At the same period, Michelangelo fell under very different influences; and these left a far more lasting impression on his character than the gay festivals and witty word-combats of the lords of Florence.  In 1491 Savonarola, the terrible prophet of coming woes, the searcher of men’s hearts, and the remorseless denouncer of pleasant vices, began that Florentine career which ended with his martyrdom in 1498.  He had preached in Florence eight years earlier, but on that occasion he passed unnoticed through the crowd.  Now he took the whole city by storm.  Obeying the magic of his eloquence and the magnetism of his personality, her citizens accepted this Dominican friar as their political leader and moral reformer, when events brought about the expulsion of the Medici in 1494.  Michelangelo was one of his constant listeners at S. Marco and in the Duomo.  He witnessed those stormy scenes of religious revival and passionate fanaticism which contemporaries have impressively described.  The shorthand-writer to whom we owe the text of Savonarola’s sermons at times breaks off with words like these:  “Here I was so overcome with weeping that I could not go on.”  Pico della Mirandola tells that the mere sound of the monk’s voice, startling the stillness of the Duomo, thronged through all its space with people, was like a clap of doom; a cold shiver ran through the marrow of his bones the hairs of his head stood on end while he listened.  Another witness reports:  “Those sermons caused such terror, alarm, sobbing, and tears, that every one passed through the streets without speaking, more dead than alive.”

One of the earliest extant letters of Michelangelo, written from Rome in 1497 to his brother Buonarroto, reveals a vivid interest in Savonarola.  He relates the evil rumours spread about the city regarding his heretical opinions, and alludes to the hostility of Fra Mariano da Genezzano; adding this ironical sentence:  “Therefore he ought by all means to come and prophesy a little in Rome, when afterwards he will be canonised; and so let all his party be of good cheer.”  In later years, it is said that the great sculptor read and meditated Savonarola’s writings together with the Bible.  The apocalyptic thunderings and voices of the Sistine Chapel owe much of their soul-thrilling impressiveness to those studies.  Michelet says, not without justice, that the spirit of Savonarola lives again in the frescoes of that vault.

On the 8th of April 1492, Michelangelo lost his friend and patron.  Lorenzo died in his villa at Careggi, aged little more than forty-four years.  Guicciardini implies that his health and strength had been prematurely broken by sensual indulgences.  About the circumstances of his last hours there are some doubts and difficulties; but it seems clear that he expired as a Christian, after a final interview with Savonarola.  His death cast a gloom over Italy.  Princes and people were growing uneasy with the presentiment of impending