Professor Cripps
2-1-Q
Chapter 10
Student: Anthony Lacaprucia
2 – Offer 2 Specific Details from the chapter. For each, ID/quote and add 3-8 sentences of your own explanation
- “The most memorable event of Savonarola’s turbulent years was the famous “Bonfire of the Vanities,” when the friar’s ardent followers went through the streets collecting sinful objects—mirrors, cosmetics, seductive clothing, songbooks, musical instruments, playing cards and other gambling paraphernalia, sculptures and paintings of pagan subjects, the works of ancient poets—and threw them onto an enormous blazing pyre in the Piazza della Signoria” (Greenblatt 1st page of the chapter). It is interesting how they considered musical instruments to be sinful objects. I wonder what the reasoning for that could be. The others make more sense but I don’t see how music could be sinful.
- “According to my Epicurus … nothing remains after the dissolution of the living being, and in the term “living being” he included man just as much as he did the lion, the wolf, the dog, and all other things that breathe. With all this I agree. They eat, we eat; they drink, we drink; they sleep, and so do we. They engender, conceive, give birth, and nourish their young in no way different from ours. They possess some part of reason and memory, some more than others, and we a little more than they. We are like them in almost everything; finally, they die and we die—both of us completely” (Greenblatt 3rd page of chapter). I found this epicurean point to be very interesting. It is clearly a direct challenge against the church. With this it makes sense why ideas like this were ridiculed and attacked.
1 – Make 1 Connection to Self, to World, or to Text – or Extend by offering a little detail about something mentioned in the text (some light research needed to Extend)
- I ended up looking up why Savonarola felt musical instruments should be banned to extend on my first specific detail. I found that he believed that instruments could become a distraction for people and their religious duties. This distraction would then lead to his people living sinful lifestyles in his mind.
Q – Give us a Good Question to chew on – 1-3 sentences
- In the text it talks about Savonarola having sermons ridicule ancient philosophers. ‘“Listen women,” he preached to the crowd, “They say that this world was made of atoms, that is, those tiniest of particles that fly through the air.” No doubt savoring the absurdity, he encouraged his listeners to express their derision out loud: “Now laugh, women, at the studies of these learned men”’ (Greenblatt 1st page of chapter). This reminds me of a question I once heard: If you were to go back in time do you think you could convince the world of any scientific discoveries?
