The Story of Mankind [80]
the
original Roman Empire, was hard pressed. In the year 1393
the Emperor, Manuel Paleologue, sent Emmanuel Chrysoloras
to western Europe to explain the desperate state of old Byzantium
and to ask for aid. This aid never came. The Roman
Catholic world was more than willing to see the Greek Catholic
world go to the punishment that awaited such wicked heretics.
But however indifferent western Europe might be to the fate
of the Byzantines, they were greatly interested in the ancient
Greeks whose colonists had founded the city on the Bosphorus
ten centuries after the Trojan war. They wanted to learn
Greek that they might read Aristotle and Homer and Plato.
They wanted to learn it very badly, but they had no books and
no grammars and no teachers. The magistrates of Florence
heard of the visit of Chrysoloras. The people of their city
were ``crazy to learn Greek.'' Would he please come and
teach them? He would, and behold! the first professor of
Greek teaching alpha, beta, gamma to hundreds of eager young
men, begging their way to the city of the Arno, living in stables
and in dingy attics that they night learn how to decline the verb
and enter into the companionship of
Sophocles and Homer.
Meanwhile in the universities, the old schoolmen, teaching
their ancient theology and their antiquated logic; explaining
the hidden mysteries of the old Testament and discussing the
strange science of their Greek-Arabic-Spanish-Latin edition of
Aristotle, looked on in dismay and horror. Next, they turned
angry. This thing was going too far. The young men were
deserting the lecture halls of the established universities to
go and listen to some wild-eyed ``humanist'' with his newfangled
notions about a ``reborn civilization.''
They went to the authorities. They complained. But one
cannot force an unwilling horse to drink and one cannot
make unwilling ears listen to something which does not really
interest them. The schoolmen were losing ground rapidly. Here
and there they scored a short victory. They combined forces
with those fanatics who hated to see other people enjoy a
happiness which was foreign to their own souls. In Florence,
the centre of the Great Rebirth, a terrible fight was fought
between the old order and the new. A Dominican monk, sour
of face and bitter in his hatred of beauty, was the leader of
the mediaeval rear-guard. He fought a valiant battle. Day
after day he thundered his warnings of God's holy wrath
through the wide halls of Santa Maria del Fiore. ``Repent,''
he cried, ``repent of your godlessness, of your joy in things
that are not holy!'' He began to hear voices and to see flaming
swords that flashed through the sky. He preached to the
little children that they might not fall into the errors of these
ways which were leading their fathers to perdition. He organised
companies of boy-scouts, devoted to the service of the
great God whose prophet he claimed to be. In a sudden moment
of frenzy, the frightened people promised to do penance
for their wicked love of beauty and pleasure. They carried
their books and their statues and their paintings to the market
place and celebrated a wild ``carnival of the vanities'' with holy
singing and most unholy dancing, while Savonarola applied his
torch to the accumulated treasures.
But when the ashes cooled down, the people began to realise
what they had lost. This terrible fanatic had made them destroy
that which they had come to love above all things. They
turned against him, Savonarola was thrown into jail. He was
tortured. But he refused to repent for anything he had done.
He was an honest man. He had tried to live a holy life. He
had willingly destroyed those who deliberately refused to
share his own point of view. It had been his duty to eradicate
evil wherever he found it. A love of heathenish books and
heathenish beauty in the eyes of this
original Roman Empire, was hard pressed. In the year 1393
the Emperor, Manuel Paleologue, sent Emmanuel Chrysoloras
to western Europe to explain the desperate state of old Byzantium
and to ask for aid. This aid never came. The Roman
Catholic world was more than willing to see the Greek Catholic
world go to the punishment that awaited such wicked heretics.
But however indifferent western Europe might be to the fate
of the Byzantines, they were greatly interested in the ancient
Greeks whose colonists had founded the city on the Bosphorus
ten centuries after the Trojan war. They wanted to learn
Greek that they might read Aristotle and Homer and Plato.
They wanted to learn it very badly, but they had no books and
no grammars and no teachers. The magistrates of Florence
heard of the visit of Chrysoloras. The people of their city
were ``crazy to learn Greek.'' Would he please come and
teach them? He would, and behold! the first professor of
Greek teaching alpha, beta, gamma to hundreds of eager young
men, begging their way to the city of the Arno, living in stables
and in dingy attics that they night learn how to decline the verb
Sophocles and Homer.
Meanwhile in the universities, the old schoolmen, teaching
their ancient theology and their antiquated logic; explaining
the hidden mysteries of the old Testament and discussing the
strange science of their Greek-Arabic-Spanish-Latin edition of
Aristotle, looked on in dismay and horror. Next, they turned
angry. This thing was going too far. The young men were
deserting the lecture halls of the established universities to
go and listen to some wild-eyed ``humanist'' with his newfangled
notions about a ``reborn civilization.''
They went to the authorities. They complained. But one
cannot force an unwilling horse to drink and one cannot
make unwilling ears listen to something which does not really
interest them. The schoolmen were losing ground rapidly. Here
and there they scored a short victory. They combined forces
with those fanatics who hated to see other people enjoy a
happiness which was foreign to their own souls. In Florence,
the centre of the Great Rebirth, a terrible fight was fought
between the old order and the new. A Dominican monk, sour
of face and bitter in his hatred of beauty, was the leader of
the mediaeval rear-guard. He fought a valiant battle. Day
after day he thundered his warnings of God's holy wrath
through the wide halls of Santa Maria del Fiore. ``Repent,''
he cried, ``repent of your godlessness, of your joy in things
that are not holy!'' He began to hear voices and to see flaming
swords that flashed through the sky. He preached to the
little children that they might not fall into the errors of these
ways which were leading their fathers to perdition. He organised
companies of boy-scouts, devoted to the service of the
great God whose prophet he claimed to be. In a sudden moment
of frenzy, the frightened people promised to do penance
for their wicked love of beauty and pleasure. They carried
their books and their statues and their paintings to the market
place and celebrated a wild ``carnival of the vanities'' with holy
singing and most unholy dancing, while Savonarola applied his
torch to the accumulated treasures.
But when the ashes cooled down, the people began to realise
what they had lost. This terrible fanatic had made them destroy
that which they had come to love above all things. They
turned against him, Savonarola was thrown into jail. He was
tortured. But he refused to repent for anything he had done.
He was an honest man. He had tried to live a holy life. He
had willingly destroyed those who deliberately refused to
share his own point of view. It had been his duty to eradicate
evil wherever he found it. A love of heathenish books and
heathenish beauty in the eyes of this