Page 46 - The Lugdunum Auction 24

The bonfire of the Vanities

Another historical figure, can be connected to
this medal: Girolamo Savonarola, the infamous
Dominican friar and preacher who became the
ruler of Florence after the death of Lorenzo the
Magnificent in 1492.
Violently denouncing political and clerical cor-
ruption, he called for Christian renewal and
founded what could be described as the first
ever clerical dictature in Western history.
On 7th of February 1497, took place one of the
most dramatic events of his rule, the well-known
Bonfire of the Vanities. The Bonfire of the Vanities, on 7th February 1497

There in the middle of the public square of Florence, on Shrove Tuesday, thousands of books, cosmetics
and objects of art, considered as occasions of sin, where collected in the city by the supporters of Girolamo
Savonarola and burned down in an immense fire. Botticelli himself, according to contemporary testimo-
nies, threw some of its master paintings into the fire.
And we can imagine, how the medals of Pico della Mirandola, with their suggestive reverse
iconography, might have been among the numerous objects of art destroyed in this fire, a fact that
could explain why this medal is so rare, being possibly the only contemporary specimen having been
able to miraculously escape Savonarola’s terrible Bonfire of the Vanities.

The three Graces of the Piccolomino Library

The reverse of this medal depicts the three Gra-
ces, the well-known Goddesses Euphrosyne,
Aglaia and Thalia, from the Greek mythology in
whom beauty was deified.

What is really interesting, is that this

iconography appears here for the first time
since Antiquity on a medal and will have a very
large success for the following centuries.
The representation of the three Graces on this
medal might have been inspired by an antique
statuary group which for a long time was belie-
ved to be unique. It was found in Rome toward
the middle of the fifteenth Century, on the site of
the Palazzo Colonna and presented to Cardinal
Francesco Piccolomini, a great lover of art, who
treasured it as one of the chief ornaments of his
own palace.

Later the sculpture found its way to the famous
The three Graces at the Piccolomini Library in the
Duomo of Sienna Piccolomini Library in the Duomo of Siena,
where the Three Nude Graces stood on a

beautiful pedestal as a symbol of the recovered

beauty of Antiquity placed into the heart of

Christianity.

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