graces, and by taking a
tribute from the Sultan, {17} in return for which he refused to
proclaim a crusade. The most important act of his pontificate was the
publication of the bull against witchcraft.

[Sidenote: Alexander VI 1492-1503]

The name of Alexander VI has attained an evil eminence of infamy on
account of his own crimes and vices and those of his children, Caesar
Borgia and Lucretia. One proof that the public conscience of Italy,
instead of being stupified by the orgy of wickedness at Rome was rather
becoming aroused by it, is found in the appearance, just at this time,
of a number of preachers of repentance. These men, usually friars,
started "revivals" marked by the customary phenomena of sudden
conversion, hysteria, and extreme austerity. The greatest of them all
was the Dominican Jerome Savonarola [Sidenote: Savonarola] who, though
of mediocre intellectual gifts, by the passionate fervor of his
convictions, attained the position of a prophet at Florence. He began
preaching here in 1482, and so stirred his audiences that many wept and
some were petrified with horror. His credit was greatly raised by his
prediction of the invasion of Charles VIII of France in 1494. He
succeeded in driving out the Medici and in introducing a new
constitution of a democratic nature, which he believed was directly
sanctioned by God. He attacked the morals of the clergy and of the
people and, besides renovating his own order, suppressed not only
public immorality but all forms of frivolity. The people burned their
cards, false hair, indecent pictures, and the like; many women left
their husbands and entered the cloister; gamblers were tortured and
blasphemers had their tongues pierced. A police was instituted with
power of searching houses.

It was only the pope's fear of Charles VIII that prevented his dealing
with this dangerous reformer, who now began to attack the vices of the
curia. In 1495, however, the friar was summoned to Rome, and {18}
refused to go; he was then forbidden to preach, and disobeyed. In Lent
1496 he proclaimed the duty of resisting the pope when in error. In
November a new brief proposed changes in the constitution of his order
which would bring him more directly under the power of Rome.
Savonarola replied that he did not fear the excommunication of the
sinful church, which, when launched against him May 12, 1497, only made
him more defiant. Claiming to be commissioned directly from God