![]() Anyone who tried to resist was set upon by Savonarola’s ardent supporters, known as piagnoni (weepers).ĭan talks to Jack Hartnell about how people in the Middle Ages saw their own (and other people's) bodies. Such was Savonarola’s influence that he even managed to get contemporary Florentine artists like Sandro Botticelli and Lorenzo di Credi to destroy some of their own works on the bonfires. The items were thrown on to a huge fire while women, crowned with olive branches, danced around it. These events became known as the ‘bonfire of the vanities’: the biggest of these happened on 7 February 1497, when more than one thousand children scoured the city for luxuries to be burned. Savonarola started to encourage his followers to destroy anything which could be considered luxuries – books, works of art, musical instruments, jewellery, silks and manuscripts were burnt during the period of carnival around Shrove Tuesday. In 1494, he helped bring about a major blow to Medici power in Florence following the invasion of Italy by King Charles VIII in France, further increasing his own influence. Some have suggested he was effectively a de facto ruler of Florence, and Savonarola kept a personal retinue of bodyguards. Rob Weinberg puts the big questions about this world-changing period to Professor Jerry Brotton of Queen Mary University of London. ![]() Spreading throughout the length and breadth of Europe, the Renaissance made an enduring impact on art and architecture, science, politics and law. ![]()
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