My Lord will renovate the Church, And convert every barbarian people. There will be but one fold and one shepherd. But first Italy will have to mourn, And so much of her blood will be shed That her people shall everywhere be thinned.
Here there is obvious confusion, apart from the fact that the predicted regeneration and unification of the church never took place. The invader is to do no fighting, and yet so much blood will be shed that everywhere the people of Italy will be thinned. Are we, then, to believe that the "Cyrus" prediction was made at the same time? Is there not ground for suspicion that it was interpolated post eventum, in the Latin report? The only alternative solution seems to be that Villari or the Italian compiler has mixed prophecies of different years. In his sermon of November 1, 1494, Savonarola speaks of the French invasion as the "scourge" he had predicted [52]--an odd way of speaking of one promised before as "the Lord's anointed," even though the French host is said to be "led by the Lord." In any case his own claim to have predicted of "Cyrus" is unsupported by evidence, and, even if accepted, does not involve a date earlier than 1493-4. [53]
To predict the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII of France in Lent of 1494, or even late in 1493, was easy enough. [54] The invasion had been fully prepared, and was expected, even as was the Armada in the England of 1588. Savonarola was very likely to have inside knowledge of the scheme, and the Pope positively charged him with having helped to engineer it. Florence in effect received Charles as a friend. There had been, further, abundant discussion of the expedition both in France and Italy long before it set out. Guicciardini tells that wise Frenchmen were very apprehensive about it, and that Ferdinand of Naples reckoned that it must fail. Fail it finally did. Savonarola might even predict that the invader would not be resisted, for there was no force ready in Italy to repel that led by Charles, with its great train of artillery. It is an extreme oversight of Villari's to allege [55] that in the autumn, "unexpectedly as a thunderclap from a clear sky, came the news that a flood of foreign soldiery was pouring down from the Alps to the conquest of Italy.... All felt taken unawares." This assertion is completely exploded by the record of Guicciardini, and no historian will now endorse it. Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, had incited Charles to the invasion; the preparations had been open and extensive; and they had been abundantly discussed both in France and Italy. [56] The statement that "the Friar alone had foreseen the future" is absolute myth.