At daybreak, worn out and depressed by the many hours I had lain awake, while I was praying I heard a voice that said to me: "Fool that thou art, dost thou not see that it is God's will that thou shouldst keep to the same path ?" The consequence of which was that on the same day I preached a tremendous sermon.' These passages leave upon the mind no doubt of Savonarola's sincerity.
If he deceived others, he was himself the first to be deceived, and that too not before he had subjected himself to the most searching examination, seeking in vain to escape from the force which compelled him to play the part of prophet.

Terrible, indeed, must have been the wrestlings and questionings of this strong-fibered intellect, alone and diffident, within the toils of ecstasy.
Returning to the details of Savonarola's biography, we find him still in Lombardy in 1486.

After leaving Brescia he moved to Reggio, where he made the friendship of the famous Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.

They continued intimate till the death of the latter in 1494; it was his nephew, Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola, who afterwards wrote the Life of Savonarola.

From Reggio the friar went to Genoa; and by this time his fame as a prophet in the north of Lombardy was well established.