Borgia Les Flammes du bûcher page 17

This page shows a famous and infamous episode in the Italian Renaissance. For a while in the 1490s the fanatical monk Savonarola held the city of Florence in a tight religious grip. In February 1497 he held his so-called Bonfire of the Vanities, a big bonfire on Piazza della Signoria, the central square outside Palazzo Vecchio, where he urged citizens of Florence to burn all their ungodly and sinful luxury things.

One who fell under his spell was the genius painter Sandro Botticelli, famous for earlier pagan and erotic paintings like Primavera and The Birth of Venus. Here Manara shows a repentant Botticelli bringing another of his pagan/erotic masterpieces to the flames and destroying it forever.
The painting in question, Three Nymphs Trying to Awaken Eros From His Sleep, is an interpretation by Manara. It is an homage from a modern Italian master to an old Italian master. If Botticelli ever created a painting like this, and if he burned it, is open to speculation. He certainly fell under Savonarola´ s spell, and there are reports that he burned ungodly artwork on the Bonfire of the Vanities. Anyway, this painting does only exist now on this particular Manara page.

Savonarola´ s triumphant religious fanaticism is expertly depicted in the first panel. His reign was short-lived. He fell from power and was burned at the stake on the same spot one year later. Botticelli´ s two masterpieces, Primavera and The Birth of Venus, thankfully escaped religious prosecution and the flames, and can be seen today at the Uffizi gallery, just around the corner from where the Bonfire of the Vanities took place.