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A Last Testimony by Savonarola and His Companions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Olga Zorzi Pugliese
Olga Zorzi Pugliese*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

Mystery and legend continue to cloud the events surrounding the trial and death of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, the Dominican who advocated religious reform, prophesied doom for corrupt political and ecclesiastical leaders and, in spite of the considerable power he had gained in Florence; was hanged and burned at the stake in 1498 together with his faithful companions Fra Domenico Buonvicini of Pescia and Fra Silvestro Maruffi of Florence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , Spring 1981 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1981

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References

1 Most of the available documents were published in Villari, Pasquale, La storia di Girolamo Savonarola e de’ suoi tempi, new ed. (Florence, 1926)Google Scholar. See also Lupi, Clemente, “Nuovi documenti intorno a Fra Girolamo Savonarola,” Archivio storico italiano, ser. 3, vol. III, part 1 (1866), 3–77 Google Scholar. All primary sources have been used critically by Roberto Ridolfi in his authoritative Vita di Girolamo Savonarola, 5th ed. (Florence, 1974). The following works deal with the trial in particular: Ridolfi, “I processi del Savonarola,” La bibliojilia, 46 (1944), 3-41 and “Ancora i processi del Savonarola,” ibid., 47 (1945), 41-47; and Robert Klein, Il processo di Girolamo Savonarola (Bologna, 1960). The most recent major contribution to Savonarola scholarship, Donald Weinstein's Savonarola and Florence: Prophecy and Patriotism in the Renaissance (Princeton, 1970) deals briefly with the subject on pp. 287-288.

2 To my knowledge Professor Paul O. Kristeller is the only one to have noted this item, which he lists in his Iter Italkum (London, 1965), I, 64 as a “Document of Girolamo Benivieni.“

3 This is not Benivieni's calligraphic hand but his informal cursive. It matches the handwriting of a letter of his in Florence, Archivio di Stato, Mediceo avanti il principato, LXX, 428 a facsimile of which has been published in Autograft dell'Archivio mediceo avanti il principato, eds. Alberto Maria Fortuna and Cristina Lunghetti (Florence, 1977), plate LXXXIX and p. 178.

4 The role of the papal commissioners is discussed in Ridolfi, Vita, pp. 318, 388 and passim.

5 On the basis of Adriano Cappelli, Dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane, 6th ed. (Milan, 1961) the abbreviated word hitu with a stroke over the t, as it appears in the text, can be interpreted as habitu, the ablative case of habitus (“condition” or “state“). I am most grateful to Rev. L. E. Boyle of the Centre for Mediaeval Studies of the University of Toronto for his helpful suggestions concerning the signature and to Prof. V. R. Giustiniani of the University of Massachusetts for checking the transcription of the text.

6 Villari, II, 237; Ridolfi, p. 396; Pseudo-Burlamacchi, La vita del beato Ieronimo Savonarola scritta da una anonimo del sec. XVI e già attribuita ajra Pacifico Burlamacchi, ed. Principe Piero Ginori Conti, introd. R. Ridolfi (Florence, 1937), p. 177.

7 The following printed and manuscript sources were consulted: Richa, Giuseppe, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine (Florence, 1755), II, 124–133 Google Scholar; Monti, Gennaro Maria, Le conjratemite medievali dell'alta e media Italia (Venice, 1927), especially I, 159-160Google Scholar; Cappelli, Eugenio, La Compagnia dei Neri: VArciconfratemita dei Battuti di Santa Maria delta Croce al Tempio (Florence, 1927)Google Scholar; Archivio della Compagnia di S. Croce al Tempio o Compagnia dei Neri, Florence, Archivio di Stato, Compagnie Soppresse C. LXIX, Nos. 689-701; “Libro di varie notizie, e memorie della venerabil Compagnia di S. Maria della Croce al Tempio,” Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS. II.1.138 (the Savonarola case is discussed on fol. 80v); “Registro delle Compagnie di Firenze,” Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS. Magi. XXV.418, fols. 91-97v; “Notizie della Compagnia de’ Neri di S. Croce al Tempio della città di Firenze,” Wellesley College Library, Plimpton Collection, MS. 464 (see p. 5).

8 Villari, II, 236. Some information on Jacopo Niccolini can be found in Passerini, Luigi, Genealogia estoria della famiglia Niccolini (Florence, 1870)Google Scholar, plate IV and p. 26. Although Passerini states that Niccolini was one of Savonarola's beloved disciples, Ridolfi, p. 653, points out that he became a follower of Savonarola after the friar's execution.

9 Florence, Archivio di Stato, Conventi Soppressi 78, vol. CCLXII, fols. 27, 69, 95” for example.

10 Ibid., vol. CCLVII passim; vol CCXLVIII, fol. 152“; vol. LXXXI, fol. 413.

11 Ibid., vol. CCLVII, fol. 598.

12 Pseudo-Burlamacchi, p. 179.

13 See the information provided in documents published in Villari, II, ccxxx, clxxi and in my article, “Girolamo Benivieni: umanista riformatore (dalla corrispondenza inedita),” La bibliofilia, 72 (1970), 253-288.

14 Girolamo Benivieni, “Epistola mandata a papa Clemente VII” [Nov. r, 1530] in Varchi, Benedetto, Stone, ed. Milanesi, G. (Florence, 1858), III, 316, 328.Google Scholar

15 When the last descendant of the Benivieni family, Lisabetta, wife of Tommaso Gianni, died in 1617, the Benivieni possessions, including the manuscripts, were inherited by the Gianni. The manuscripts were eventually donated to the Archivio di Stato (see Francesco Dini, “Archivio Gianni-Mannucci gia Leonetti,” Archivio storico italiano, ser. 5, vol. XI, part 1 (1893), 349-377).

16 Pseudo-Burlamacchi, p. 177; Villari, II, 236; Ridolfi, pp. 395-396.

17 Pseudo-Burlamacchi, p. 180; Villari, II, 239; Ridolfi, pp. 398-399. The prayer, part of which reads: “E umilmente a tutte quelle persone che sono qui circustanti chieggo perdonanza; e prieghino Dio per me che mi faccia forte in su l'ultimo fine che ‘1 nemico non abbi possanza sopra di me. Amen.”, was published soon after Savonarola's execution together with the commentary on the psalm In te, Domine, speravi written in prison. A full quotation is provided by Pseudo-Burlamacchi and Ridolfi.

18 Pseudo-Burlamacchi, p. 184; Ridolfi, p. 402.

19 Pseudo-Burlamacchi, p. 184.

20 Pseudo-Burlamacchi, pp. 178-179; Villari, II, 235, 238, 243; Ridolfi, p. 395.

21 Ridolfi, p. 395. Bartolomeo Cerretani, Storia fiorentina, ed. J. Schnitzer, in Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichle Savonarolas, vol. III, part 4 (Munich, 1904), p. 73 and Villari, II, 235 also attest to Domenico's happiness.

22 The text of the letter is included in Pseudo-Burlamacchi, pp. 177-178; Villari, II, 235-236; and Klein, pp. 286-288.

23 Klein, p. 286.

24 Villari, H, 244 gives this account on the basis of earlier sources. To many in Florence at the time, even among his opponents, Domenico appeared innocent, and attempts, albeit futile ones, were made to have him freed (Pseudo-Burlamacchi, p. 176; Ridolfi, p. 394).

25 See the text of the confession in Villari, II, ccxvii, ccxix.