There's always a festival!

Every time you enter a piazza there's something else going on it seems.  Festivals are definitely the rule and not the exception.  I guess when your city is a few thousand years old, there's bound to be a few historical events to celebrate.  This weekend it was the Bonfire of the Vanities.  This celebration stems from a Italian Franciscan preacher named Girolamo Savonarola.  In 1494, at a time when the Medici power was weakening due to the Italian-French wars, Savonarola became the leader of Florence and had the Medici's exiled.  He focused on the excessiveness of the powerful and wealthy at a time of growing misery among the working class.  In 1497 he organized the Bonfire of the Vanities in which he and his followers went door-to-door collecting items associated with vanity.  They gathered items such as mirrors, cosmetics, fancy clothes, art, musical instruments, and gaming items, and burnt them in front of Palazzo Vecchio.  When the economic trouble continued, the people started to question his preachings.  In 1498, his convent was attacked and he was arrested and to be executed, by order of the pope.  Yes, of all people, the pope who according to Savonarola, was one of the wealthy living a little too well.  On May 23, 1498 (510 years ago this weekend), he was hung and burned at the stake in the same spot as his own  bonfire the previous year.  In the 20th century, the Catholic Church changed their position and ruled the execution unjust and intolerable.  Today a plaque sits at that deadly spot in the Piazza, and they instead celebrate his contributions to Florence.  Below are a few photos from the ceremony.