dominant republican party now established a standing guard in the Piazza to protect itself, and there it stayed until Savonarola's death.
Henceforth the interest of Savonarola's career is rather ecclesiastical than political; the attack upon him is directed not from Florence but from Rome. Nevertheless the scourge which was manufactured in the Vatican was composed of several strands,—strands social and constitutional, moral and religious, personal and political,—all twisting in and out in the rope-walk of Italian diplomacy. Alexander VI has rightly left so terrible a repute that every act of his is exposed to a sinister interpretation. He had, perhaps, no positive virtues, but he was not entirely a conglomerate of vices. Abstemious in meat and drink, he had an equable temper; a healthy animal, he was not irritated by personalities; scandal has few terrors for those who habitually live in sin. Alexander was not cruel, if his immediate gratification were not concerned; in his official duties he had been regular and hardworking; he possessed a perfect knowledge of the etiquette and business of the Vatican, nor were the ecclesiastical interests of the Christian world neglected. It would be rash to assume that Alexander VI was actuated by personal hostility to Savonarola, although such hostility would have been only human. Under the zealous Popes of the Catholic Revival Savonarola would have met with less consideration, had their ideas and his been found in conflict.
Alexander VI was fully conscious that he would not a second time escape so lightly from the consequences of a French invasion. His personal enemy, Cardinal della Rovere, was influential at the French Court and, together with Cardinal Brissonet, would gladly make the Pope's simoniacal election a pretext for his deposition. He was thus the natural ally of Ludovico il Moro, who had everything to fear from French vengeance; the Duke's brother, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, was still the leading figure at the Vatican. The refusal of Florence to abandon the French alliance and join the Italian League kept the peninsula in a condition of nervous agitation; it was known that Savonarola's party looked forward to a new invasion; it was guessed that he was himself corresponding with the French Court. Thus the Medici plots were hatched at Rome, but the Pope had no special interest in the Medici. Ludovico, as has been seen, was definitely opposed to a Medicean restoration. Alexander VI, on the other hand, would use the Medici, as he would use any other instrument, to embarrass a government which was a standing danger to himself, although it might be impolitic needlessly to exasperate the Republic, for this might only hasten an invasion.
Savonarola's relations to the Pope have hitherto been left unnoticed, because until the summer of 1497 they had little effect upon his action. They had opened with the brief of July 21, 1495, which summoned the Friar to Rome, and they reached a climax in the brief of excommunication.
