Then came the turn of the more hardened consciences.Men who had long never been near the confessional, now acknowledged their sins.Ill-gotten gains were restored, and insults which might have borne fruit in blood retracted.Orators like Bernardino of Siena entered diligently into all the details of the daily life of men, and the moral laws which are involved in it.Few theologians nowadays would feel tempted to give a morning sermon 'on contracts, restitutions, the public debt (monte), and the portioning of daughters,' like that which he once delivered in the Cathedral at Florence.Imprudent speakers easily fell into the mistake of attacking particular classes, professions, or offices, with such energy that the enraged hearers proceeded to violence against those whom the preacher had denounced.A sermon which Bernardino once preached in Rome (1424) had another consequence besides a bonfire of vanities on the Capitol: 'After this,' we read, 'the witch Finicella was burnt, because by her diabolical arts she had killed many children and bewitched many other persons; and all Rome went to see the sight.'
But the most important aim of the preacher was, as has been already said, to reconcile enemies and persuade them to give up thoughts of vengeance.Probably this end was seldom attained till towards the close of a course of sermons, when the tide of penitence flooded the city, and when the air resounded with the cry of the whole people:
'Misericordia! ' Then followed those solemn embracings and treaties of peace, which even previous bloodshed on both sides could not hinder.
Banished men were recalled to the city to take part in these sacred transactions.It appears that these 'Paci' were on the whole faithfully observed, even after the mood which prompted them was over; and then the memory of the monk was blessed from generation to generation.But there were sometimes terrible crises like those in the families Della Valle and Croce in Rome (1482) where even the great Roberto da Lecce raised his voice in vain.Shortly before Holy Week he had preached to immense crowds in the square before the Minerva.But on the night before Maundy Thursday a terrible combat took place in front of the Palazzo della Valle, near the Ghetto.In the morning Pope Sixtus gave orders for its destruction, and then performed the customary ceremonies of the day.On Good Friday Roberto preached again with a crucifix in his hand; but he and his hearers could do nothing but weep.
Violent natures, which had fallen into contradictions with themselves, often resolved to enter a convent, under the impression made by these men.Among such were not only brigands and criminals of every sort, but soldiers without employment.This resolve was stimulated by their admiration of the holy man, and by the desire to copy at least his outward position.
The concluding sermon is a general benediction, summed up in the words:
'la pace sia con voi!' Throngs of hearers accompany the preacher to the next city, and there listen for a second time to the whole course of sermons.
The enormous influence exercised by these preachers made it important, both for the clergy and for the government, at least not to have them as opponents; one means to this end was to permit only monks or priests who had received at all events the lesser consecration, to enter the pulpit, so that the Order or Corporation to which they belonged was, to some extent, responsible for them.But it was not easy to make the rule absolute, since the Church and pulpit had long been used as a means of publicity in many ways, judicial, educational, and others, and since even sermons were sometimes delivered by humanists and other laymen.
There existed, too, in Italy, a dubious class of persons who were neither monks nor priests, and who yet had renounced the world--that is to say, the numerous class of hermits who appeared from time to time in the pulpit on their own authority, and often carried the people with them.A case of this kind occurred at Milan in 1516 after the second French conquest, certainly at a time when public order was much disturbed.A Tuscan hermit, Hieronymus of Siena, possibly an adherent of Savonarola, maintained his place for months together in the pulpit of the Cathedral, denounced the hierarchy with great violence, caused a new chandelier and a new altar to be set up in the church, worked miracles, and only abandoned the field after a long and desperate struggle.During the decades in which the fate of Italy was decided, the spirit of prophecy was unusually active, and nowhere where it displayed itself was it confined to any one particular class.We know with what a tone of true prophetic defiance the hermits came forward before the sack of Rome.In default of any eloquence of their own, these men made use of messengers with symbols of one kind or another, like the ascetic near Siena (1496) who sent a 'little hermit,' that is a pupil, into the terrified city with a skull upon a pole to which was attached a paper with a threatening text from the Bible.
