Episode 19 Savonarola Part 2: The Bonfire of the Vanities

Описание: In Part 2, we step into a Florence where art, faith, and power collide.

At the height of the Renaissance—when Botticelli was painting mythological beauties and Florence was dazzling with humanist ambition—Girolamo Savonarola rose to challenge it all. Preaching against luxury, vanity, and what he saw as moral corruption, Savonarola didn’t just influence politics—he reshaped the cultural and artistic soul of the city.

This episode explores the infamous Bonfire of the Vanities, where paintings, manuscripts, cosmetics, musical instruments, and symbols of worldly refinement were thrown into the flames. According to tradition, even Botticelli may have cast some of his own works into the fire. What happens when an artist’s city turns against beauty itself? How does a preacher gain enough authority to redirect the course of Renaissance art?

We trace Savonarola’s transformation from reformer to theocratic ruler of Florence—and ultimately to prisoner, tortured and executed in the very city he once commanded.

This is the story of zeal, fear, power, and the fragile place of art in times of moral revolution.

Thumbnail Art: Ludwig von Langenmantel 'Girolamo Savonarola Preaching Against Prodigality’, 1879. St Bonaventure University. Public Domain.