Thus did the afflicted
people of Milan remind their ancient God of His old covenant with man;
and when the procession again entered the cathedral, and it seemed as
if the vast building must fall in with the agonized cry of
'Misericordia!', many who stood there may have believed that the
Almighty would indeed subvert the laws of nature and of history, and
send a miraculous deliverance.
There was one government in Italy, that of Duke Ercole I of Ferrara,
which assumed the direction of public feeling, and compelled the
popular revivals to move in regular channels. At the time when
Savonarola was powerful in Florence, and the movement which he began
spread far and wide among the population of Central Italy, the people
of Ferrara voluntarily entered on a general fast (at the beginning of
1496). A Lazarist announced from the pulpit the approach of a season of
war and famine such as the world had never seen; but the Madonna had
assured some pious people that these evils might be avoided by fasting.
Upon this, the court itself had no choice but to fast, but it took the
conduct of the public devotions into its own hands. On Easter Day, the
3rd of April, a proclamation on morals and religion was published,
forbidding blasphemy, prohibiting games, sodomy, concubinage, the
letting of houses to prostitutes or panders, and the opening of all
shops on feast days, excepting those of the bakers and greengrocers.
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