Heroes of Modern Europe

								

surrounded a face that was both gentle and gracious.  He had an
extraordinary knowledge of languages and a wonderful memory.
{43}
Fastidious Florentines were converted to Mirandola's strange taste in
sermons, so that the convent garden with its rose-trees became the
haunt of an ever-increasing crowd, eager to hear doctrines which were
new enough to tickle their palates pleasantly.  On the 1st of August
1489, the friar consented to preach in the Convent Church to the
Dominican brothers and the laymen who continued to assemble in the
cloisters.  He took a passage of Revelations for his text.  "Three
things he suggested to the people.  That the Church of God required
renewal, and that immediately; second, that all Italy should be
chastised; third, that this should come to pass soon."  This was the
first of Savonarola's prophecies, and caused great excitement among the
Florentines who heard it.
At Siena, the preacher pronounced sentence on the Church, which was now
under the rule of Innocent IV, a pope more openly depraved than any of
his predecessors.  Through Lombardy the echo of that sermon sounded and
the name of Girolamo Savonarola.  The monk was banished, and only
recalled to Florence by the favour of Lorenzo dei Medici, who was
undisturbed by a series of sermons against tyranny.
Savonarola was elected Prior of San Marco in July 1491, but he refused
to pay his respects to Lorenzo as the patron of the convent.  "Who
elected me to be Prior--God or Lorenzo?" he asked sternly when the
elder Dominicans entreated him to perform this duty.  "God," was the
answer they were compelled to make.  They were sadly disappointed when
the new Prior decided, "Then I will thank my Lord God, not mortal man."
In the Lent season of this same year Savonarola preached for the first
time in the cathedral or Duomo {44} of Florence.  "The people got up in
the middle of the night to get places for the sermon, and came to the
door of the cathedral, waiting outside till it should be opened, making
no account of any inconvenience, neither of the cold nor the wind, nor
of standing in the winter with their feet on the marble; and among them
were young and old, women and children of every sort, who came with
such jubilee and rejoicing that it was bewildering to hear them, going
to the sermon as to a wedding. . . .  And though many thousand people
were thus collected together no sound was to be heard, not even a
'hush,' until the arrival of the children, who sang hymns with so much
sweetness that heaven seemed to have opened."
The Magnificent often came to San Marco, piqued by the indifference of
the Prior and interested in the personality of the man who had
succeeded in impressing cultured Florentines by simple language.  He
gave gold pieces lavishly to the convent, but the gold was always sent
to the good people of St Martin, who ministered to the needs of those
who were too proud to acknowledge their decaying fortunes.  "The silver