The Imitation of Christ
De Imitatione Christi
Catalogue updated 2026-06-08
Full Sub Rosa translationRead the full translationOpen reader →Open the chapter reader with the full English translation, source text, notes, and scripture echoes.What is The Imitation of Christ?
Written by Thomas à Kempis in the Netherlands in the circle of the Brethren of the Common Life — the same Devotio Moderna movement that directly shaped Margaret of York's documented devotional practice and the piety of Isabella of Portugal at the Burgundian court — the Imitation became the most copied vernacular religious text in 15th-century Europe…
Quid prodest tibi alta de Trinitate disputare, si careas humilitate?
Our renderingWhat does it profit you to dispute profoundly of the Trinity, if you lack humility?
What it is
Written by Thomas à Kempis in the Netherlands in the circle of the Brethren of the Common Life — the same Devotio Moderna movement that directly shaped Margaret of York's documented devotional practice and the piety of Isabella of Portugal at the Burgundian court — the Imitation became the most copied vernacular religious text in 15th-century Europe, circulating in thousands of manuscripts and hundreds of early printed editions. Its four books move from the vanity of worldly learning through conformity to Christ, inward consolation, and finally the sacrament of the Eucharist, forming a complete program of interior conversion. No specific ducal inventory copy has been identified linking this text to Valois-Burgundy by name, but its presence in court circles of this era and region is established through movement history rather than document. It remains the second most widely read Christian book after the Bible.
Why it still matters
The Imitation's four books provide a complete and self-contained daily formation program still widely used today; readers can take one short chapter per day as a substitute for a longer lectio divina, allowing the text to reshape the interior life over months.
Common questions
What is the Imitation of Christ about?
Answer-first notes for readers and search engines
What is the Imitation of Christ about?
The Imitation of Christ, composed by Thomas à Kempis around 1418 to 1427, is a devotional guide to interior conversion and the following of Christ. Across its four books it counsels humility, detachment from worldly ambition, inward consolation, and Eucharistic devotion, treating the spiritual life as a matter of the heart rather than of learning or outward display.
Who wrote the Imitation of Christ and when?
The Imitation of Christ was written by Thomas à Kempis in Latin, as De Imitatione Christi, around 1418 to 1427. It grew out of the Devotio Moderna, the late-medieval reform movement that shaped much of European piety, and became perhaps the most widely read Christian devotional work after the Bible.
Where can I read the Imitation of Christ in English?
You can read the Imitation of Christ in English at Sub Rosa, which publishes a complete modern-English translation of all four books free online. Thomas à Kempis's early fifteenth-century Latin original has never left circulation, and the work's short chapters suit slow, prayerful daily reading across every Christian tradition.
The Imitation of Christ companion
Day 31 doesn't have to be the day you stop
Chosen Portion continues the same practice — a short historic reading every morning, from the Imitation and dozens of works like it.
The Imitation was written to be read in small daily portions in community; Chosen Portion restores exactly that cadence with the full 114-chapter text on a daily schedule.
- One curated portion daily, sized to read in under 10 minutes
- The full Imitation of Christ in a modern readable translation, all 114 chapters
- Keep a daily streak through the whole book in about 4 months
Kept alongside
Prison Meditations on Psalms 51 and 31
Savonarola composed these meditations on Psalm 51 (Miserere, known as 'Infelix ego') and Psalm 31 (In te, Domine, speravi) in Latin while imprisoned in the Palazzo della Signoria in 1498 awaiting trial and execution, his right hand temporarily spared from further torture so he could sign his confession. Approximately 15 Italian editions appeared by 1500, making them among the most rapidly disseminated devotional texts of the early print era and ensuring pan-European reach within a decade. Savonarola had preached at San Marco — the monastery Cosimo de' Medici built and patronized — from 1482 and was the friar summoned to Lorenzo de' Medici's deathbed in 1492, giving these works an indirect but real connection to the Medici devotional world. The Miserere meditation (Infelix ego) became one of the most reprinted Latin spiritual texts of the sixteenth century.
Infelix ego (Meditation on Psalm 51 / Miserere)
Infelix ego, omnium auxilio destitutus
A profound Latin meditation on Psalm 51 (Miserere) composed in his Florentine prison cell by the Dominican friar Savonarola shortly before his execution on 23 May 1498. Despite being the Medici's principal political opponent, his text circulated in fifteen Italian editions by 1500 in the very city where Giovanni de' Medici (future Leo X) and Giulio de' Medici (future Clement VII) were formed; Martin Luther endorsed it in 1523. Josquin des Prez, Cipriano de Rore, and William Byrd set versions to polyphony, securing its place across a century of European devotional music. Its connection to Medici piety is environmental rather than by commission or documented use.
Memorare (Memorare, piissima Virgo Maria)
The Memorare first appears embedded in the longer 15th-century Latin prayer Ad sanctitatis tuae pedes, dulcissima Virgo Maria, preserved in Cistercian sources including the Antidotarius Animae of Nicholas de Saliceto. By the early 16th century it circulated as a self-contained prayer, and St. Francis de Sales credited it with saving him from spiritual despair as a student in Paris. Father Claude Bernard (d. 1641) printed more than 200,000 copies and wrote directly to Queen Anne of Austria describing his recovery through the prayer, giving the Memorare documented royal exposure in the Bourbon court. Its brevity — recitable in under twenty seconds — and its direct appeal for intercession made it the most personally portable Marian prayer in Catholic devotional history.