The Martyr of Florence; or the Home of Fiesole

George Eliot's Romola contains by far the best-known fictional treatment of Savonarola, but The Martyr of Florence (1887*) offers a more conventionally evangelical twist on the fifteenth-century priest.  Savonarola enjoys an important, if somewhat unstable, place in proto-Protestant interpretations of Christian history, although (unlike other proto-Protestant heroes such as Wycliffe) he did not critique Catholic doctrine per se.  The Martyr of Florence winds up walking a moderately interesting line: although it was published by John F. Shaw, whose press was home to reliably anti-Catholic evangelicals, The Martyr of Florence manages to be proto-Protestant without drawing on anti-Catholic rhetoric.  On the one hand, characters trot off to mass without a peep from the narrator, and there are uncritical references to religious iconography (for a Victorian evangelical, the novelist is unusually supportive of the aesthetic's role in worship), extreme unction, and confessors.  On the other hand, the novel "Protestantizes" its representations of Catholic practice: there are sermons and some references to Scripture-reading (although not many), but no direct representation of the mass and certainly no detailed discussions of Catholic theology. 

Perhaps more interesting is the novelist's first implicit, then explicit link between Savonarola and Victorian revivals, such as those conducted by D. L. Moody and  Ira Sankey.   In Chapter VI, Savonarola preaches a sermon, with impressive results:  "At these words a sob broke from that great multitude; cries and groans were heard on every side; the writer who took down notes of the sermon dropped his tablets, overcome with the force of his emotion; and the preacher himself paused, troubled at the effect of his own words" (97).  This sermon effects the conversion of one of the novel's main characters, so it clearly has a positive outcome; yet that ambiguous fourth clause (is Savonarola troubled by the effect on the audience, by the unintentional effect on himself, or both?) suggests that such impassioned preaching may produce unanticipated outcomes.  After all, Savonarola will eventually be abandoned by many of his followers--including, no doubt, many of those who "sob" at this very moment.  While this inarticulate group agony may well be conviction of sin, it is also highly sensational.  Affect, in other words, is not the same thing as authentic conversion.  Near the end of the novel, the rather skeptical Mariotto Albertinelli tells the saintly Annunziata that "...sooner or later all revivals come to this.  Men cannot keep long at such a high tension as the Frate required" (249).  The fault, replies Annunziata, lies in Florence's "unworthy" nature.  And yet, Albertinelli's point stands; the novel suggests that revivalism may well be a utopian project. 

*--John F.  Shaw was apparently allergic to identifying publication dates, but this edition appeared in 1887; a quick look at some publication catalogs suggests that the book originally appeared c. 1880.

Comments

[Dawn]

LP...I have a secret love for Victorian "religious" literature...I own all of the Elsie Dinsmore and Mildred Keith books by Martha Finley, and "Wide, Wide World" and "Daisy Plains" (?)by Susan Warner. If I am ever sad, they pick up my mood because I laugh myself silly at the angst. Do you have any recommendations for other writers like that? I've tried George Eliot, but she doesn't grab my interest.

BTW...if you didn't teach just far enough from me, I'd be darned tempted to audit your classes, just for the fun of it.

[Mr Punch]

So this is actually a critique of evangelical revivalism, in the guise of an anti-Catholic novel?