But in the pulpit and in contact with the holiday folk of Florence he was ill at ease.

Lorenzo de' Medici overshadowed the whole city.

Lorenzo, in whom the pagan spirit of the Renaissance, the spirit of free culture, found a proper incarnation, was the very opposite of Savonarola, who had already judged the classical revival by its fruits, and had conceived a spiritual resurrection for his country.

At Florence a passionate love of art and learning--the enthusiasm which prompted men to spend their fortunes upon MSS.

and statues, the sensibility to beauty which produced the masterworks of Donatello and Ghiberti, the thirst for knowledge which burned in Pico and Poliziano and Ficino--existed side by side with impudent immorality, religious deadness, cold contempt for truth, and cynical admiration of successful villainy.