Among his most unpopular
measures may be mentioned those organized parties of boys, who forced
their way into the houses and laid violent hands on any objects which
seemed suitable for the bonfire. As it happened that they were
sometimes sent away with a beating, they were afterwards attended, in
order to keep up the figment of a pious 'rising generation,' by a
bodyguard of grown-up persons.
On the last day of the Carnival in the year 1497, and on the same day
the year after, the great 'Auto da Fe' took place on the Piazza della
Signoria. In the center of it rose a high pyramid of several tiers,
like the 'rogus' on which the Roman Emperors were commonly burned. On
the lowest tier were arranged false beards, masks, and carnival
disguises; above came volumes of the Latin and Italian poets, among
others Boccaccio, the 'Morgante' of Pulci, and Petrarch, partly in the
form of valuable printed parchments and illuminated manuscripts; then
women's ornaments and toilet articles, scents, mirrors, veils and false
hair; higher up, lutes, harps, chessboards, playing-cards; and finally,
on the two uppermost tiers, paintings only, especially of female
beauties, partly fancy pictures, bearing the classical names of
Lucretia, Cleopatra, or Faustina, partly portraits of the beautiful
Bencina, Lena Morella, Bina and Maria de' Lenzi.
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