In that cell, when not under torture, he managed to write meditations on the thirteenth psalm, “In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped,” and a little work entitled “A Rule for Living a Christian Life”.  Before the last day he administered the Sacrament to his two companions, who were to die with him, with perfect composure, and the night preceding they spent together in prayer in the Great Hall which he had once dominated.

The execution was on May 23rd, 1498.  A gallows was erected in the Piazza della Signoria on the spot now marked by the bronze tablet.  Beneath the gallows was a bonfire.  All those members of the Government who could endure the scene were present, either on the platform of the Palazzo Vecchio or in the Loggia de’ Lanzi.  The crowd filled the Piazza.  The three monks went to their death unafraid.  When his friar’s gown was taken from him, Savonarola said:  “Holy gown, thou wert granted to me by God’s grace and I have ever kept thee unstained.  Now I forsake thee not but am bereft of thee.” (This very garment is in the glass case in Savonarola’s cell at S. Marco.) The Bishop replied hastily:  “I separate thee from the Church militant and triumphant”.  “Militant,” replied Savonarola, “not triumphant, for that rests not with you.”  The monks were first hanged and then burned.

The larger picture of the execution which hangs in Savonarola’s cell, although interesting and up to a point credible, is of course not right.  The square must have been crowded:  in fact we know it was.  The picture has still other claims on the attention, for it shows the Judith and Holofernes as the only statue before the Palazzo Vecchio, standing where David now is; it shows the old ringhiera, the Marzocco (very inaccurately drawn), and the Loggia de’ Lanzi empty of statuary.  We have in the National Gallery a little portrait of Savonarola—­No. 1301—­with another representation of the execution on the back of it.

So far as I can understand Savonarola, his failure was due to two causes:  firstly, his fatal blending of religion and politics, and secondly, the conviction which his temporary success with the susceptible Florentines bred in his heated mind that he was destined to carry all before him, totally failing to appreciate the Florentine character with all its swift and deadly changes and love of change.  As I see it, Savonarola’s special mission at that time was to be a wandering preacher, spreading the light and exciting his listeners to spiritual revival in this city and that, but never to be in a position of political power and never to become rooted.  The peculiar tragedy of his career is that he left Florence no better than he found it:  indeed, very likely worse; for in a reaction from a spiritual revival a lower depth can be reached than if there had been no revival at all; while the visit of the French army to Italy, for which Savonarola took such credit to himself, merely ended in disaster for Italy, disease for Europe, and the spreading of the very Renaissance spirit which he had toiled to destroy.  But, when all is said as to his tragedy, personal and political, there remains this magnificent isolated figure, single-minded, austere and self-sacrificing, in an age of indulgence.