to the predominance of a single house; Savonarola had protested against the tendency to form an oligarchical ring within his party. In all this there was no implication of any political association, nothing to compel the Signoria to extend enquiry further.
On the arrival of the papal commissioners the examination turned on Savonarola's appeal to a General Council; it was conducted chiefly by the Spanish lawyer Romolino, Bishop of Ilerda. Savonarola confessed that, having no friend in Italy, he had turned to foreign princes, and especially to those of France and Spain: he hoped for the aid of Cardinals Brissonet and della Rovere, both enemies of the Borgia; Matthseus Lang, Maximilian's confidential adviser (afterwards Bishop of Gurk and Cardinal), had spoken ill of Alexander in the Friar's presence, while the scandals of the Curia were odious to the Spanish sovereigns who could influence the Cardinal of Lisbon. In vain the commissary pressed for evidence to implicate the Cardinal of Naples; for confessions extracted by torture were afterwards withdrawn. The victim declared that he had no wish to be Pope or Cardinal; his reward would be enough, if by his agency so glorious a work as the reform of the Church could be effected.
Extorted and garbled as they were, these depositions showed no proof, in Guicciardini's words, of any fault except ambition. And who can say that in his last agony Savonarola himself may not have been conscious of past ambition, of the parasite which clings most closely to monastic walls? Pride was the fault which from the first Alexander VI had fixed on his future enemy.
The result of the trial was less the condemnation of Savonarola than that of the popular government on which he had pinned his faith. It would be vain to seek under Medici or Albizzi so violent a strain on the constitution, so shameless a disregard for individual rights. It was pitiful that the free constitution, the panacea against tyranny, should have been guilty of the worst crime with which Florence can be charged. Of physical or political courage there was none, save in the small band which in the heat of fight had held the convent. Only a short time before, the Milanese ambassador had assured his master that Savonarola controlled the great majority of the town; yet now no Piagnone dared mention his prophet in the streets. The Eight and the Ten were known to have Savonarolist sympathies; in defiance of the most fundamental constitutional traditions, without even the pretence of a bafia, they were dismissed before their office had expired. There was no protest from these lawfully elected bodies, and none from the Council which had given them their commission. When the new Signoria was elected, the well-known Piagnoni were forcibly excluded; the qualification for office became cowardice or party hate. The Council itself suffered the garbled depositions to be read, and did not insist on the appearance of the accused, because a Signoria, notoriously hostile, stated that he was
