Laudi Spirituali of Lorenzo de' Medici
O maligno e duro core, come puoi tanto durare veder Gesù per te penare senza mai mover ad amore?
Our renderingO hard and evil heart, how can you endure so long to see Jesus suffering for you, without ever being moved to love?
What it is
Lorenzo de' Medici composed a body of sacred laude — vernacular devotional songs in the tradition of the Florentine Laudesi confraternities — including the penitential 'O maligno e duro core.' They were performed by Florentine confraternities and are documented in Serafino Razzi's Libro primo delle laudi spirituali (Venice, 1563), which preserves them alongside Savonarolan laude. Lorenzo's laude represent his personal synthesis of Platonic idealism and orthodox Marian devotion, and constitute the register in which a Medici ruler expressed personal piety outside humanist prose. Their reach was city-wide but not pan-European, circulating through the confraternity network rather than the print trade.
Why it still matters
The penitential lauda form — a short lyric addressed directly to Christ or Mary, confessing sin and imploring mercy — is fully accessible today; any of Lorenzo's laude can be prayed slowly as a personal act of contrition, or sung to simple melody in a small group.
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.
Laudi of Savonarola (including 'Gesù, sommo conforto')
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.