burning vanities: looking for justice

In a previous post I left charismatic Dominican Friar Savonarola atop a scaffold in the Piazza San Marco in Florence, waiting for God to strike him dead, three days short of Lent in 1497.

Seeking justice, the revolutionary cleric invoked the spirit of the Judicium Dei, the wager, or ordeal, administered by European clerical courts from the ninth to thirteenth centuries CE to settle difficult legal cases "where truth is not otherwise attainable". An accused would be deliberately wounded, for instance by boiling water or hot iron, and the wound examined after three days for infection. An infected wound signaled a guilty person. The wager that heaven would intervene to prevent an innocent's wound from festering has its biblical (Daniel 3:23) origins in the story of Sidrac, Mesac and Abednego, followers of God who were condemned to be burned by Nebuchadnezzar, and saved from death by an Angel which led them from the fire to freedom. Now Savonarola would wait out three days wagering that heaven would intervene, freedom walking the hard, nine yards of the ordeal holding a hot iron of political power delivered him by the King of France in the coup d'etat of 1494.

Politics in Europe in the Quattrocento were framed as God-given Absolutism. It was an ordering of hierarchies structured around mutual obligation that made little distinction between the physical and metaphysical. An individual was expected to cultivate allies and make enemies in both spheres as they navigated the medieval world. Savonarola claimed an alliance with the Holy Virgin, as well as the King of France, in a war of words with Rome. "Oh prostitute church, thou has displayed thy foulness to the whole world...Earth and Heaven, the angels, the good and the wicked, all shall accuse thee", he railed.

It is perhaps difficult for us to imagine the world in which Savonarola found himself, in fifteenth century Florence. Centuries before, the Dominican Cleric Thomas Aquinas had noted

"we observe that in nature things happen always or nearly always for the best; which would not be the case unless some kind of providence directed nature toward good as an end" (Summa Theologica, question 103, article 1)

and

"We must bear in mind that there are two kinds of sciences. There are some which proceed from a principle known by the natural light of intelligence, such as arithmetic and geometry and the like. There are some which proceed from principles known by the light of a higher science: thus the science of perspective proceeds from principles established by geometry, and music from principles established by arithmetic. So it is that sacred doctrine is a science because it proceeds from principles established by the light of a higher science, namely, the science of God and the blessed. Hence, just as the musician accepts on authority the principles taught him by the mathematician, so sacred science is established on principles revealed by God". (Summa Theologica question 1, article 2)

Savonarola lived in two worlds at once, the physical and metaphysical. The nature and structure of the natural and metaphysical worlds, and the politics of Absolutism, remained undisputed. As Voltaire would ironically write centuries later, everything was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. At issue was the corruption of the natural world caused by the immoral behaviors of rulers in Rome and Milan. Savonarola preached

"The earth teems with bloodshed, yet the priests take no heed; rather by their evil example they bring spiritual death upon all. They have withdrawn from God, and their piety consists in spending their nights with harlots..."

Savonarola's war of words on Rome, and the Dominican power play in Florence, had provoked condemnation from the Pope in Rome, and from the Duchy of Milan, who Florence had formerly paid tribute to. By 1497, his causes bogged down in the curial court, and condemned by both Rome and a resurgent Milan, Savanorola cried to Heaven for justice, and undertook three days of ordeal as proof that his alliance with the Holy Virgin and the forces of Heaven were divinely ordained.

We see here a commitment to not only the political system of Absolutism, and its systematic ordering of mutual obligations, but also to a belief in universal, what we might call in modern times "self-evident", truths. At stake was nothing less than the future of the world, doomed to be irrevocably corrupted by the immorality and heresy of the modern church.

Anticipating a positive outcome for Savonaroloa's wager, his followers had stacked the vanities of Florence in a bonfire ninety feet high in the Plaza della Signoria. In a previous post I describe it as a vision of hell, of Lucifer and the seven deadly sins enthroned upon a snake, adorned with busts of contemporary and historical Florentine women, the literary works of Petrarch, Virgil, Ovid, Tibullus, Catullus and Terence, contemporary works of rhetoric and poetry, vanities and distractions of all kind, including those of the pre-Lenten carnival, confiscated in Florence from its residents over the previous twelve months.

The Bonfire of Vanities was a reaction against Quattracento modernity, the rejection of diversity of thought and expression as vanities, and the re-establishment of political and personal Absolutism, based upon the universal values of the Holy Church. Although often described as a precurser to Sixteenth-Century Reformation, Savonarola's Dominicans wanted to turn back the clock to a time when the population thought less for themselves and more of their obligations to the metaphysical world, which would provide all things, including an end to disease, the "French Pox" which had ravaged Florence for a few years. For its return to curial law, the Friar's Heavenly allies would provide that nature always, or nearly always, acted for the best for the people of Florence.

On the third and final day of his ordeal a large crowd gathered in the Piazza della Signoria on rumours that Savonarola would walk amongst the flames of the Bonfire of Vanities with an angel, as Sidrac, Mesac and Abednego had. Instead, violence erupted between supporters and opponents, after an argument about the conduct of Savonarola's ordeal.

Savonarola had no doubt that his visions of Heaven, the Holy Virgin, the future of Florence and the corruption of the Roman Church were perfect. Like Descartes, Savonarola protested The Almighty would not give me eyes, only to cruelly deceive them. His visions accorded in every respect with doctrine, with what he expected to see. However, the wager, or trial by ordeal Savonarola engaged in was banned by Denmark in 1216, England in 1219, Scotland in 1230, Flanders in 1231, and in most of Italy by 1240, after Pope Inncocent III had condemned the practice in Canon 18 of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1213.

It is unclear whether the bonfire of vanities was lighted (supporters wrote it was) or pulled down (opponents wrote it was). At any rate, Savonarola's star began to wane, and on Ascension day in May 1497 there were riots, taverns reopened and the citizens of Florence began to dance, sing, and gamble in public again. The charismatic Friar was arrested, and executed in May 1498 in the Piazza della Signoria, where the Bonfire of Vanities had stood. He remains a heroic figure for many. Erasmus refused to become a Protestant after reading Savonarola. Paradoxically, the Friar is characterized by Protestant scholars as a forerunner of the Protestant Reformation because of his strident criticisms of the Church of Rome.

The age of Absolutism has long since passed, although quaint echoes, like the recently revived doctrine of mutual obligation, persist. Is it possible at all to formulate and preserve ideas about universal truth, in this age of postmodern uncertainty?

Which makes me wonder: if humans are to join a coalition with not humans in order to save the world, as Ecosophy suggests humans ought, how will humans find justice amidst that new world order? What over-arching set of principles might apply? And from where will they spring?

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