Never was there so sweet a gladness,
  Joy of so pure and strong a fashion,
  As with zeal and love and passion
  Thus to embrace Christ’s holy madness! 
  Cry with me, cry as I now cry,
  Madness, madness, holy madness!

—­the procession of boys and girls through the streets, shaming their elders into hypocritical piety, and breeding in their own hearts the intolerable priggishness of premature pietism—­could not bring forth excellent and solid fruits.  The change was far too violent.  The temper of the race was not prepared for it.  It clashed too rudely with Renaissance culture.  It outraged the sense of propriety in the more moderate citizens, and roused to vindictive fury the worst passions of the self-indulgent and the worldly.  A reaction was inevitable.[3]

[1] This change was certainly wrought out by the influence of the friar and approved by him.  Segni, lib. i. p. 15, speaks clearly on the point, and says that the friar for this service to the city ’debbe esser messo tra buoni datori di leggi, e debbe essere amato e onorato da’ Fiorentini non altrimenti che Numa dai Romani e Solone dagli Ateniesi e Licurgo da’ Lacedemoni.’  The evil of the old system was that the Parlamento, which consisted of the citizens assembled in the Piazza, was exposed to intimidation, and had no proper initiative, while the Balia, or select body, to whom they then intrusted plenipotentiary authority, was always the faction for the moment uppermost.  For the mode of working the Parlamento and Balia, see Segni, p. 199; Nardi, lib. vi. cap. 4; Varchi, vol. ii. p. 372.  Savonarola inscribed this octave stanza on the wall of the Consiglio Grande: 

     ’Se questo popolar consiglio e certo
      Governo, popol, de la tua cittate
      Conservi, che da Dio t’e stato offerto,
      In pace starai sempre e libertate: 
      Tien dunque l’occhio della mente aperto,
      Che molte insidie ognor ti fien parate;
      E sappi che chi vuol far parlamento
      Vuol torti dalle mani il reggimento.’

[2] See Varchi, vol. i. p. 169.  Niccolo Capponi, in 1527, returning to the policy of Savonarola, caused the Florentines to elect Christ for their king, and inscribed upon the door of the Palazzo Pubblico:—­

      Y.H.S.  CHRISTUS REX FLORENTINI
        POPULI S.P.  DECRETO ELECTUS.

[3] The position of the Puritan leaders in England was somewhat similar to Savonarola’s.  But they had at the end of a long war, the majority of the nation with them.  Besides, the English temperament was more adapted to Puritanism than the Italian, nor were the manifestations of piety prescribed by Parliament so extravagant.  And yet even in England a reaction took place under the Restoration.

Meanwhile the strong wine of prophecy intoxicated Savonarola.  His fiery temperament, strained to the utmost by the dead weight of Florentine affairs