Maggs Bros. Ltd.

First edition of this collection principally by the Dominicans St Antoninus of Florence, Battista dei Giudici and Humbert of Romans, which ends with the first appearance of Savonarola's lengthy prose poem Oratio vel psalmus: Diligam te Domine, beginning "May I love you Lord, my courage".

As the first translator into English John Patrick Donnelly SJ notes, "The piety of this psalm remains a part of our rich Christian heritage. The prayer imitates the Psalms in its parallelisms and alludes to passages of Augustine's Confessions". Following its first printing it proved to be popular with twelve further Latin editions and one French, one German, and three Italian translations.

The simple line woodcut facing the opening page of text shows Christ, after his resurrection, greeting two of his disciples on their journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), one holds a pilgrim's staff and hat, against a landscape background with the town of Emmaus in the distance.

The tracts included are: Antonius Florentinus: Trialogus super evangelio de duobus disciplis euntibus in Emmaus (Incipiens a Moyse et omnibus prophetis interpretabtur illis... Franciscus de Castilione: Epistola ad fratres S. Dominici de Bononia super vita beati Antonini Florentini. - Vita Antonini Florentini. - Baptista de Finario: Epistola ad Thomam de Leuco generalem vicarium cisalpinum regularis observantiae ordinis praedicatorum. - Trialogus de contemtu mundi. - Bernard of Clairvaux: Epistola ad parantes cuiusdam novicii. - Super verbum Petri: Bonum est nos hic esse. . . - Humbertus de Romanis: De tribus votis substantialibus religiosorum - De veris et falsis virtuti**bus. - Savonarola, Girolamo: Regulae quae ad mones religiosos pertinent. - Oratio vel psalmus.

A few small wormholes at beginning and end, otherwise a good, clean copy.

Provenance: Benedictine monastery of St Godehard, Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, with their contemporary inscription at foot of title-page; Ampleforth Abbey library, North Yorkshire, bookplate and ink stamp.

ISTC ia00883000. HC 1274*. BMC V, 540. Goff A883. GW 2203. Essling 838. Sander 450. Ref: John Patrick Donnelly SJ, “Translation of Girolamo Savonarola's ‘May I Love You, Lord,’ A Modern Psalm”, Review for Religious, Vol. 52, No. 2 (March/April 1993): 241-46; the text is found in Savonarola's Operette spirituali edited by Mario Ferrara (Rome, 1976, pp. 281-287 of vol. 12, part 1, of the Editione nazionale delle Opere di Girolamo Savonarola).