Florence, Milan,
Verona, Pavia, Bologna, and Perugia is quite out of proportion to the
slight intellectual power exerted by the prophet in each case. He has
nothing really new or life-giving to communicate. He preaches indeed the
duty of repentance and charity, institutes a reform of glaring moral
abuses, and works as forcibly as he can upon the imagination of his
audience. But he sets no current of fresh thought in motion. Therefore,
when his personal influence was once forgotten, he left no mark upon the
nation he so deeply agitated. We can only wonder that, in many cases, he
obtained so complete an ascendency in the political world. All this is
as true of Savonarola as it is of S. Bernardino. It is this which
removes him so immeasurably from Huss, from Wesley and from Luther.

APPENDIX V.

_The 'Sommario della Storia d'Italia dal_ 1511 _al_ 1527,'_ by Francesco
Vettori._[1]

I have reserved for special notice in this Appendix the short history
written of the period between 1511 and 1527 by Francesco Vettori; not
because I might not have made use of it in several of the previous
chapters, but because it seemed to me that it was better to concentrate
in one place the illustrations of Machiavelli and Guicciardini which it
supplies. Francesco Vettori was born at Florence in 1474 of a family
which had distinguished itself by giving many able public servants to
the Commonwealth. He adopted the politics of the Medicean party,
remaining loyal to his aristocratic creed all through the troublous
times which followed the French invasion of 1494, the sack of Prato in
1512, the sack of Rome in 1527, and the murder of Duke Alessandro in
1536. Even when he seemed to favor a republican policy, he continued in
secret stanch to the family by whom he hoped to obtain honors and
privileges in the state. Like all the Ottimati, so furiously abused by
Pitti, Francesco Vettori found himself at last deceived in his
expectations. To the Medici they sold the freedom of their native city,
and in return for this unpatriotic loyalty they were condemned to exile,
death, imprisonment, or frosty toleration by the prudent Cosimo. Two
years after Cosimo had been made Duke, Vettori died, aged upwards of
sixty, without having shared in the prosperity of the princes to whose
service he had consecrated his life and for whose sake he had helped to
enslave Florence. To respect this species of fidelity, or to feel any
pity for the men who were so