FRIAR AND POPE

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28606, 7 June 1958, Page 3

FRIAR AND POPE

The Meddlesome Friar. Michael de la Bedoyere. Collins. 256 pp. Michael de la Bedoyere earned the gratitude of, readers with his life of the great modernist scholar, Baron von Hugef, which was published some years ago. His researches since that time have taken him back into history, and his latest volume “The Meddlesome Friar” deals with the conflict between Savonarola and Pope Alexander VI (Borgia). In “The Meddlesome Friar” he has set himself to unravel a tangle, and this part of the task has been carried out with great skill. However, when it is a matter of interpreting the facts, it becomes necessary to examine Mr de ’.a Bedoyere’s method.

It is soon obvious that the historian approaches the principal figures in his book in the spirit of a man of the world and an apologist. He is understanding, so that Pope Alexander is presented as a harassed family man,' fundamentally decent but often tempted, like everyone else, and Savonarola is fanatical, “even though, paradoxically, his horizon was wide and his personality more balanced than is often the case with oneidea reformers.” Of course the author knows the chronicles and has pondered what the historians say. He is not afraid of the worst; but if he puts in the black, he immediately begins tp soften it. and sometimes finishes up with silver grey or even lavender. His method may be illustrated in a single sentence. “Both, however, were weakened, If not ruined, by the flaws in their characters, the first through a kind of self-intoxi-cation with his mission, always a temptation for the revolutionary, the second, through passion, and self-indulgence, a temptation common to all men, but, happily, rarely the mark of a Pope.” Mr de la Bedoyere first gives

the specific failing; he then comments that it is the common lot. Of course, what he says is true; no-one is as black as he is painted, and it may be conceded that this is a very well-bred way of writing history. However, a “scientific” historian might be taken aback by a judgment like this one. “In the quarrel between the two figures, which we are now in a better position to understand, we can sense that the conflict between the sinner and the saint may result in lessening the sanctity of the one and illuminating the privilege of the other to remain, so long as life lasts, among those whom, Christ came to save while He yet condemned their sins, with an infinitely deeper knowledge of them than a Savonarola could have.” In effect, Mr d£ la Bedoyere says: “Judge not” and wipes the slate clean. An ordinary reader, however, might prefer to form his own conclusions

These'remarks concerning Mr de la Bedoyere’s conception of historical method are not to be taken as hostile. An author may treat his subject as he wishes, and it is probably valuable to have someone writing history “in the gentlemanly interest.” It may perhaps be just worth while adding that -this approach has one capital disadvantage. The reader, unless he is skilfully treated, may come to feel that his author will not speak out. Inaccuracy of fact would be more destructive of trust; but this attitude on an author’s part may also gradually undermine confidence. Could what Mr de la Bedoyere says, on page 159, concerning Savonarola be relevant here? “This picturesque i eform which he how undertook may seem faintly ridiculous to us and in some aspects even sinister, yet at the back of it lay a sound outlook which is easily misrepresented.”