The University of Queensland

The book’s title can be translated as ‘Sermons gathered by Mr Lorenzo Violi partly in Santa Maria del Fiore and partly in the Church of San Marco of Florence, from the living voice of reverend father Frate Girolomo of Ferrara while he was preaching...’ It consists of Lenten sermons delivered by Savonarola between 11 February and 7 April 1498, the last days before his execution.

Savonarola was an extraordinary figure in Renaissance Florence. For a brief but memorable period from 1494 to 1498, he controlled Florence, terrifying the population with his fiery sermons. The crowds attending his sermons were so huge that even the enormous nave of the newly built cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, could not hold them all. One of these followers was Ser Lorenzo Violi, who wrote down all his words and had them printed in books such as that now in Fryer Library.

There were a large number of these books, published in the very early years of printing. Savonarola, like modern political leaders using the internet, used to the fullest the new technology of printing as a means of disseminating his ideas. He worked with the notary Violi to edit his sermons and prepare them for publication. As his biographer Roberto Ridolfi wrote, ‘The fame and immense following of Savonarola ensured for all his works an unprecedented sale; in a short time he made all Florentine printers rich...’ During the years of his rule over Florence, over one hundred editions of his sermons and tracts were published in Florence alone.

The collection of sermons in Fryer Library was published by Antonio Tubini and Andrea Ghirlandi between about 1505 and 1508. Their production was extensive but, as was common at that time, much of it was undated and unsigned. Title pages had not yet come into use, and the title of the book in Fryer is taken from the opening lines of the first page (missing in the Fryer copy).

The sermons, written in Italian, are the last preached by Savonarola before he was burned at the stake in the main piazza of Florence. After his death his books were placed on the Church’s Index Librorum Probibitorum and many were destroyed. Surviving books are rare, and most, like the Fryer copy, are missing sections.

How did this precious book from the earliest days of printing come to be in Fryer Library—so far from its origin in Renaissance Florence? As a book banned by the Church, it was probably hidden for many years. The first record of it is from June 1887, when it was sold at auction at Sotheby’s. It had formed part of the collection known as the ‘Bibliotheca Lindesiana’ formed by Lord Alexander Lindsay, Earl of Crawford. This was a famously rich collection, described by The Times of May 14 1886 as ‘the finest and most complete universal library ever formed by private enterprise and means’. Between 1887 and 1948, the whole of this great collection, comprising some 200 000 volumes, was dispersed. It was at the first auction that the book now in Fryer was sold for the sum of one pound to Mr RM Holborn.

The story of the last stages of the book’s journey to the shelves of Fryer Library is told in Found in Fryer : stories from the Fryer Library collection. It is now highly prized in Fryer as the library’s second oldest book and a remarkable example of early printing.

Cathy Leutenegger, Fryer Library

• Ridolphi, R 1976, The life of Girolamo Savonarola, Greenwood Press, Publishers, Westport, Connecticut, p 165.
• ‘Lord Crawford’s library’, Times, 14 May 1886, p.12.
• Bibliotheca Lindesiana : catalogue of the library of the Right Hon. the Earl of Crawford... [1887-89], Dryden Press, London.