22± POLITICAL HERESY.— THE CHURCH. Florence. Some vears earlier the rebellious Cardinal Giuliano della Kovere, who had fled to France, persistently urged Charles VIII. to assemble a general council ; in 14:97 Charles submitted the question to the University of Paris, and the University pro- nounced in its favor. Wild as was Savonarola's notion that he could, single-handed, stimulate the princes to such action, it was, nevertheless, a dart aimed at the mortal spot of the papacy, and the combat thereafter was one in which no quarter could be given.* The end, in fact, was inevitable, but it came sooner and more dramatically than the shrewdest observer could have anticipated. It is impossible, amid the conflicting statements of friends and foes, to determine with positiveness the successive steps leading to the strange Sperimento del Fuoco which was the proximate occa- sion of the catastrophe, but it probably occurred in this wise : Fra Girolamo being silenced, Domenico da Pescia took his place. Matters were clearly growing desperate, and in his indiscreet zeal Domenico offered to prove the truth of his master's cause by throwing himself from the roof of the Palazzo de' Signori, by cast- ing himself into the river, or by entering fire. Probably this was only a rhetorical flourish without settled purpose, but the Francis- can, Francesco della Puglia, who was preaching with much effect at the Church of Santa-Croce, took it up and offered to share the ordeal with Fra Girolamo. The latter, however, refused to under- take it unless a papal legate and ambassadors from all Christian princes could be present, so that it might be made the commence- ment of a general reform in the Church. Fra Domenico then accepted the challenge, and on March 27 or 28 he caused to be affixed to the portal of Santa-Croce a paper in which he offered to prove, by argument or miracle, these propositions : I. The Church
- Landucci, p. 113. — Chron. Glassberger ann. 1482. — Raynald. ann. 1492, No.
25. — Pulgar, Cronica de los Reyes Catolicos, ii. civ. — Comba, La Riforma in Italia, I. 491.— Nardi, Lib. n. (p. 79). The contemporary Glassberger says of Andreas of Krain's attempt, " Nisi enim auctoritas imperatoris intervenisset maximum in ecclesia schisma subortum fuisset. Omnes enim aeinuli domini papae ad domini imperatoris consensum respiciebant pro concilio celebrando." A year's imprisonment in chains ex- hausted the resolution of Andreas, who executed a solemn recantation of his in- vectives against the Holy See. This was sent with a petition for pardon to Sixtus IV., who granted it, but before the return of the messengers the unhappy reformer hanged himself in his cell (ubi sup. ann. 1483).
