f Florence and the North, but in the person of Perugino
and some of his followers it suddenly advanced into the very first rank.
Among the latter none holds a more distinguished place than Benedetto
Bonfigli. The most important of his extant works are a series, in
fresco, of the life of St Louis of Toulouse, in the communal palace of
Perugia.

BONFIRE (in Early English "bone-fire," Scottish "bane-fire"), originally
a fire of bones, now any large fire lit in the open air on an occasion
of rejoicing. Though the spelling "bonfire" was used in the 16th
century, the earlier "bone-fire" was common till 1760. The earliest
known instance of the derivation of the word occurred as _ban fyre ignis
ossium_ in the _Catholicon Anglicum_, A.D. 1483. Other derivations, now
rejected, have been sought for the word. Thus some have thought it
_Baal-fire_, passing through _Bael_, _Baen_ to _Bane_. Others have
declared it to be _boon_-fire by analogy with _boen-harow_, i.e.
"harrowing by gift," the suggestion being that these fires were
"contribution" fires, every one in the neighbourhood contributing a
portion of the material, just as in Northumberland the "contributed
Ploughing Days" are known as _Bone-daags_.

Whatever the origin of the word, it has long had several meanings-(a) a
fire of bones, (b) a fire for corpses, a funeral pile, (c) a fire for
immolation, such as that in which heretics and proscribed books were
burnt, (d) a large fire lit in the open air, on occasions of national
rejoicing, or as a signal of alarm such as the bonfires which warned
England of the approach of the Armada. Throughout Europe the peasants
from time immemorial have lighted bonfires on certain days of the year,
and danced around or leapt over them. This custom can be traced back to
the middle ages, and certain usages in antiquity so nearly resemble it
as to suggest that the bonfire has its origin in the early days of
heathen Europe. Indeed the earliest proof of the observance of these
bonfire ceremonies in Europe is afforded by the attempts made by
Christian synods in the 7th and 8th centuries to suppress them as pagan.
Thus the third council of Constantinople (A.D. 680), by its 65th canon,
orders: "Those fires that are kindled by certaine people on new moones
before their shops and houses, over which also they use ridiculously and
foolishly to leape, by a certaine antient custome, we command them from
henceforth to cease." And the Synodus Francica u