Sniveling Origins Uncovered in Italy
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The following is part of an e mail I recieved from the artist Greg Sobran, who has serendipitously uncovered some backround on snivelers while doing some reading on Renaissance Italy. The exerpt reads:
” By the way, I’ve dug up the “no sniveling” origins from 15th
century Italy. This is from Ross Kings recent book on Michelangelo.
It seems this early reformer, sort of a fundamentalist sort name
Savonarola, was preaching a pessimistic fire and brimstone sermon and
got the partying folk in Florence kind of bummed-out. His followers
got the nickname Piagnoni, or “Snivelers”. He encouraged followers
to burn their mirrors, paintings, perfumes, musical instruments,
fancy clothing, etc. in his “Bonfire of Vanities”. He doesn’t
exactly sound like the life of the party. Anyhow, the populous
seems to have tired of him after a while and he ended up in one of
his bonfires before having his ashes tossed into the Tiber. Scratch
one sniveler.”
~Greg
Gregory Sobran
The image above is of Savonarola, Girolamo (1452-1498), one of the Piagnoni, or snivelers. My name being Vagnoni, of course the Piagnoni moniker struck a chord. Am I a descendant of some centuries-old snivelers? Yikes
