History Book - Burning vanities in Florence

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, February 7th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Next up: The WORLD History Book. Today, an anti-apartheid milestone, the birth and death of a pioneering author, and flames in Florence. Here’s senior correspondent Katie Gaultney.

SONG: “Pavana el Todesco”

KATIE GAULTNEY, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Before the Bonfire of the Vanities was a mid-1980s novel by Tom Wolfe, it was an actual historical event. A Dominican friar named Girolamo Savonarola in Florence, Italy, ignited a series of bonfires, incinerating items he believed tempted people to sin. The largest and most significant of those took place on February 7th, 1497—525 years ago.

In the hot seat: books, mirrors, makeup, extravagant clothing, playing cards, secular sheet music, and musical instruments. The flames also consumed significant works of art—tapestries, paintings, and sculptures—some dating to antiquity.

Savonarola’s reputation as a compelling preacher grew along with his political influence. He came to prominence on the coattails of the powerful Medici family, and then helped orchestrate their downfall—becoming the effective leader of Florence. And he clashed with the well-connected Borgia family. From the 2011 Showtime drama The Borgias:

THE BORGIAS: Think you I fear the flame? I have the Word of God! It is the Borgias who will burn!

When Savonarola began passionately speaking out against corruption in the Catholic Church, the Pope got a bit…well, hot under the collar. Ultimately, Pope Alexander VI—a Borgia—excommunicated Savonarola, and a year later—in 1498—the church sentenced him to death.

He died at the gallows, and flames below consumed his body.

Moving from Renaissance-era Florence to 19th century Wisconsin.

VIVI: “Once upon a time, 60 years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, in a little gray house made of logs.”

MUSIC: Blue Ridge Mountain Old Time Banjo, Roger Howell

So goes the opening line of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s debut autobiography, Little House in the Big Woods, published in 1932. This week marks 155 years since the author’s birth, and 65 years since her death.

Her books have enthralled readers for nearly a century, with their vivid accounts of life in the American heartland in the late 1800s.

LHOTP: Up we go, me love!/ All right, here we go! Kansas, here we come!/ Ready or not!

That clip from the 1970s TV series inspired by her books. Wilder earned her teaching certificate at age 15, serving as a schoolmistress in Dakota territory. During that time, she met and fell in love with the man who would become her husband, Almanzo Wilder. The Wilders faced setback after setback, from farming woes to a devastating house fire to crippling illness and the death of their infant son. The couple eventually settled in Mansfield, Missouri, where they would remain until their deaths.

As an adult, Rose, the couple's only surviving child, pushed her mother to write down her memoirs. Wilder finished the final installment in her Little House series when she was 76. She died in her sleep just three days after her 90th birthday. Today, several museums and landmarks—including a crater on the planet Venus—memorialize Wilder. Of course, her most enduring legacy is her volume of literature that speaks to the innocence, adventure, and unmerciful hardship of the American Midwest.

And we’ll finish our jaunt through history and around the globe with a stop in South Africa.

NEWS: Good evening. For 27 years, six months, and six days, he had been a prisoner…Tonight, he is a free man.

That news report from CBC on February 11th, 1990, announcing that South African authorities had released Nelson Mandela from a prison outside Cape Town. For his activism against apartheid, Mandela faced charges of sabotage, treason, and violent conspiracy. The South African justice system sentenced him to life in prison, and he served 27 years of that term before his release. Apartheid, of course, was the authoritarian political system that propped up the country’s white minority population, while disenfranchising the majority, who were black.

Mandela served time at three facilities, facing damp conditions and often inhumane treatment. Mandela’s celebrity grew, and he managed to bend the ear of South African officials, even from prison. Facing pressures from within South Africa and internationally, newly installed President F.W. de Klerk ordered Mandela’s release.

DE KLERK: I am now in a position to announce that Mr. Nelson Mandela will be released at the Victor Verster Prison on Sunday, the 11th of February, at about 3 p.m.

At age 71, Mandela anticipated a small group awaiting his release outside the prison.

SOUND: Throngs of supporters attend Mandela’s release

But instead, thousands of well wishers and journalists stood outside the prison gates as Mandela and his wife, Winnie, exited.

Two days after his release, Mandela addressed his supporters.

MANDELA: We are going forward. The march towards freedom and justice is irreversible.

SONG: “Mandela: Bring Him Back Home,” High Masekela

Ultimately, Mandela and de Klerk collaborated to negotiate an end to apartheid. The country’s first truly democratic—and multiracial—election took place in 1994. Voters tapped Mandela as the country’s next president. Most remember his valiant efforts to promote equality and human dignity, but he overlooked protections for an entire class of people: the unborn. Sadly, his legacy includes signing drastic pro-abortion measures into law in 1996. Global health researchers estimate 260,000 abortions take place in South Africa each year.

That’s this week’s History Book. I’m Katie Gaultney.

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