ard in a crowd to try the ordeal. The Franciscans
were unwilling to be behindhand, and everybody took sides with equal
ardour for one or other party. All Florence was like a den of madmen;
everyone wanted the ordeal, everyone wanted to go into the fire; not
only did men challenge one another, but women and even children were
clamouring to be allowed to try. At last the Signoria, reserving this
privilege for the first applicants, ordered that the strange duel
should take place only between Fra Domenico Bonvicini and Fra Andrea
Rondinelli; ten of the citizens were to arrange all details; the day was
fixed for the 7th of April, 1498, and the place the Piazza del Palazzo.

The judges of the field made their arrangements conscientiously. By
their orders scaffolding was erected at the appointed place, five feet
in height, ten in width, and eighty feet long. This scaffolding was
covered with faggots and heath, supported by cross-bars of the very
driest wood that could be found. Two narrow paths were made, two feet
wide at most, their entrance giving an the Loggia dei Lanzi, their exit
exactly opposite. The loggia was itself divided into two by a partition,
so that each champion had a kind of room to make his preparations in,
just as in the theatre every actor has his dressing-room; but in this
instance the tragedy that was about to be played was not a fictitious
one.

The Franciscans arrived on the piazza and entered the compartment
reserved for them without making any religious demonstration;
while Savonarola, on the contrary, advanced to his own place in the
procession, wearing the sacerdotal robes in which he had just celebrated
the Holy Eucharist, and holding in his hand the sacred host for all the
world to see, as it was enclosed in a crystal tabernacle. Fra Domenico
di Pescia, the hero of the occasion, followed, bearing a crucifix,
and all the Dominican monks, their red crosses in their hands, marched
behind singing a psalm; while behind them again followed the most
considerable of the citizens of their party, bearing torches, for, sure
as they were of the triumph of their cause, they wished to fire the
faggots themselves. The piazza was so crowded that the people overflowed
into all the streets around. In every door and window there was nothing
to be seen but heads ranged one above the other; the terraces were
covered with people, and curious spectators were observed an the roof of
the Duomo and on the tap of the Campa