Читать книгу The Two First Centuries of Florentine History - Pasquale Villari - Страница 11

MIRACLE OF SAN GIOVANNI GUALBERTO.

(Bas-relief by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the National Museum, Florence.)

[To face page 78.

This reminds us of the other ordeal by fire proposed in Florence in 1498, and that led to Savonarola's martyrdom, shortly before the fall of the Republic, of which the birth and death would thus seem to have been preluded by similar events. For, albeit the account of the affair may have been exaggerated by party feeling and superstition, and although the terms of "Preside" and "Podestà" employed in the old narrative only indicate in a general way the ruling powers in Florence at the time, all shows that a new state of society had begun. We find that there was a Duke of Tuscany, a military president, apparently his representative in the city, and, what is more, a people which, though only appearing as a fanatic mob, is plainly conscious at last of its own strength, since it struggles against the bishop, resists both the duke and the Pope, and finally obtains what it desires. In addressing the Pope it assumes the title of populus florentinus; and is addressed by St. Pier Damiano as cives florentini. It is true, of course, that these were mere forms of speech imitated from the ancients; assuredly the Commune was still unborn, and much time had yet to elapse before its rise; but an entirely new condition of things had begun, in which the elements conducing to its rise were already in course of preparation. Accordingly, we must now retrace our steps, in order to study the question more closely.