The Romance of Leonardo Da Vinci

In front of the dark and slender tower of the Palazzo Vecchio the pyre stood ready. It was thirty cubits in height, one hundred and twenty in circumference; an octagonal pyramid with at least fifteen steps. On the lowest were the comic masks, dresses, wigs, and other carnival properties; on the next three, profane books from Anacreon and Ovid to the _Decameron_, and the _Morgante Maggiore_ of Messer Luigi Pulci. Above the books were the instruments of female beauty -- washes, essences, mirrors, puffs, curling-tongs, hair-pins, nail-nippers. Still higher were lutes and mandolines, cards, chessmen, balls, dice -- all the games by means of which men serve the devil. Then came drawings, voluptuous pictures, portraits of light women; lastly, on the summit of the pyramid, the gods, heroes and sages of pagan antiquity, made of wood and of coloured wax.

Above the pile, towering higher than anything else, the figure of Satan was enthroned, the lord of all 'vanities and things accursed,' a monstrous puppet, filled with gunpowder and sulphur, with goat's legs and a hairy skin, like Pan, the ancient god of the woods.