The Life of Girolamo Savonarola[, O.P.]

Description

"The extensive documentation of the [unabridged] original has been omitted."

Ridòlfi, Roberto

Savonaròla, Girolamo

pp. 8-9 (PDF pp. 23-24) is his 25 April 1474 letter to his father explaining why he's fleeing the world and embracing religious life:

In primis , the reason which moves me to take orders is this … the great wretchedness of the world, the sins of men, lecheries, adulteries, theft, pride, idolatry, cruel blasphemies; for the world is come to this, that no one can be found to do well; many times a day I used to sing this line, weeping: Heu fuge crudeles terras fuge, litus avarum [Alas! fly from this cruel land, fly from this shore of avarice.]. This was because I could not suffer the blind wickedness of the peoples of Italy, and the more so when I saw virtue cast down and vice exalted. This was the greatest suffering that could come upon me in this world…. Would it not have been base ingratitude on my part, had I prayed God to show me the straight path on which I must walk, and when he had stooped to show it me, I had not taken it? Alas, Lord Jesus, rather may I suffer a thousand deaths than that I should ever show Thee such ingratitude. And so, dulcissime pater , rather than weep, you must thank Lord Jesus. He has given you a son, has preserved him to you until his twenty-second year, and, further, has deigned to make him one of His champions. Alas, do you not hold it a privilege to have a son who is a soldier of Christ? … Do you not believe that it is a great sorrow for me to leave you? Believe me that never since I was born have I suffered greater pain or affliction of mind than in leaving my own flesh and blood and going among strangers to sacrifice my body to Christ, and delivering my own free will into the hands of those of whom I know nothing; but then, thinking that it is God who calls me, and that He was not too proud to come down and serve miserable creatures like ourselves, I could not dare to disobey His gentle and loving voice: Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis et onerati estis et ego reficiam vos: tollite iugum meum super vos [Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you]. But because I know that you blame me for going away secretly, and almost fleeing from you, know that my pain was such that, had I shown the suffering I felt in my heart at leaving you, I truly believe that before I could have gone, my heart would have broken, and my resolution would have been destroyed. … I therefore pray you, my dear father, to make an end of weeping, and to spare me pain and sadness more than I suffer already: not for regret at what I have done, for I would not undo it were I thereby to rival Caesar’s glory, but because I too am flesh and blood, and our senses quarrel with our reason. I have a hard fight to prevent the Devil leaping on my shoulders, and all the more when I feel for you. Soon these days in which our grief is fresh will pass, and then I hope that you and I will have consolation in this world through grace, and in the next through salvation. Nothing remains but for me to beg you to be manful and comfort my mother. I pray both of you to give me your blessing. …

Ambrogio Catarino Politi: pp. 304-7 (PDF pp. 319-22)

p. 229 (PDF p. 243): "the Pope, as a Pope, cannot err" (la predica XI sopra l'Esodo , detta dal Savonarola il mercoledì dopola prima domenica di quaresima, 7 marzo 1497)

pp. 59-60 (PDF pp. 74-5)

the wife of Giovanni Bentivoglio, ruler of the city, regularly attended the sermons of Savonarola, and always entered the church after the sermon had begun with a great following of noble ladies and courtiers. What with the disturbance she made with her suite and that made by the congregation rising to do her honour, the Friar was obliged to stop, and ‘he lost the force and persuasion of his oratory’. Eventually one morning he quietly asked all the congregation to be punctual at the beginning of the sermon; but she went on in the same way, or worse, and another morning he addressed her personally, politely begging her not to disturb him and his hearers in this way. Finally, the third time, seeing her enter the church one day with much pomp in the middle of the sermon, he shouted out in a terrible voice : ‘Here is the devil, here is the devil, come to disturb the word of God!’ At this insult, the proud noblewoman is said to have ordered two of her guards to slay him in his pulpit. Then, as these two did not dare to commit such sacrilege, she sent two more to the convent; but these, when they came into the presence of this servant of God, merely offered him the help and good graces of their lady.