In the interests of justice and of mercy, the Pope’s Holiness strove to have their trial held in Rome: but events had roused the Signoria to vindicate the honour of Florence “to satisfy the people who so long had been duped and trained in sacrilege and rebellion.” Wherefore, from Rome came Commissioners for the trial of Fra Girolamo Savonarola and his accomplices. Put to the legal torture, he confessed himself charlatan and criminal. He and his lieutenants, Frati Domenico and Silvestro, were found guilty as heretics, schismatics, and rebels against the Holy See, of political fanaticism amounting to high treason and mutiny against his lawful rulers. Handed to the secular judges for sentence, he was condemned, with the two friars, to death by hanging and the burning of their bodies after death. Handed back to the ecclesiastical power the three were degraded from their priesthood, to enable them to undergo the death penalty, avoiding the sacrilege of violence to the persons of those tonsured and anointed. At the very last, by the express commandment of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI there was offered to the condemned a Plenary Indulgence-in-the-article-of-death, with release from all Canonical Censures and Excommunications. Gratefully, thankfully, it was accepted; and the prisoners paid the legal retribution of their crimes. Had he been an Englishman of the Twentieth Century, instead of a Florentine of the Fifteenth, Fra Girolamo Savonarola would not have been hanged or burned: but censured; suspended, from the exercise of sacerdotal functions, by ecclesiastical authority; and, at last, by medical authority, interned at Broadmoor during the Pleasure of the King’s Majesty, as a criminal lunatic. * * * * * This year 1498, was born Don Giovanni Borgia, called “Infans Romanus”; who was said to be a bastard of Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) by “a Roman spinster.” This year also, died the twelve-toed chin-tufted excommunicated little Christian King Charles VIII of France; and was succeeded by his cousin Louis XII, a thin man with a fat neck and lip, and an Ethiopic nose, and exquisite attire, who immediately made two startling claims—for the nullification of his marriage with Madame Jeanne de Valois, and for the confirmation of his claim to the Duchy of Milan. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI always preferred friends to enemies; and, now that Charles VIII was gone to his own place, He gladly welcomed an opportunity of winning the allegiance of France. A commission of jurists went from Rome, who, on the legal facts, declared the marriage between the King and Madame Jeanne to be null and void. A papal dispensation legalized the marriage of the Christian King Louis XII and Queen Anne, his predecessor’s widow, whereby her duchy of Bretagne was retained to the crown of France. The claim to the Duchy of Milan was a matter which required consideration. * * * * *