Sons of the first houses in Florence entered San Marco as novices.
This reform of the Order in a particular province was the first step to
a national Church, in which, had the reformer himself lived longer, it
must infallibly have ended. Savonarola, indeed, desired the
regeneration of the whole Church) and near the end of his career sent
pressing exhortations to the great potentates urging them to call
together a Council. But in Tuscany his Order and party were the only
organs of his spirit--the salt of the earth--while the neighbouring
provinces remained in their old condition. Fancy and asceticism tended
more and more to produce in him a state of mind to which Florence
appeared as the scene of the kingdom of God upon earth.
The prophecies, whose partial fulfilment conferred on Savonarola a
supernatural credit, were the means by which the ever active Italian
imagination seized control of the soundest and most cautious natures.
At first the Franciscans of the Osservanza, trusting in the reputation
which had been bequeathed to them by St. Bernardino of Siena, fancied
that they could compete with the great Dominican. They put one of their
own men into the Cathedral pulpit, and outbid the Jeremiads of
Savonarola by still more terrible warnings, till Piero de' Medici, who
then still ruled over Florence, forced them both to be silent.
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