Before it was a great book by Thomas Wolfe, “bonfire of the vanities” referred to an event that occurred in Florence on this day in 1497. Led by the radical Dominican priest, Girolamo Savonarola, who had overthrown the ruling Medicis, many of the citizens of Florence gathered up and burned objects believed to induce sin, among them priceless books and works of art.

What’s the connection to the Borgias? A little more than a year later, it was Savonarola who was being burned at the order of Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI.