"And do you desire that I should yield up on my deathbed the power that
has made the glory of my whole life?" cried Lorenzo dei Medici.

"It is not I who desire it; it is the Lord," replied Savonarola coldly.

"Impossible, impossible!" murmured Lorenzo.

"Very well; then die as you have lived!" cried the monk, "in the midst of
your courtiers and flatterers; let them ruin your soul as they have
ruined your body!" And at these words, the austere Dominican, without
listening to the cries of the dying man, left the room as he had entered
it, with face and step unaltered; far above human things he seemed to
soar, a spirit already detached from the earth.

At the cry which broke from Lorenzo dei Medici when he saw him disappear,
Ermolao, Poliziano, and Pico delta Mirandola, who had heard all, returned
into the room, and found their friend convulsively clutching in his arms
a magnificent crucifix which he had just taken dawn from the bed-head.
In vain did they try to reassure him with friendly words. Lorenzo the
Magnificent only replied with sobs; and one hour after the scene which we
have just related, his lips clinging to the feet of the Christ, he
breathed his last in the arms of these three men, of whom the most
fortunate--though all three were young--was not destined to survive him
more than two years. "Since his death was to bring about many
calamities," says Niccolo Macchiavelli, "it was the will of Heaven to
show this by omens only too certain: the dome of the church of Santa
Regarata was struck by lightning, and Roderigo Borgia was elected pope."