Year: Day to Day Men: February 7

Late Morning Riser

The seventh of February in 1497, Shrove Tuesday, marks the day on which supporters of the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola lit the bonfire of the vanities in the public square of Florence, Italy. 

Born in the Duchy of Ferrara in September of 1452, Girolamo Savonarola was an ascetic Italian Dominican friar and an active preacher in Renaissance Florence. He was known for his prophecies of civic glory and his advocacy for the destruction of secular art and culture, as well as his denunciation of both clerical and papal corruption. Savonarola’s education was overseen by Michele Savonarola, his grandfather and a successful physician. He earned an arts degree at the University of Ferrara and prepared for medical school; however at some point, he decided on a life in religion.

In April of 1475, Savonarola traveled to Bologna and entered the Friary of San Domenico of the Order of Friars Preacher. After a year, he was ordained to the priesthood and studied scripture, logic, Aristotelian philosophy and Thomistic theology. In 1476, Savonarola was sent to the Dominican priory of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Ferrara as an assistant master of novices. Six years later, he was sent to the Convent of San Marco in Florence where, assigned as a teacher of logic, he wrote manuals on ethics, philosophy and prepared sermons. It was during this period that Savonarola, while studying scripture, became to broach apocalyptic themes.

Girolamo Savonarola lived for several years as an itinerant preacher with messages of repentance and reform. In 1490, he was again assigned to San Marco. Italian philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who due to his unorthodox views of the Church was living in Florence under the protection of Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, persuaded de’ Medici to bring Savonarola to the city. Savonarola arrived in Florence in the middle of 1490 and began drawing large crowds with his preaching. He made pointed allusions to tyrants who usurped the people’s freedom and railed against the rich who exploited the poor.

Calling for repentance and renewal before the arrival of a divine scourge, Savonarola wanted to establish Florence as the New Jerusalem, the center of the Christian world. The people of Florence embraced his extreme moralistic campaign to rid the city of vices. New laws were passed against public drunkenness, sodomy, adultery, and other moral transgressions, including immodest dress and behavior. Savonarola saw sacred art as a tool for his worldview and, therefore, was opposed to secular art which he saw as worthless.

Pope Alexander VI for some time tolerated Savonarola’s criticism of the Church, an undercurrent theme that had slowly been increasing in Savonarola’s sermons over the years. After he refused to appear before the pope in Rome, the Vatican banned him from preaching. Seeing his influence wane, Savonarola resumed his sermons which were becoming more violent in tone. He attacked secret enemies at home whom he suspected in league with the papal Curia and condemned conventional Christians who were slow to respond to his callings. Savonarola held special Masses for the youth, processions, bonfires, and religious theater in San Marco.

The  phrase “Bonfires of the Vanities” refers historically to the bonfire of the seventh of February in 1497 when Savonarola’s supporters gathered and burned thousands of objects in Florence’s public square. Held on Shrove Tuesday, an initial day of the religious observance Lent, the focus of this destruction was on objects that might tempt one to sin, including vanity items such as mirrors, cosmetics, fine dresses, playing cards and musical instruments. Other objects that burned in the bonfire included books Savonarola thought immoral, manuscripts of secular songs, and artworks including paintings and sculptures that were not sacred in nature. Anyone who raised objections against the destruction were forced to contribute by teams of Savonarola supporters.

Notes:  Girolamo Savonarola, invited to Florence at the request of Lorenzo de’ Medici, eventually became one of the foremost enemies of the House of Medici and assisted in their downfall in 1494. Campaigning against what he saw as the excesses of Renaissance Italy, Savonarola’s power grew so much that he became the effective ruler of Florence with soldiers assigned for his protection. 

In 1495, Savonarola refused to join Pope Alexander VI’s Holy League against the French. When summoned by the Vatican to Rome, he refused to go and continued preaching under a ban imposed by the Vatican. After describing the Church as a whore, Savonarola was excommunicated in May of 1497 for heresy and sedition. He was executed in May of 1498 in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, the site of his bonfires of the vanities; his body was burnt. By papal authority, Savonarola’s writings were to be given to a papal agent within four days for destruction. Anyone who did not comply faced excommunication.