Reuerendi p. fra. Hieronymi Sauonarole in primam d. Ioannis espistolam & in alia sacre scripture verba, igniti eloquii sermones nusquam ante hac impressi. Quorum titulos, pagella sequens indicat.

From All Saints’ Day of 1490 to Epiphany of 1491, Savonarola held the 19 sermons on the First Epistle of St. John, in which he violently attacked the dominant vices in the city of Florence, unrestrainedly accusing prelates, philosophers, men of letters, and rulers, including Lorenzo de’ Medici himself, whom he repeatedly admonished. Savonarola forcefully affirmed how important was the need for renewal and for the “flagellation of the Church,” and had no fear of accusing the Papacy directly: “The Church is teeming with abominations from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.”

The specimen conserved at the Uffizi is the editio princeps of 1536, as we learn from the colophon “Venetijs per d[omi]n[u]m Bernardinum Stagninum Anno d[omi]ni 1536.” Bernando Stagnini was the main point of reference for the publishing work; revision of the Venetian edition is instead credited by Piero Scapecchi to Father Zaccaria della Luinigiana.

Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze conserves an autograph writing by Savonarola on the Sermons, and the scholar Cosimo Ridolfi has hypothesized that the Venetian edition was a text patterned after the handwritten autograph of Savonarola himself, or a very close facsimile. It is indeed singular that the texts in the margins have printed marginal notes indicating the biblical sources used by the author, as in the autograph; however, the original text was altered in the quotations of the Holy Scriptures and of the Holy Fathers, to adapt it to the print edition whose purpose was mainly one of dissemination.

The frontispiece shows a splendid image of the phoenix rising from the ashes, illuminated by the rays of the sun. The mythological animal is surrounded by a frame decorated with acanthus leaves and the motto “Cremer usque licet nunquam deficiam.” This exhortation, which may be translated as “I may burn as long as possible, but I shall never perish,” is identified by critics as advice from Tommaso Ballarino, the publisher who also oversaw other works by Savonarola for Bernardo Stagnino.

Although we do not know the cinquecentina’s provenance, in this case it is likely to have joined the Uffizi after the Napoleonic repression. The text was bound with Prediche del reuerendo padre frate Gieronimo Sauonarola de l’ordine di San Domenico dell’osseruantia di Toscana sopra l’Esodo.