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Botticelli���s Fragments of an Adoration of the Magi Introduction [Botticelli] drew far better than was usually the case, so that after his death, artisans used to go to a great deal of trouble to obtain his sketches. He decorated his scenes with plenty of figures, all executed with great skill and good judgment.1 While he praised Botticelli in this respect, Vasari was critical of his meagre output in later years associating the artist with the followers of Savonarola. Although this charge does not stand up, it continues to distort the perception of Botticelli���s artistic achievements.2 Whereas his earlier work, most importantly his Primavera and Birth of Venus, has been widely discussed, there are only a Vasari, Giorgio (1511-1574) Italian painter, historian and architect, whose series of artist biographies entitled ���Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects��� set the foundation stone for art history as a discipline. His most notable architectural contribution is the design of the ���Uffizi��� for Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, which today houses one of the most important art collections of the Western world. The Palazzo Vecchio, just next door, contains his monumental fresco cycle showing battle scenes that probably cover precedents executed by Leonardo and Michelangelo. Savonarola, Girolamo (1458-1498) Dominican friar and fanatic preacher, who in the aftermath of Charles VIII���s invasion of Florence in 1494 and the subsequent expulsion of the Medici, gained substantial political influence. In 1497 he and his followers carried out the Bonfire of the Vanities in which items associated with moral laxity were burned on the Piazza della Signoria, Florence���s main square. Following his excommunication by Pople Alexander VI in 1498 it was this same square which saw his burning (charged with heresy, uttering prophecies, sedition and other crimes). 2 HYLAND