and with all the respect which he felt for the person of the preacher: he thus becanre closely intimate with Fra Girolamo, and spent almost all his time in the convent, having contracted a friendship with the other monks also. Girolamo meanwhile continued to preach daily; and his zeal increasing, he daily declaimed from the pulpit against licentious pictures, among other things; showing how these, with music and books of similar character, were calculated to lead the mind to evil; he also asserted his conviction, that in houses where young maidens dwelt, it was dangerous and improper to retain pictures wherein there were undraped figures. Now it was the custom in that city to erect cabins ot fire-wood and other combustibles on the public piazza during the time of Carnival, and on the night of Shrove Tuesday, these huts being set a-blaze, the people were wont to dance around them while thus burning, men and women that is to say, joining hands, according to ancient custom, encircled these fires, with songs and dances. On the return of the Carnival following the period of which we now speak, however, Fra Girolamo’s exhortations had so powerfully affected the people, that instead of these accustomed dances, they brought pictures and works in sculpture, many by the most excellent masters—all which they cast into the fire, with books and musical instruments, which were burnt in like manner—a most lamentable destruction; and more particularly as to the paintings. To this pile brought Baccio della Porta all his studies and drawings which he had made from the nude figure, when they were consumed in the flames. His example was followed by Lorenzo di Credi, and by many others, who received the appellation of the Piagnoni.[1]
No long time after this, Baccio della Porta, moved by the love which he bore to Fra Girolamo, painted a picture wherein was his portrait, which is indeed most beautiful. This work was at the time transported to Ferrara, but was
- ↑ That the followers of Savonarola were so called has been already remarked in the life of Sandro Botticelli: that party, in its political character, had declared against the exaltation of the House of Medici; their opponents, who were called the Arrabbiati, were equally averse to the supremacy of that house, but joined the followers of the Medici in their enmity to Savonarola on the ground of what they considered the “intolerant liypocrisy” of the Piagnoni.— See Varchi, Storie Florentine.
