The Lauda and the Cult of Savonarola

Abstract

Travelers in Florence around the year 1500 who happened on Piazza San Marco toward evening might well, if they listened carefully, have caught the muffled strains of a lauda sung by the Dominican friars beyond the walls of the convent of San Marco. And if any of the words had been audible, chances are good they would have been “Ecce quam bonum et quam jocundum habitare fratres in unum” (“Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity,” Ps. 132:1). Only a few years before, the streets of Florence had echoed with the singing of laude such as Ecce quam bonum as thousands of children —the Savonarolan fanciulli processed through the city on their way to the duomo. But now, in the aftermath of Savonarola's execution in 1498, his revolutionary movement had gone underground, and his adherents had retreated from the streets to the relative safety of cloisters such as San Marco.