The burning of the vanities

Ralph Roeder, The Man of the Renaissance: Reading Notes Part VI

The burning of the vanities: "amid billowing crowds of smoke, the great pyramid of vainglories collected by [Savaronarola's] children. -- lewd pictures and books, lutes, cards, mirrors, and trinkets -- crumbled on the piazza, filling the nostrils of the godly with the acrid satisfaction of sic gloria."

Savanarola picks-up the intensity of his attack on the corruption of Rome and the church: "O whore of a Church, you have shown your foulness to the whole world, and your stench rises to Heaven."

Savanarola's intransigence: "the Friar was governed by a logic deeper than reason. Intoxicated with conviction, stimulated by struggle . . . His inveterate habit of simplifying every problem, reducing it to the simple black and white of right and wrong, had at last developed into an obsession."

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