Bonfire of the vanities

This article is about the historical event. For the novel, see The Bonfire of the Vanities. For the 1990 film, see The Bonfire of the Vanities (film).

Bernardino of Siena organising the vanities bonfire, Perugia, from the Oratorio di San Bernardino, by Agostino di Duccio, built between 1457 and 1461.

Bonfire of the Vanities (Italian: Falò delle vanità) refers to the burning of objects that are deemed to be occasions of sin. The most famous one took place on 7 February 1497, when supporters of the Dominican priest Girolamo Savonarola collected and publicly burned thousands of objects in Florence, Italy, on the Shrove Tuesday festival.

The focus of this destruction was on objects that might tempt one to sin, including vanity items such as mirrors, cosmetics, fine dresses, and even musical instruments. Other targets included immoral books, manuscripts of secular songs, and pictures.

Such bonfires were not invented by Savonarola, however; they were a common accompaniment to the outdoor sermons of San Bernardino da Siena in the first half of the century.

Cultural references

• It is portrayed in some detail in George Eliot's novel Romola (1863).
• It is portrayed in Irving Stone's novel The Agony and the Ecstasy (1961).
• It provided the name of the Tom Wolfe novel The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), as well as the subsequent film based upon the book.
• It is portrayed in Timothy Findley's novel Pilgrim (1999).
• Sarah Dunant's novel The Birth of Venus (2003), a work of historical fiction, describes Florence in the time of Savonarola, including the Bonfire of the Vanities.
• It is portrayed in Ian Caldwell's and Dustin Thomason's novel Rule of Four (2004).
• Events in Margaret Atwood's works repeatedly make reference to the Bonfire. Similar occurrences appear in her dystopian novels The Handmaid's Tale (1985) and Oryx and Crake (2003).

See also

• Book burning
• Censorship