Origins and history of the infamous Bonfire of the Vanities

 Girolamo Savonarola was a Dominican Friar and a religious fanatic.  He  lived during the time of Sandro Botticelli and Michelangelo. He despised the decadence of the Renaissance and  believed that the Pope and church hierarchy were corrupt to the core. Savonarola sermonized before huge throngs with fiery passion and quickly earn enormous influence over not only the common peasant but artists, writers and the ruling elites. Savonarola truly believed that God had given him the task of calling people to ask forgiveness and save their souls before the impending day of judgment. Many of his followers, called The Weepers, declared him  a prophet. Savonarola was anti-humanistic and detested poetry, literature, perfume, art and anything that was vaguely fun. Savonarola declared "They have built up a new Church after their own patter. Go to Rome and see! In the mansions of the great prelates there is no concern save for poetry and the oratorical art. Go thither and see!"  He encouraged painters and patrons to burn all artworks that did not conform to his strict code of morality. Thousands of the greatest masterpieces ever created by some of the giants of renaissance art were burned in his notorious Bonfire of the Vanities.

  Upon the death of his arch enemies, Pope Innocent VIII  and Lorenzo de Medici, a political power vacuum developed  and Savonarola became ruler of the city of Florence. With the help of his followers he ruled with an iron hand, installing a Taliban style rule that outlawed gambling, frivolity, decadent clothing and sentenced homosexuals and adulterers to death. He stated that the syphilis epidemic was Gods punishment upon backsliders and transgressors. Followers of the radical Friar went on frequent destructive rampages destroying anything that did not conform to Savonarola's militant conception of theology and Christian morality. After a time the people of Florence had had enough of his madness and puritanical laws. In 1498 Sandoval was charged with sedition, uttering false prophesies and various religious transgressions. He was charged, jailed and horrifically tortured for several days but never recanted his words. A trial of sorts was held and he was declared guilty.  Sandoval and two of his loyal Dominican disciples, Silvestro Maruffi and Domenico de Pescia, were hanged from a huge cross and burned until nothing but ashes remained. During the burning his supporters chanted "Charity is extinct, Love of God is no more. All are lukewarm; And without living faith. . . .Alas! the Saint is dead! Alas! O Lord! Alas! Thou hast taken our Prophet And drawn him to thyself." After Savonarola's death the artists and art of Florence continued to evolve and thrive.

Key Descriptive Words  and Phrases associated with the Renaissance Movement -  rebirth, rediscovery of the classical world,  publication of Della Pittura, a book about the laws of mathematical perspective for artists,  sfumato, symbolism, chiaroscuro, Savonarola, spiritually significant,  illuminated manuscript,  idealized biblical themes, scriptorium, illuminator, plague, Age of Discovery, curiosity about the natural world,  realistic use of colours and  light,  Bonfire of the Vanities, Old Testament stories, ethereal and foggy backgrounds, Gospel parables, romanticized landscapes,  Christian symbolism.

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