The favorite subject with Savonarola was the deleterious influence of paganism, which he ascribed to the study of the ancient authors. His idea was to extend the influence of religion to all human faculties and to all their outcome, and as he saw paganism gradually asserting itself in every branch of literature and art, he commenced an ardent crusade against it. The study of the Bible was his dominant passion, and he asserted that it contained everything that was necessary for the development of humanity. I have said above that in his earlier commentaries upon the Apocalypse he predicted in vague terms the French invasion and the disasters of Italy, and when this prediction was realized the enthusiasm to hear him knew no bounds, the mountaineers coining down from the Apennines and sleeping under the walls of the city, so as to be sure of getting places to hear him the next day. The cloister of St. Mark being too small, it was in the Duomo, which would have accommodated all the population of Florence, that he thundered forth against the lukewarm (tiefidi), and endeavored to inspire them with his own ardent faith. His eloquence was not without its effect, for there was a considerable change made in the habits of the people, and a reaction set in against the simonies and loose discipline of the clergy. Savonarola urged that Tibullus, Ovid, Catullus, and all the philosophy of Aristotle should be proscribed, and he reminded the partisans of classic study of the schisms which had resulted in the disruption of the Empire and the entry of the Turks into Constantinople. His action was not confined to literature, for in politics he had contributed to the convocation of the first Florentine parliament, and in regard to domestic reform his principal tenets were, like those of J. J. Rousseau three hundred years later, the advantages of a natural education, of physical and moral education by the father and the mother, and of mothers nursing their infants themselves.

In regard to art, there can be no doubt that he was most successful in introducing a new order of things. Up to 1480 most of the subjects treated by painters were taken from antiquity or inspired by it, and we have only to read contemporary works or examine pictures and statues to see what a large place is held by ancient fable and the mythology of Greece and of Rome. Savonarola reproached the Medici with having encouraged movement and favored Naturalism, which is a word one would hardly expect to find used in the fifteenth century. Henceforward we find Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Pietro della Francesca, and other painters representing the beautiful women of the day as Madonnas and saints, and this was undoubtedly due in some measure to the precepts of Savonarola. He denounced to the people the orgies of sensualism which were depicted in the frescoes, sculptures, and other decorations of the palaces, paving the way by his seven years of preaching for the holocausts in which so many matchless works of art were devoured.

The personal influence of Savonarola over certain artists has been demonstrated by historians of the time. Sandro Botticelli, for instance, was so affected by the repeated attacks of the Dominican monk that he abandoned painting for a time, and shut himself up in a monastery, though Lorenzo de' Medici afterwards induced him to return to his art. Lorenzo di Credi, orthodox though he was in his conceptions and his works, was as deeply affected as Botticelli, and passed the last years of his life in the convent of Santa Maria Novella. The great Fra Bartolommeo, who combined the style of the most inspired masters with a profound faith, did not touch a brush for four years after the execution of Savonarola. Cronaca, the chronicler of the street and the studio, who set more store by his fluent pen and his eloquence than by his artistic gifts, could not sleep after he had heard several sermons, and was lost in admiration for the preacher. Giovanni Bella Corniole, a great cameo worker, spent a long time upon the production of a splendid portrait of Savonarola, which was placed in the Medici collection. Even Michael Angelo, austere and proud as he was, felt in some measure the great reformer's influence, for though he was only a child when Savonarola thundered forth his denunciations of the modern Babylon, they made such an impression upon him that he could repeat extracts from them years afterwards.

A certain school regarded Savonarola as an iconoclast, an accusation of which Villari has endeavored to clear him, as in biography of the Dominican monk he asserts that the holocausts which I have described were only portraits of courtesans and books with obscene illustrations, and, to prove that he was not an enemy of letters, points out that he asked the Chapter of San Marco for permission to purchase the library of Lorenzo de' Medici, which was eventually known as the Lanrentiana. Be this as it may, Savonarola, by prohibiting the study of the nude, which is the ever-fresh source of the beautiful in art, and by maintaining the principle of Christian as opposed to pagan art, brought about a complete revolution, and put an end to the strange combats of Pollaiuolo, to the compositions taken from the Latin and Greek authors, to the strange allegories of Botticelli and Benozzo Gozzoli, and to the beautiful groups of statuary which one might suppose to be extracted from the quarries of Paros, and wrought by the pupils of Praxiteles.

It will readily be understood that this fanaticism, excellent as were the motives which gave rise to it, called forth the hostility of the Court of Rome, whose power it tended to undermine. The sack of San Marco was the first tangible act of hostility on the part of the Arrabbiati against the Piagnoni, as the followers of Savonarola were called, and that must have been a memorable scene when the Dominicans, succumbing under superior forces, were overwhelmed by their assailants in the church which was red with blood, and marched to their doom singing and praising God. One cannot visit that now peaceful retreat, which the recollection of Savonarola, Fra Domenico, and Fra Angelico renders so famous, without being reminded of all this ; and the cell of Savonarola, in which are preserved the portraits of Cosimo the Elder, of Benivieni, and of Savonarola himself, the manuscripts, the chair, the furniture, and the sacerdotal ornaments of the great monk, is assuredly one of the most interesting historical spots in Florence. In it we have, so to speak, the records of history proved by facts, but for which they might be regarded as mere legends.

From this time forth religious subjects were invariably selected for painting and sculpture, and throughout Italy artists were at work upon portraits of Christ, the Virgin, the angels and prophets, and upon Bible scenes, until such men of genius as Titian and Giorgione discarded this conventional rule, and selected their subjects from the Greek mythology or the domain of pure fancy. Nowhere was the influence of Savonarola, more profoundly felt than in the fine-arts, as his utterances had made a deeper impression upon artists than upon any other class.