Laudi of Savonarola (including 'Gesù, sommo conforto')
Gesù, sommo conforto, tu sei tutto 'l mio amore; nel tuo cor mi t'ho accolto.
Our renderingJesus, highest comfort, you are all my love; into your heart I have received you.
What it is
Savonarola composed devotional hymns (laude) at San Marco — the Dominican convent founded and patronized by Cosimo de' Medici in Florence — that were sung by Florentine confraternities under his reform movement. The best-known, 'Gesù sommo conforto,' was preserved in Serafino Razzi's Laudi spirituali (Venice, 1563) and later translated into English by Jane Francesca Wilde as 'Jesus, Refuge of the Weary.' Razzi himself entered San Marco as a novice in 1549, making his anthology a direct institutional transmission of the Savonarolan and Medicean lauda traditions from the same house. These laude circulated alongside Lorenzo de' Medici's laude in the Razzi collection, and their reach extended well beyond Florence through Savonarola's pan-Italian preaching reputation.
Why it still matters
'Gesù sommo conforto' is still sung in some Italian Catholic communities and is freely accessible; its theme of Christ as sole refuge in suffering makes it effective for personal prayer in times of distress or illness.
Kept alongside
Psalter (for the Education of Giovanni de' Medici)
The documented use of the Latin Psalter as the basis of young Giovanni de' Medici's religious instruction by his mother Clarice Orsini is one of the most precisely attested Medici devotional education episodes. When Poliziano attempted to teach the Medici boys using Homer and classical authors, Clarice expelled him from the villa at Cafaggiolo (c. 1479) and substituted the Latin Psalter, insisting on traditional Catholic instruction. Giovanni later became Pope Leo X, giving the episode retrospective significance; it is documented through Poliziano's own letters and subsequent Renaissance scholarship. The underlying text — the Psalter itself — was the universal prayer book of medieval and Renaissance Christendom and carries the highest possible devotional relevance independent of this particular episode.
Book of Hours of Lorenzo de' Medici (MS Ashburnham 1874)
Officium Beatae Mariae Virginis
A tiny parchment codex (10 x 15 cm) signed and dated 1485 by Florentine scribe Antonio Sinibaldi and illuminated by Francesco Rosselli with nine full-page miniatures and a lavish treasure binding set with lapis lazuli and rose quartzes. The 1492 post-mortem inventory of Lorenzo de' Medici lists it among the 'libriccini delli offitii di donna' — small women's office books — confirming it was a Medici household devotional object intended for female use. It was given to Lorenzo's daughter Luisa (1477–1488), who died aged eleven before her intended marriage, so the book never served its probable purpose as a bridal devotional. Its intimate scale, precious materials, and Marian Hours content mark it as an object of private, daily prayer shaped to the rhythm of the canonical hours.
Fra Angelico's Missal for San Marco (MS 558)
Missale Romanum illuminatum pro conventu Sancti Marci
Created for the Dominican community at San Domenico, Fiesole c.1424–1430 and later held at San Marco, Florence — the monastery rebuilt and endowed by Cosimo de' Medici from 1437 — this missal contains the full Roman Ordinary of the Mass and prayers for all Christian feast days, adorned with 51 miniatures attributed to Fra Angelico and Zanobi Strozzi. Cosimo maintained a private cell at San Marco and was a habitual attendant at its liturgies; the missal was present in the convent he endowed and where he worshipped. Its illuminations translate the liturgical cycle into visual meditation, making the book a devotional object as well as a functional text.