Sant'Agostino Estense (Orationes of St. Augustine for Ercole I d'Este)
Orationes ex Meditationibus et ex Soliloquiis Divi Patris Augustini Episcopi Hipponensis
Noverim te, noverim me; noverim te semper amabilem, noverim me semper contemptibilem.
Our renderingLet me know you, let me know myself; let me know you, ever worthy of love; let me know myself, ever worthy of contempt.
What it is
A personal prayer book commissioned by Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, and produced in his court scriptorium around 1482, this manuscript contains prayers and meditations drawn from the Pseudo-Augustinian Soliloquia animae ad Deum and related devotional compilations attributed to Augustine of Hippo. Written by court scribe Andrea delle Vieze and illuminated with sixty-eight gold-embellished miniatures and over 130 gilded initials by Tommaso da Modena, this small parchment codex (18 × 11.8 cm) was explicitly designed for intimate, daily personal use. It is one of four sumptuous devotional books ordered by Ercole I for his own private prayer life, attesting to an intense and consistent Augustinian spirituality at the heart of Este court piety. The manuscript is now at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice, having left Ferrara when the Este court relocated to Modena in 1598.
Why it still matters
The Augustinian meditations collected here — centred on self-knowledge, longing for God, and penitent love — are among the most prayed texts in Western Christianity and remain a living resource for personal contemplative prayer today; the Soliloquia are widely available and require no specialist knowledge to use.
Kept alongside
Savonarola's De simplicitate Christianae vitae
De simplicitate Christianae vitae (On the Simplicity of the Christian Life)
Written in 1495 and first printed in Florence by October 1496, this five-book Latin treatise argues that authentic Christian life requires stripping away worldly wealth, ambition, and complexity to seek God through prayer, Scripture, and the sacraments. The Este connection rests on the documented personal and spiritual correspondence between Savonarola and Ercole I d'Este (approximately twelve surviving letters from the 1490s) and on Ercole's well-attested admiration for Savonarola, which prompted religious reforms in Ferrara during the same period. Girolamo Benivieni's vernacular Italian translation, circulated in Florence in late 1496, extended the text's reach well beyond the court. The claim of a manuscript copy dedicated specifically to Ercole in January 1496 is unconfirmed in available scholarly sources and should be treated as traditional attribution only.
Savonarola's Infelix ego (Expositio in Psalmum Miserere)
Expositio ac meditatio in Psalmum Miserere, fratris Hieronymi de Ferraria
Written by the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola in his Florentine prison cell in May 1498, days before his execution, this meditation on Psalm 51 (Miserere mei Deus) became one of the most widely read devotional texts of the Renaissance, appearing in fifteen Italian editions by 1500. Its first printed edition was produced in Ferrara in 1498 by Laurentius de Rubeis, the city of Savonarola's birth and seat of the Este court, whose Duke Ercole I maintained approximately twelve documented letters of spiritual and political correspondence with Savonarola through the 1490s. Ercole I later commissioned Josquin des Prez to set the Infelix ego text musically around 1503–1504, resulting in Josquin's celebrated Miserere, most likely first performed for Holy Week 1504 at the Ferrarese court. The text belongs to the great tradition of penitential psalm commentary and stands as one of the most searing personal confessions in Renaissance devotional literature.
Savonarola's Prison Meditations on Psalms 51 and 31 (Tristitia obsedit me)
Meditatio in Psalmum Miserere mei Deus / Meditatio in Psalmum In te Domine speravi (Tristitia obsedit me)
Composed in the final weeks of Savonarola's imprisonment in Florence in 1498, these twin psalm meditations on Psalm 51 (Miserere) and Psalm 31 (In te Domine speravi) achieved extraordinary manuscript and print circulation immediately after his execution on 23 May 1498. The meditation on Psalm 31 was left incomplete at his death, giving both texts an unfinished, almost spoken quality that readers found intensely moving. The Este connection is documented: Ferrara printed one of the first editions of the Miserere commentary in 1498, Savonarola was Ferrara-born, and Duke Ercole I exchanged approximately twelve letters with him in the 1490s and later commissioned Josquin des Prez's setting of the related Infelix ego text. Note that the Psalm 51 meditation is also separately catalogued as the Infelix ego.