The Bonfire of Vanities was not just a
particularly snarky novel by Tom Wolfe
or the one of the few movie duds starring Tom
Hanks which was inspired by the book.
It was an event—or more precisely the most famous of a series of events—in
Renaissance Italy propagated by
elements of the Catholic Church in revulsion
against perceived decadence and corruption of the flourishing new culture.
On
February 7, 1497, the date of the traditional gay Mardi Gras festival, crowds whipped up by charismatic Dominican Friar Girolamo Savonarola seized
and burned thousands of objects like cosmetics, art, and books in Florence, part of a pattern of defiance
to the corruptions of the Church and to the Pope himself.
Savonarola
can be seen as a forerunner of the Protestant
Reformation. Denouncing clerical, abuse of the poor, and the despotic
rule of the Medici, he gathered a
fanatical following, especially among the educated young with his promises of
new civic glory based on virtue and purity.
It
was a time of particular turmoil as Charles
VIII of France in 1494 invaded
Italy in opposition to Pope Alexander VI
and his plans to extend Papal influence and control. As the mighty French army neared the city
Savonarola entered negotiations with the king while his supporters overthrew
the Medici and expelled them from the city proclaiming a republic. He welcomed the
French as liberators, defying the direct order of the Pope to join his
alliance. The French, for their part,
spared the city from sacking and promised to respect the new republic.
Savonarola
was, naturally considered a hero by many.
But Medici and Papal loyalists remained.
To shore up support the Friar staged elaborate public processions and
theatrical events both celebrating the new order and promoting purification to
earn God’s approval for a New Jerusalem. The celebrated Bon Fire was the highlight
of his movement.
No
one really knows how many great books, musical instruments, paintings, and
statues were consigned to the flames along with ostentatious clothing,
cosmetics, mirrors, and personal trifles like playing cards. Some believe the loss to be a cultural
catastrophe, while other historians downplay the amount of damage done claiming
it was largely symbolic and most fine pieces were either hidden or smuggled out
of Florence before the flames could consume them.
Among
those caught up in the euphoria of the moment was one of Florence’s leading artists,
Sandro Botticelli who had risen to
fame painting allegories from classical mythology, most notably his stunning The Birth of Venus with its famous nude on the half-shell. Obviously such themes and sexuality would not
be in keeping with Savonarola’s
austere piety. The artist had already
moved on to more acceptable themes, particularly various renditions of the Virgin Mary. The artists may—or may not—have pitched
many of his own paintings on the fire.
We do not that for some years he retired from painting all together and
was as a result reduced to poverty. He
would later, however, recant his allegiance to Savonarola and regain the
patronage of the restored Medici.
The
French king’s army slice through Italy with little resistance outside of a
couple of stubborn cities which paid heavily for their defiance. Just weeks after Savonarola’s party in Florence,
Charles reached Naples where he
claimed the crown of the state that controlled most of southern Italy. Alarmed by the ease with which Charles had
moved, the Pope was able to rally most of the Northern states into the League of Venice. The idea was to cut off Charles return to
France with his army and destroy it. The
Republic of Florence had little choice but to formally join the alliance,
although under Savonarola’s influence, they never actually committed troops to
the Papal force.
After
a nasty battle in which he lost most of his loot, Charles got his army safely
back to France. But he had lost Naples
already and once friendly northern cities like Florence were coming back into
the Papal orbit.
In
May of 1497 the Pope formally excommunicated
the Friar and threatened to put the city under interdiction unless they
surrendered him. Under pressure from
local authorities he withdrew from public preaching and composed a manuscript
of justification and a theological reflection, Triumph of the Cross. Unfortunately for him in it he not
only claimed to receive visions from God, but hinted that he had been given the
power to perform miracles. Big
mistake. It left him open to the charge
of Heresy.
A
rival friar and preacher called on Savonarola to prove his innocence by an ordeal by fire. When another monk and friend volunteered to
take the test for him, Savonarola felt he had no choice but to accept the challenge. On April 7 1497 as he prepared to walk through
the fire in the first such ordeal in Florence for 400 years, a rainstorm broke
out extinguishing the flames. As the
burden of proof was on him, the crow took it as a sign that he was guilty. They attacked his convent. Savonarola and two other friars were arrested.
On
the morning of May 23, 1498, the three friars were led out into the main square
where, before a tribunal of high
clerics and government officials, they were condemned as heretics and schismatics,
and sentenced to die. They were
immediately stripped of their Dominican robes down to thin white shirts. Each ascended to separate gallows on which
they her hung with fire burning below them to consume their bodies. Their ashes were scattered in the Arno River to prevent them from
becoming relics for stubborn followers.
However
his partisans remained active as both a religious and political force until the
Medici were restored in Florence and the Republic squashed in 1517.
But
Savonarola’s idea lived on. Martin Luther read Triumph of the Cross as did John
Calvin. He was very influential in
the briefly flourishing Protestant
Reform movement which included the scholars like Faustus Socinus and Giorgio
Blandrata who were instrumental in introducing anti-trinitarianism and unitarianism
into central and eastern Europe.
On
the Catholic side, when it was safe to do so the Dominican Order reclaimed
Savonarola and recast him as a benevolent and saintly prophet mostly stripped
of his political importance and rougher edges.
Later Catholic reformers would call him the last hope to “prevent the
catastrophe of the Reformation.” And in
the 19th Century he would be adopted
as a symbol for Italian nationalists
and their drive to create a modern nation
state.
As
for the Bonfire business, well, that has been more controversial. Intellectuals, writers, and artists have
looked on it with horror. As such it has
often been referenced directly or indirectly in books from George Eliot’s Romola
to Margaret Atwood’s works allude to the Bonfire, as in her
dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.
On
the other hand, some have found inspiration in Savonarola’s urge to purge. In some ways what we have come to think of as
19th Century American Puritanism,
especially the obsessive sexual prudery and zeal at suppression of corrupting
influences, might be more rightly called Savonarolaism. Certainly the notorious Anthony Comstock and his Society for the Suppression of Vice are
the old Friar's direct heirs.
And
so were and are, whether they know it or not—and most assuredly they have not—all
of the modern book burners of whatever stripe.
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