Bonfire of the Vanities

The Bonfire of the Vanities was an event carried out in 1497 by priest Girolamo Savonarola in Florence, Italy, in which thousands of sinful objects were gathered up and publically burnt. Among the destroyed objects were several original paintings on classical mythological subjects by Sandro Botticelli.

Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities was published in 1990, making reference to Savonarola's event.