A permanent Great Council (_Consiglio Maggiore_) was to be composed of all eligible ‘citizens,’ that is, of all citizens of the age of thirty whose father, grandfather, or great-grandfather had been elected to the greater offices of state. This Council, numbering some 3000, was to elect out of its own members a ‘senate’ (_Consiglio degli ottanta_), holding office for six months, and forming with the Consiglio Maggiore the legislative body of the city. Further, the Great Council was to nominate the Signory and other magistrates out of a list presented by a body of nominators, themselves elected in the Council, and to hear appeals on criminal cases. The Signory remained as it was before, composed of the Gonfalonier and the eight priors: it was to be elected every two months, while the Ten of Liberty and Peace (_Dieci di Libertà e Pace_), in whose hands lay the conduct of foreign affairs, were to hold office for six months. The constitution can scarcely be called a democratic one, for at least 7000 citizens were disenfranchised. In common with most theorists of his day, Savonarola admired the stability of Venice, and vainly thought to secure this for his native city by establishing a closed and permanent electoral and legislative body, the Consiglio Maggiore, after the Venetian type. Nevertheless, the government was preferable to the old system, by which the city, a republic in name, had fallen into the control of a single family and their clique. Savonarola did not content himself with this. From his pulpit he insisted on moral reformation as the necessary basis of true liberty, and pressed for a general amnesty which might allay the dangers of party strife. In thus becoming a politician, Savonarola protested that he acted unwillingly. In his sermon of December 21, 1494, he declared that he had pleaded with God to be excused from meddling with the government, but had been bidden to go on and establish a holy city, which favoured virtue and looked to Christ as its master. | Savonarola becomes associated with a political party | and arouses enmity at home and abroad.