Читать книгу Rebels and Reformers: Biographies for Young People онлайн

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As he came out into the street the mob greeted him with a shout of ferocious joy. It was night, and the faces of the threatening, yelling men in the torchlight must indeed have been terrifying. So great was their fury that the guards could with difficulty protect him as they led him and his companions to the great palace known as the Palazzo Vecchio, where they were cast into a dungeon.

The account of Savonarola’s torture is most tragic and terrible. He found that he simply could not bear the agony. While his limbs were stretched and twisted on the rack his courage and his senses forsook him, and he acknowledged himself guilty of any crime laid to his charge. The torture lasted for three days, and in the intervals he withdrew all he had said. “My God,” he cried, “I denied Thee for fear of pain.” Finally his judges, who were drawn from his bitterest enemies, condemned him to death. The Pope Alexander, who on hearing the news praised his well-beloved Florentines as true sons of the Church, wanted his enemy to be brought to Rome that he might see him suffer death before him. But the Arrabbiati were determined that his end should come in Florence itself. His two fellow-monks received the same treatment as he did. Fra Domenico showed great courage, and under the most cruel torture no syllable could be extracted from him which could hurt his master. Fra Silvestro, on the other hand, collapsed at the very sight of the rack, and acquiesced in every accusation brought against his master or himself.