Complete Works

...had spoken eternal things, this man had believed concerning the first and temporary; so that if anyone should say that this man [Savonarola] had lied through hypocrisy, or was mocked by phantasms, or circumvented by the deceits of demons, he—unless he either holds an evil opinion of the faith or is of a deranged mind—must necessarily confess that God has both already revealed, and is able to reveal, in manifold ways the happiness and misery of those who have departed this life to those still living. And in the same time and space, He can make those to whom these things are made manifest more certain that they are not mocked by unseen things or specters, but that the things they perceive and see, whether with the mind or the eyes, are true.

Praise of the learning and probity of Brother Girolamo Indeed, no one except the malevolent will deny that a man of such learning and authority, and of such probity and prudence—to whose credit his summary theorems in Aristotelian philosophy, his public admonitions, his most noble interpretations of the sacred eloquence, and his predictions of future contingencies (which almost all Italy knows happened to the letter), and his most holy preservation of life have long since given the most witnessed faith—pronounced these things as true and to be held as unshaken before so many thousands of men in the principal temple of so celebrated a city, the truth not yet having been discovered. Add to this that while I was seen to inquire somewhat into this matter by those who had been present at the sermon, I heard that he had approached the preacher and, so that those things he had published might have more strength, reported to him that the deceased had appeared to him surrounded by fire and professed that he was still paying the penalty for his ingratitude.

Furthermore, a certain nun, famous for many noble prophecies—who also predicted many future things to him while he was alive, which happened precisely—among other things, brought forth this one thing two years before he migrated from this life: that in the "time of the lilies," by the work and urging of Brother Girolamo (of whom we have made mention), he would be dedicated to the college of the Friars Preachers. At the same time, she predicted that a certain Florentine family, which they call the Pazzi (then in exile), would return to their homeland. Many to whom this report had come wondered at this nomenclature of "lilies," thinking she spoke of the springtime when lilies bloom. But it was discovered that this "lily" was the King of the Gauls [the French], who uses such insignia; and on the day before he [Pico] took his religious vows (for he had so vowed before he died), and four days after that exiled family betook itself into their native city, the King entered Florence with a great retinue, making his way through Tuscany to claim the Kingdom of Naples by force and arms.

But before I make an end, I think it not useless to preface a few things at the close of this work. For I seem to see mastiffs baying at these revelations as if at the shadow of the moon, to whom a little morsel (perhaps not content with the previous ones) must be thrown, lest they beat the air with fruitless barking. I see likewise laughter forced from the mindless; I see sport provided for those who think themselves scholars, who will perhaps contend that because the healthy inspiration of entering religion was not postponed, souls ought not to be tortured by fire, and that in our time men are not found inspired by the divine spirit who enjoy conversations with Christ. But if they were to consider that sins worthy not of death but of pardon are to be punished by purgatorial fire, they would not wonder that even the just pay penalties. Likewise, if they are not ignorant that the servant who knows the will of his lord and did not fulfill it shall, by the witness of Truth, be beaten with many stripes, they would not find it strange that this man, who knew the will of God and delayed in fulfilling it (even if he were immune from any other faults), should suffer punishments.

On the other hand, I cannot sufficiently wonder at the crude and insipid cunning of those who, while they believe Christ died for men, do not believe that He can easily speak to those same men. By a more vehement argument, it should certainly be observed by them that all lower things are governed by higher things—as Dionysius the Areopagite witnesses in his book On the Celestial Hierarchy—and that mortal men can be made participants in the inspirations of the Virgin Mother, the angels, or the blessed spirits of men; and that lower minds of that grade and nature to whom the care of men is committed are illuminated by higher minds, which in turn draw divine mysteries either from the highest or from God Himself; and that men inspired by the divine spirit [receive] the same revelations and...