The Pratica was no formal element in the constitution new or old, and yet so strong were its traditions that, when in later years the Gonfalonier Piero Soderini preferred to consult the regular magistracies, the innovation was almost regarded as unconstitutional. The upper magistracies and committees sometimes composed the Pratica, but on important occasions the executive added a considerable number of leading citizens and legal luminaries. The timid executive thus widened the area of responsibility, and obtained a preliminary test of the drift of public opinion. A Pratica was the only assembly in which questions were freely debated; hence it somewhat threw into the shade not only the Eighty, but the Council itself. In Savonarola’s career, on the three most critical occasions, the interest centres in the debates of the Pratica.
The final vote in favour of appeal was large both in the Eighty and the Council, but during the discussion the result had seemed very doubtful. The aristocrats, who had hitherto manipulated the Signoria, could show that such a measure would still further weaken the already feeble executive. A section of them had, however, become aware that henceforth the executive would be wielded by the people, and that, after the Medicean leaders, the prominent oligarchs might be the victims of a sudden sentence: delay would be in favour of men of position, who in the Council would not be without adherents. On the other hand those who were irreconcilable with the Medici urged that the executive was the sword of the people, and that to blunt its edge was to weaken the people’s power. Savonarola had previously proposed an appeal, not to the Council, but to a smaller body. He seems however to have attributed no importance to the distinction, and preached earnestly in favour of the government proposal. Against the Dominican his opponents set up the eloquent Franciscan Fra Domenico da Ponzo, and the populace flocked from San Marco to Santa Croce and back again, to be taught its politics from the pulpit. The triumph of the government was complete, and the law was carried; time only could show whether, amid party passions, it would be observed. Savonarola’s share in this law has recently been denied; but contemporary friends and enemies ascribed to him its initiation and success. His panegyrists have no need to be ashamed of a measure which rightly gave the power of pardon to the sovereign authority. In a democracy, wrote Aristotle, the people should have the power of pardoning, but not of condemning. Savonarola’s reputation was afterwards injured, not by the law of appeal, but by the failure of his party to observe it.
In a kindred proposal to pare the claws of the executive, Savonarola had a yet more direct share. From the pulpit of San Marco was uttered the death-warrant of the primeval Florentine assembly, the Parlamento. This was a curious survival of the old municipal life of a comparatively small city, in which the people at large was the ultimate resort on any change of government. Under altered conditions it was doubtless an abuse. Each dominant party could induce the Signoria, which was its nominee, to summon a Parliament, and there propose measures of greater or less importance, with the purpose of prolonging or enhancing its own authority. By this simple expedient the constitution was more than once suspended. Savonarola saw that a single Signaria with an aristocratic or Medicean majority might, through such a plebiscite, overthrow in an hour the fabric of the new republic. On no political subject was his language more intemperate. There was now, he cried, no need of Parliaments: the sovereignty of the people was vested in the Council, which could make every law that the people could desire: Parliament was the robbery of the people’s power. He warned his congregation, if ever the bell of the Palazzo rang for Parliament, to hack to pieces every Prior that stepped upon the platform: the Gonfaloniers of the companies must swear that on the first stroke of the bell, they would sack the Priors’ houses, and of each house sacked, the Gonfalonier and his company should divide the spoils. Within sixteen days of Savonarola’s sermon this ferocious proposal, though modified in its penal details, became law. Thus the middle classes deprived the lower of even the semblance of a share in government. The Parliament which abolished the Medici regime had shouted away its own existence. Hitherto every insignificant bafia had required the assent of this popular assembly; but the sweeping change which established the new republic had never received its sanction. The time might come when even this faint echo of the people’s voice might be regretted.
In these two deliberate attempts to weaken the executive, Savonarola was probably less influenced by theoretic democratic considerations, than by feverish anxiety to fend off the immediate danger, a recrudescence of party strife and proscription executed under legal forms. But his dislike of the rabble as a political power was genuine. He had all an Italian’s respect for family; he dwelt with complacency on the fact that many of his novices were scions of the best Florentine houses. He knew, or soon learned to know, the defects of a weak executive. During his trial he confessed his wish to imitate yet further the Venetian constitution, by the appointment of a Doge, a Gonfalonier for life. After his death, this very method was adopted from sheer despair at the incompetence of the republican administration. So again he opposed the most durable democratic principle which flattered Florentine love of equality, election by lot. When a combination of aristocrats, who wished to discredit the Council, and of extreme men, who would carry democratic principles to their logical conclusions, strove to eliminate nomination, and to substitute a bare for an absolute majority, Savonarola preached against this enfeeblement of administrative efficiency.
Savonarola taught his congregation that every vote entailed a solemn responsibility; he amplified San Bernardino’s warning that a single bean wrongly given might prove the ruin of the State. The elector, he preached, must have in view the glory of God, the welfare of the community, the honour of the State: he ought not to nominate a candidate from private motives nor reject one who may have wronged him: a candidate should be both good and wise, but if the choice lie between a wise man and one who is good but foolish, the interest of the State required the former: no man should be elected to an office by way of charity, his poverty must not be relieved to the detriment of the public service: the elector should not from temper or persuasion vote against a candidate or throw his nomination paper on the ground, nor yet support any who had canvassed him, nor ever give a party vote: in cases of reasonable doubt let the elector pray, and then without looking give the black bean or the white, for God would guide his hand. This last characteristic reference to divine guidance was followed by a remarkable instance of reliance upon miracle. There were rumours that the new great hall of Council was unsafe, and nervous electors feared to take their seats. Let them not fear, exclaimed the preacher, for if the building were not sound, God would hold it up!
On the expulsion of the Medici, their financial system as well as their constitution was cast into the melting-pot. The progressive tax on all forms of income, which had been their favourite expedient, shared in their unpopularity. Savonarola was prepared not only with a constitution but a budget. He preached that direct taxation should be limited to a tenth on immovables, and that this should be levied once only in the year. It was argued that such a tax was not liable to the arbitrary assessment, which had been the curse of Florentine finance; a tax on land was easy to collect and had solid security behind it; it entailed no inquisitorial prying into credit, it suffered merchant and artisan to ply unhindered those occupations which made the wealth of Florence; for she was poor in land but rich in commerce. The proposal became law, and a committee of sixteen was elected to assess- all landed property in Florence and its territory. Apart from its being limited to immovables, the new tax differed from its predecessors in being regarded technically as a gift, and not as a loan. Extraordinary taxes had previously been credited to the tax-payer in the State-debt and nominally bore interest; the new tax was subject to no repayment.
For this suggestion Savonarola has won the fame of a great financier, and it is true that the tenth had a long life, when once its delicate youth was past, for it formed the basis of taxation under the Medici Grand-dukes. Yet the proposal was neither wise nor novel. Taxes had long been levied on revenue from land, and the limitation was but a return to earlier practice.