, staved off the end at best for a few hours. Savonarola and two of his chief supporters, Fra Domenico and Fm Silvestro, were imprisoned. Their first trial was before the seigniory. Alexander wrote that they should be sent to Rome but, if not, they should be tried "with torture." The agonies of the torture induced Savonarola to make confessions of imposture and other ill-doing, which he denied as soon as the delirium of the pain wore off. It was hard to manufacture, against the monk, charges deserving death. Savonarola was no heretic. But a commission sent by the pope-Turriano, the Venetian Dominican general, and Bishop Francesco Romelino, afterward cardinal-were equal to the task of finding the prisoners guilty of rank heresy. Letters came to Florence stating that Alexander had declared Savonarola should "be put to death even if he were another John the Baptist." The garbled records of the trial make it uncertain what the exact process was. Romelino's letters to Alexander show that the prisoners were to be treated as pernicious heretics. The intervals between the applications of torture the prisoners spent in comparing expositions on Pss. li. and xxxi. The three friends met and prayed on the morning appointed for the execution, May 23, 1498. Their bearing, that of humble trust in Christ, was adapted to win universal sympathy. The sentence ran that they should be hanged and their bodies burned. Absolution was pronounced. The bishop of Vasona in pronouncing the sentence of deposition upon Savonarola said, "I separate thee from the Church triumphant and the Church militant." Savonarola replied, "Not from the Church triumphant. That is not in thy power to do." The ashes of the three monks were cast into the Arno.

Savonarola will be judged by the righteousness of his message, the calm stability of his last hours, and the environment in which he was placed. He stands

forth as the greatest master of pulpit ro. His eloquence Italy has furnished. In an Character age when the classical renaissance inand Work. troduced or fostered moral corruption,

he represented moral righteousness in private life and in civil government. Lacking the sagacity of the statesman, he was inspired with patriotism and the devotion of the religious reformer.

In appealing from the decision of Alexander VL, he was taking the position which Julius II., in his bull Cum tanto divino, 1505, justified. That bull pronounced papal elections secured by bribery void. If the bull was retroactive then Alexander was no pope. He had secured his election by shameless bribery. The world was at once divided between admiration for, and condemnation of, Savonarola. Even within the Dominican order the monk's memory was for a long time disparaged, and the Dommican general Sisto Fabri of Luce&, 1585, issued an order forbidding monks and nuns of his order to mention his name or retain any relic or book that could remind them of him. But the feeling in the Dondnican order has changed and a warm and persistent effort has been made by Dominicans to prepare the way for the canonisation of their most eloquent preacher. Protestants are inclined to regard him as in a sense a precursor of the Reformation, a seer of a new era in the Church. So Luther regarded him, and wrote a preface to an edition of his Meditation on Pss. li. and xxxi. (1523). Rietschl included him in the monument at Worms commemorating the Reformation, and placed him in company with Wyclif and Hues as forerunners of that great movement. Savonarola's expositions of the two Psalms composed duriag his imprisonment show him as a member of the Church universal. Here he appeals as a sinner directly to God's mercy. But in his "Triumph of the Gross," he accepts the seven sacraments and the other distinctive marks of the medieval Church. Schnitzer, the leading contemporary authority on Savonarola in Germany, gives him unstinted admiration. Pastor joins in admiring the purity of his purpose but condemns him as an unfaithful Roman Catholic in refusing obedience to the Apostolic See. The general sentiment in the Roman Catholic Church is represented by the judgment of Hefele-Kn6pfler (Karchengeschichte p. 503), that Savonarola's execution was a judicial murder. Florence regards the memory of her adopted citizen with love and has made every attempt to offer reparation for his exccution. In 1882 the seigniory placed Girolamo's statue in the Hall of the Five Hundred and again, 1901, honored him by placing a tablet on the spot of execution with a statement that there "by unrighteous sentence" he and his two companions "were hanged and burned." On the wall of his cell in St. Mark's a medallion has been placed containing a head of the prior, and opposite the place where he was seized another memorial has been erected which the visitor often finds hung with wreaths of fresh flowers.

(PHILIP SCHAFFt.) D. S. ScHAFF.

BIHLi06HAPHT: On bibliography consult: A. Audin de Runs, Bsbliopraphia dells opere a deU' edisioni di fm J. Savonarola. Florence, 1847; Potthast, Wepweiser, pp. 1384-88.

Sources for a life are: Savonarola's Latin and italian writings, consisting of sermons, tracts, letters, and a few poems. The largest collection of MSS. and original editions is preserved in the Central National Library of Florence. Printed works are: Epistolar apiritvales et awatice, ed. Qu6tif, Paris, 1874, Eng. travel., Spirsaual and Aseetic LeUers of Savonarof, ed. B. W. Randolph, London. 1907, new ed., 1909; the sermons were collected by a friend. Lorenw Vivoli, and published as they came fresh from the preacher's lips-beat ed. Sernwni e