CHAPTER LVI

BEFORE GREAT EVENTS OCCUR IN A CITY OR A PROVINCE, SIGNS COME WHICH FORETELL THEM, OR MEN WHO PREDICT THEM

Whence it arises I do not know, but from ancient and modern examples it is seen that no great event ever takes place in a City or a Province that has not been predicted either by fortune tellers, by revelations, by prodigies, or by other celestial signs. And in order for me not to go distant from home in proving this, everyone knows how the coming of King Charles VIII of France into Italy was predicted by Brother Girolamo Savonarola, and how in addition to this it was said throughout Italy that at Arezzo there had been seen in the air men-at-arms battling together. In addition to this, everyone knows how, before the death of Lorenzo De’Medici the elder, the Duomo was hit in its highest part by a bolt from the skies which very greatly damaged that edifice. Also everyone knows how, a little while before Piero Soderini, who had been made Gonfalonier for life by the Florentine people, had been driven out and deprived of his rank, the palace was struck in the same manner by a [lightning] stroke. I could cite other examples in addition to these, which I will omit to avoid tedium. I shall narrate only that which T. Livius tells of before the coming of the French [Gauls] to Rome, that is, how one Marcus Creditus, a Pleb, reported to the Senate that, passing at midnight through the Via Nova [New Road], he had heard a voice louder than human which admonished him that he should report to the Magistrates that the Gauls were coming to Rome. The cause of this I believe should be discussed and interpreted by a man who has knowledge of natural and supernatural things, which I have not. But it could be, as some Philosophers hold, that this air being so full of spirits, having an intelligence which by natural virtu foresee future events, and having compassion for men, so that they can warn them by such signs to prepare for defense. But, however it may be, such is the truth, [and] that always after such incidents there follows things extraordinary and new in the provinces.