Prediche sopra Job del r.p.f. Hieronymo Savonarola da Ferrara. Fatte in Firenze l’anno 1494

As may be deduced from the colophon of the specimen conserved at the Uffizi, the volume was printed in 1545 by Niccolò Bascarini, a printer active in Venice from 1541 to 1559. The incomplete sermons were collected in passages by Don Dioniso, a monk at the Badia Fiorentina, who continually warns the reader of having repeatedly interrupted his collection because he was too moved to go on any further. The texts were collected in the vernacular, translated into Latin and then retranslated into Italian before being published in Venice; in fact, the 1545 edition is to be considered editio princeps. The preaching on Job was expounded and commented upon by Savonarola in the 1495 Lenten sermon, from 1 March 1495 to 24 April 1495 (Florentine year 1494). Through exegesis of the Book of Job, an upright man who after an honest life is stripped of all his possessions, Savonarola appeared to indicate that he, too, would have to demonstrate great patience and rectitude in the face of adversities. The Book of Job in fact deals with the subject of the righteous sufferer and of the behaviour to be maintained during tribulations: faith in God in a world governed by injustice. In these sermons, Savonarola refrained from speaking about politics. In fact, the first, preliminary reform was intended to be about customs; the main theme was in fact living well, concord, and social harmony. These are sermons full of visions and of singular interpretations of the Bible; their compilation is incomplete, and even the final sermon is abruptly suspended – so moved was the stenographer who was collecting it. Sermon XIV, included in Paul IV’s Index of Forbidden Books, was cut; in fact, pages 113-122 are missing. As testified by a handwritten note present on the frontispiece, the cinquecentina was located in the San Francesco Convent in Fiesole, and it is plausible that it became part of the Uffizi’s holdings after the Napoleonic repression.