This week, we finally managed to install our new (not new ) item of furniture - a mid-18th Century grandfather clock. It's not bright and shiny like more modern ones, but a dark oak with a warm patina which the beeswax polish is drawing out. In order to set it up, we had to do a certain amount of research - how to hang the pendulum, where the weight went on the endless chain - and it got me thinking... where and when did certain divisions of time come from? The time periods which I have written either had household clocks or didn't, I have not written novels from the time of their invention. Clocks have been around for a long time, and the obsession with measuring time in an ordered fashion dates back to at least the ancient Sumerians. It was they who established a circular reading of time and, I imagine, the sixty seconds/minutes came about as much because it was an easy way to divide a circle as anything else. But it wasn't until much later that the precision of seconds ...
There are very, very people I could write and write about, but Savonarola is one of them. In fact, last year, I wrote a c.160,000 word observation about my own journey into his life and preachings. This appealed to the theologian in me as well as the historian!
Shockingly, despite spending years studying RE and Theology across various levels of education, Savonarola was not a character I had come across until very recently. I've suppose this is because his work did not directly influence my areas of study, but I remain quite surprised that he never cropped up in my education. And here's why: although geographically he never left Italy - and northern Italy at that - his preaching and the awareness he raised concerning the direction of the church was to send shockwaves across the Christian world.
He is the most fascinating character to write in fiction, too. Driven entirely - and often perilously - to do what he believed was right, he was not open to disagreement. But one of the most fascinating things about him was how people perceived him, and this is what I delved into with my fiction. Here was a man who lived his life as a perpetual outsider (being from Ferrara but preaching in Florence), one who split a city and its people down the middle with his belief, and - though many would thrown their hands up in horror that I could mention this in an even remotely positive way - one who shaped the journey of Renaissance art as greatly as Da Vinci or Michelangelo.
My favourite of those interactions is the relationship between Savonarola and Pico, the wayward nobleman of Mirandola. There is nothing which should have brought these two men together, and they were as different as chalk and cheese but, something about one another, seemed to draw them together. Savonarola became a figurehead to Pico who, despite his mother's hopes for him, proved entirely unable to follow the teaching of his spiritual leader. But Savonarola never tired of Pico. He mourned Pico's death, which occurred at the worst possible time for Savonarola, who had just secured peace through the diplomacy Pierro di Medici had messed up, and these combined catalysts altered the way in which he carried forward his beliefs. This is the point where he threw caution to the wind. Veiled references were gone and he threw down the gauntlet at the feet of the corrupt Vatican. Long after Pico's mysterious death, Savonarola remained in contact with Pico's mother and - as was the case with an evergrowing number of people - she found Savonarola's teaching to be a great inspiration.
I knew I wanted to write about this unlikely friendship. It broke all the logic of reasoning and has confused their histories. But I didn't want to have it from the point of view of either of these men - some of the mystery of their relationship would be lost in my speculation - so the story of Poisoned Pilgrimage is told from the point of view of Francesco, an outsider much like those who have tried to make sense of this partnership.
All people are defined by their interactions with others... another thing which makes Savonarola a fascinating figure!
You can read the opening chapter of Poisoned Pilgrimage in the Embark Journal.
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