The fame of this marvellous preacher was now extending throughout the world by means of his printed sermons.  Even the Sultan of Turkey commanded them to be translated into Turkish for his own study.  Of course the individual aim of Savonarola was simply to be the regenerator of religion.  The Florentines, however, adulated him as the real founder of the free Republic.  Hence they displayed immense ardour in defending him against the Pope, seeing that thus they were upholding their own freedom, because the Pope was aiming at reinstating the Medici in Florence.

The Pope had hoped that the Prior would moderate his tone, but this was only more aggressive than ever, and threatening messages arrived from the Vatican.  Attempts by his friends, some of them of high and influential position, to defend him, only the more enraged Pope Alexander Borgia.  He summoned a consistory of fourteen Dominican theologians who were ordered to investigate Savonarola’s conduct and doctrine.  The strange issue was he was charged with having been the cause of all the misfortunes that had befallen Pietro de’ Medici.

After Lent the Prior went to preach a course of sermons at Prato, and on his return to Florence he delivered a sermon in the Hall of the Greater Council in the presence of all the magistrates and leading citizens of the city, in which he openly and courageously defied all the wrath of Alexander Borgia.  Then he once more set himself to the work of serving the Republic, though, as the sequel shows, he was fated to meet with a base reward.

Commerce and industry had been paralysed in Florence by the incessant commotions of past years.  The immense sums paid to the French king had together with sums spent on war drained the public resources and lowered the credit of the Republic.  And now famine was threatened, for the people in the rural districts were pinched with hunger.  The starving peasantry began to flock in great numbers into the city, so that the misery increased.  Terror was occasioned by a few cases of death from plague.  Florence was at war with Pisa, but without success, for many of her mercenary soldiers were deserting and the forces besieging Pisa were dwindling for lack of supplies.

Fresh adversities were in store for the Florentines.  Though the rumours of a second invasion of Italy by King Charles proved unfounded, for he renounced all idea of returning, new enemies arose.  The Emperor Maximilian was marching towards the frontier, and the Pope felt encouraged to enter into open war with the Florentines.  His forces and the troops from Sienna actually attempted an incursion into the territories of the Republic, but they suffered repeated repulses, and at length were put to flight.  But this conflict weakened still more the forces before Pisa, at which city Maximilian arrived with 1,000 foot soldiers, receiving a cordial welcome from the Pisans.