He did not, as far as anyone can show. The tale says that Botticelli, the painter of Venus, fell under the spell of the preacher Savonarola and threw his own pagan paintings onto the Bonfire of the Vanities in Florence in 1497. Vasari, the best-known biographer of Botticelli, never says so.
The legend rests on two real things. Botticelli did side with the friar who ruled Florence, and the bonfire did happen: a pyramid of mirrors, cosmetics, playing cards, books and pictures, lit in the main square.
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The usual version cites Giorgio Vasari, who published the first great book on artists' lives in 1550. In it, Botticelli is said to carry his pagan pictures to the square himself. Vasari wrote no such sentence. What he did write is about the painter's life, and it is harsher than any bonfire.
Someone did carry paintings and drawings to that fire, and Vasari names him. It was not Botticelli. I think the legend survives because it is too good to check: the man who painted Venus, converted, feeding his own goddesses to the flames.
What You'll Discover
What burned in the square.
What Vasari really wrote about him.
Who did carry drawings to the fire.
Where his goddesses were that day.
What he painted in 1500.

