Never had the old superstitions of the Middle Ages completely vanished in the Renaissance. Never had the new light of the Renaissance illumined people’s lives without, at the same time, bringing out even more distinctly the shadows of doubt and fear. Lorenzo was dying, and with him Florence was dying, too. In the last years of his life, the persistent, aching doubts and fears grew ever more portentous. At last, with the strident cries of Girolamo Savonarola, they snuffed out the light.

Savonarola was a Dominican friar, born in Ferrara in 1452. A weak and brooding boy of sudden and savage passions, he had fallen in love at the age of nineteen, had been rebuffed, and had been so shattered by the rejection that he fled his home to lock himself in a monastery.

Years later, when the philosopher Pico della Mirandola heard Savonarola preach, he encouraged Lorenzo to bring the friar to Florence and give him a home from which he could make his sallies against the vices of the Church. Little did Pico consider that Savonarola was opposed to vice outside the Church as much as in it. Thus, Lorenzo invited to Florence the agent of his own destruction.

Savonarola arrived in the city in 1489, and his manner in the pulpit was harsh, violent, and terrifying. He roared of God’s impending revenge on Florence for its reprobate ways. He foretold deaths and famines and plagues, of invasions and wracking calamities that would befall the unrepentant. And he called up the images of a hell broiling with the screams of tormented sinners. Thousands flocked to his sermons and overflowed the church where he preached. Pico, Marsilio Ficino, Angelo Poliziano, Sandro Botticelli, all came to hear, to tremble, and to believe. Sixty years later, Michelangelo would say that he still could hear ringing in his ears that chilling, direful voice.

As Florence lost confidence in its newfound dreams and the old nightmares of anxiety welled up again, Lorenzo succumbed more and more to the ravages of gout. He was seen less and less frequently in Florence as he took refuge at the soothing baths in the neighboring countryside and at his own peaceful villas. He sought solace once again, as he had so often before, in the pleasures of his orchards and fields, in his books, in the company of his friends and of his family.

With the growing realization that he soon was to die, he prudently provided for the futures of his children. His daughter Lucrezia was married to Jacopo Salviati; Contessina, to a Ridolfi. Maddalena was married to Francesco Cibo, the son of Pope Innocent VIII. Piero, who would become head of the family, was allied to his mother’s family, the Orsini. The youngest, Giuliano, would have to wait until after his father’s death before marrying into the family of King Francis I of France.

Because Lorenzo realistically appraised Piero as an unreliable young man, it was to his son Giovanni that he looked with greatest hope for the future of the Medici. Having ingratiated himself with the pope, Lorenzo managed to have Giovanni appointed a cardinal at the age of fourteen. He was, as Lorenzo noted proudly, not only “the youngest of living cardinals, but the youngest that has ever existed.”

Lorenzo was too ill to be present at the celebration of Giovanni’s investiture. In the early spring of 1492, he was carried to the villa at Careggi, where both his father and his grandfather had gone to die. There, Poliziano stayed in constant attendance, and the doctors gave Lorenzo their usual remedy for a great banker: “various precious stones . . . pounded together in a mortar.”

As Giovanni set out for Rome, however, Lorenzo wrote him a letter of encouragement and advice.

I know [he wrote fondly to his son], as you are now going to Rome, that sink of all iniquities, that you will find some difficulty in following [virtuous paths], as bad examples are always catching, and inciters to vice will not be wanting. Your promotion to the Cardinalate, as you may imagine, at your age . . . will be viewed with great envy, and those who were not able to prevent your attaining this dignity will endeavor, little by little, to diminish it by lowering you in public estimation and causing you to slide into the same ditch into which they have themselves fallen, counting on success because of your youth. You must be all the firmer in your stand against these difficulties, as at present one sees such a lack of virtue in the College. I recollect, however, to have known a good many learned and good men in the College, leading exemplary lives. It will be well that you should follow their example, for by so doing you will be the more known and esteemed as being different from the others . . .

You know how important is the position and the example of a Cardinal, and the world would be far better if the Cardinals were what they ought to be, for then there would always be a good Pope, from whom emanates, one may say, peace for all Christians. Make every effort, therefore, to be this; if others had done so we might hope for universal good . . .

Lorenzo failed quickly now, and, toward the end, he sent for a priest to make his last confession. Another final visitor was his nemesis, Fra Savonarola. The two men never had met before. Instinctively recognizing each other as enemies, aware that their antagonism could be resolved only by the death or defeat of one of them, they had stayed apart, cautiously stalking one another for three years. Now Savonarola came.

To [Savonarola’s] exhortations to remain firm in his faith [Poliziano recorded], and to live in future, if God granted him life, free from crime, or if God so willed it to receive death willingly, Lorenzo answered that he was firm in his religion, that his life would always be guided by it, and that nothing could be sweeter to him than death, if such was the divine will. Fra Girolamo then turned to go when Lorenzo said: “Oh Father, before going deign to give me thy benediction.” Bowing his head, immersed in piety and religion he repeated the words and the prayers of the friar . . .

Thus was their mutual antagonism resolved in the ritual of the Church. On the night of April 5, out of a clear and calm sky, a thunderbolt lashed down at the cathedral of Florence.

The lantern of the cupola . . . was struck . . . [Luca Landucci reported], and it was split almost in half; that is, one of the marble niches and many other pieces of marble on the side toward the door leading to the Servi, were taken off in a miraculous way; none of us had ever in our lives seen lightning have such an effect before. . . . This marble niche fell and struck the roof of the church . . . and broke the roof and the vaulting in five places, finally fixing itself in the brick floor of the church. And many bricks and much other material from the vaulting fell also . . .

It was considered a great marvel, and [significant] of some extraordinary event, especially as it had happened suddenly, when the weather was calm, and the sky without a cloud.

On Sunday evening, April 8, 1492, Lorenzo died at the age of forty-three. “It was said,” Landucci wrote, “that when he heard the news of the effects of the thunderbolt, being so ill, he asked where it had fallen, and on which side; and when he was told, he said: ‘Alas! I shall die, because it fell toward my house.’ This may not have been so, but it was commonly reported.”

His body was taken to the old sacristy of San Lorenzo, where it was laid next to that of his brother, Giuliano, under the sarcophagus that had been built for their father and grandfather.

After Lorenzo’s death, Piero ruled Florence - haughtily and ineptly - until 1494. Then the king of France crossed the Alps with his army, to fight for an ancient French claim to Naples. Piero met him, bowed to him, and returned to Florence in humiliation only to be driven from the city by the disillusioned and angry Florentines, who felt themselves betrayed. The Medici palace was sacked, its paintings and sculptures and jewels trampled and scattered by the raging mobs.

In 1494, Savonarola began a fleeting and ugly rule of the city, taking out on it the revenge of a bitter puritan. But, in 1498, the mob turned on him, too, and amid raucous jeers they hanged and burned him at the stake.

Not until 1512 were the Medici restored to power in Florence at the hands of Giovanni, soon to be Pope Leo X. But the rule thenceforth was to be a cheerless despotism. The city now was the shroud of its former self.

After Lorenzo’s death, no one appeared to reestablish the balance of power. There came more invasions, twice more by the French, and also by the Austrians, the Germans, the Swiss, the Flemings, the Hungarians, and finally - conclusively - by the Spaniards.

The artists were gone from Florence. No more great architects grew up to adorn the city with churches and homes. No longer were there sculptors who could fashion “the Gates of Paradise.” No longer did the gardens of country villas buzz with excited talk of Plato, with confident hopes of mastering all human knowledge and uniting it in one resplendent whole. Never again would Florence be nearly so magical. Never again would the Florentines call any man Magnificent.