Predica dello amore divino sopra la passione del nostro Signore Jesu Christo, composta dal reuerendo padre frate Hieronimo Savonarola da Ferrara dell’ordine de frati predicatori

The “sermon on divine love” was held by Savonarola during Easter of 1497, on Good Friday. The friar preached in the Florentine Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, and according to contemporary witnesses, it was one of the friar’s most wondrous sermons. The year 1497 was a crucial one in Savonarola’s life journey: the first two months were characterized by the gonfalonierate of Francesco Valori, one of the friar’s fervent supporters, during which the implementation of Fra Girolamo’s reform agenda saw a clear acceleration, while the reform of customs culminated in the famed bonfire of the vanities held during Carnival that same year. But the climate quickly changed, and in March 1497 Savonarola was already facing an attempted military coup organized by Piero de’ Medici and a new preaching ban; lastly, in May, the papal excommunication arrived.

The sermon that, although contemporary with the others of 1497, is absent from the compendium Prediche sopra Ezechiele, was collected by Father fra Stefano da Capodimonte in Latin and then translated into the vernacular by friar Cristofano Pieraccini da Pistoia.

The specimen conserved at the Uffizi was printed in Siena in 1543, by Nicolò di Pietro di Guccio da Cortona, a Cortonese printer known to have been active with his brother Bartolomeo in Siena, Florence, and Città di Castello. The frontispiece shows, beneath the work’s title, the customary iconography of the Stabat Mater: the depiction of the Virgin Mary at the feet of her crucified Son, accompanied by the Saint John the Apostle; the city of Jersualem rises behind them.

The cinquecentina is bound along with Prediche del reuerendo padre fra Gieronimo Savonarola da Ferrara per tutto l’anno nuovamente con somma diligentia ricorrette and, while it bears no inscriptions, a provenance from the Dominican convent of Santa Maria Novella – as for the other one which does have an ownership note – may can be imagined.