Donnelly, John Patrick, S.J., ed., trans., Prison Meditations on Psalms 51 and 31 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press [Reformation Texts With Translation (1350-1650) 1], 1994).

Text name(s): Expositio in Psalmum 'Miserere mei ,Deus'; Expositio in Psalmum 'In Te, Domine, Speravi'

Number of pages of primary source text: 56

Medieval Author(s): Savonarola, Girolamo

Dates: 1498 - 1498

Archival Reference:

Original Language(s): Latin;

Translation: Original language included. English translation.

Translation Comments: facing-page Latin-English

Geopolitical Region(s): Italy;

County/Region: Florence; Tuscany

Apparatus: Bibliography Introduction

Comments:

Girolamo Savonarola was a Dominican Observant friar who, in the last decade of the fifteenth century, rose to the head of the Florentine government and attempted to institute sweeping moral reforms. Having cast out the ruling Medici family and allegedly predicting the death of its patriarch, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Savonarola’s popularity began to wane when he was excommunicated and he was eventually removed from power and burned as a heretic. While he is today largely synonymous with religious fanaticism and associated with the famous “Bonfires of the Vanities” in which he encouraged Florentine citizens to cast immoral clothes, games, artwork, and books into the flames, Savonarola’s eight-year rule in Florence provides a fascinating insight into the complex relationship between religion and politics in late medieval Florence. This volume contains an edition of Savonarola’s meditations, written while awaiting trial in prison, on Psalms 31 (“Have mercy on me, O God”) and 51 ("In you, O Lord, have I hoped).

Introduction Summary:

The editor’s brief (20 pp) introduction provides a biography of Savonarola and an overview of his career as a reformer. The editor places the Expositiones in the context of Savonarola’s other works and those of contemporaries, particularly the Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. He also notes previous editions of the expositiones, and notes his own editorial conventions.

Cataloger: MCB