SAVONAROLA. 227 at the loss of the promised spectacle, and a heavy armed escort was necessary to convey the Dominicans in safety back to San Marco. Had the matter been one with which reason had any- thing to do, we might perhaps wonder that it was regarded as a triumph for the Franciscans ; but Savonarola had so confidently promised a miracle, and had been so implicitly believed by his followers, that they accepted the drawn battle as a defeat, and as a confession that he could not rely on the interposition of God. Their faith in their prophet was shaken, while the exultant Com- pagnacci lavished abuse on him, and they had not a word to utter in his defence.* His enemies were prompt in following up their advantage. The next day was Palm Sunday. The streets were full of tri- umphant Arrabbiati, and such Piagnoni as showed themselves were pursued with jeers and pelted with stones. At vespers, the Dominican Mariano de' Ughi attempted to preach in the Duomo, which was crowded, but the Compagnacci were there in force, in- , terrupted the sermon, ordered the audience to disperse, and those who resisted were assailed and wounded. Then arose the cry, " To San Marco !" and the crowd hurried thither. Already the doors of the Dominican church had been surrounded by boys whose cries disturbed the service within, and who, when ordered to be silent, had replied with showers of stones which compelled the entrance to be closed. As the crowd surged around, the wor- shippers were glad to escape with their lives through the cloisters. Francesco Yalori and Paolo Antonio Soderini were there in con- sultation with Savonarola. Soderini made good his exit from the city ; Yalori was seized while skirting the walls, and carried in front of his palace, which had already been attacked by the Com- pagnacci. Before his eyes, his wife, who was pleading with the assailants from a window, was slain with a missile, one of his children and a female servant were wounded, and the palace was sacked and burned, after which he was struck from behind raid killed by his enemies of the families Tornabuoni and Kidolfi.
- Landucci, pp. 168-9.— Processo Autentico, p. 542.— Burlamacchi, p. 563.—
Villari, II. App. pp. lxxv.-lxxx., lxxxiii.-xc— Guicciardini, Lib. in. c. 6. The good Florentines did not fail to point out that the sudden death of Charles VIII., on this same April 7, was a visitation upon hirn for having aban- doned Savonarola and the republic. — Nardi, Lib. n. p. 80.
