It must be frankly confessed that he never judged his own premonitions and visions critically, as he did those of others.In the funeral oration on Pico della Mirandola, he deals somewhat harshly with his dead friend.Since Pico, notwithstanding an inner voice which came from God, would not enter the Order, he had himself prayed to God to chasten him for his disobedience.He certainly had not desired his death, and alms and prayers had obtained the favour that Pico's soul was safe in Purgatory.With regard to a comforting vision which Pico had upon his sickbed, in which the Virgin appeared and promised him that he should not die, Savonarola confessed that he had long regarded it as a deceit of the I)evil, till it was revealed to him that the Madonna meant the second and eternal death.If these things and the like are proofs of presumption, it must be admitted that this great soul at all events paid a bitter penalty for his fault.In his last days Savonarola seems to have recognized the vanity of his visions and prophecies.And yet enough inward peace was left to him to enable him to meet death like a Christian.His partisans held to his doctrine and predictions for thirty years longer.
He only undertook the reorganization of the State for the reason that otherwise his enemies would have got the government into their own hands.It is unfair to judge him by the semi-democratic constitution of the beginning of the year 1495, which was neither better nor worse than other Florentine constitutions.
He was at bottom the most unsuitable man who could be found for such a work.His idea was a theocracy, in which all men were to bow in blessed humility before the Unseen, and all conflicts of passion wert not even to be able to arise.His whole mind is written in that inscription on the Palazzo della Signoria, the substance of which was his maxim as early as 1495, and which was solemnly renewed by his partisans in 1527: