Thomas à Kempis: De Imitatione Christi (The Imitation of Christ)
Quid prodest tibi alta de Trinitate disputare, si careas humilitate?
Our renderingWhat does it profit you to engage in deep disputation about the Trinity, if you lack humility?
What it is
Perhaps the most widely read Christian devotional work after the Bible, the Imitation of Christ counsels interior piety, Eucharistic devotion, and detachment from worldly ambition — values promoted at both the Wittelsbach Counter-Reformation court and in Erasmian Lutheran circles in Saxony. The Jesuits recommended it throughout their German mission work, making it a standard text in the Bavarian court milieu under Albert V and William V; Luther himself was formed in the Devotio Moderna tradition from which it springs. No single Wettin or Wittelsbach ownership record has been located, and the dual-house listing reflects the near-universal presence of the text in every German Catholic and Erasmian Protestant court of the period rather than documented patronage.
Why it still matters
The Imitation of Christ remains one of the most spiritually transformative texts in Christian history; its call to measure every act against the model of Christ is immediately applicable to daily devotional reading across all Christian traditions.
Kept alongside
Bible of Federico da Montefeltro (Bibbia Urbinate, Urb. lat. 1–2)
The monumental illuminated Vulgate Bible commissioned by Federico III da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, from a Florentine workshop under Vespasiano da Bisticci between 1476 and 1478. Comprising two volumes (Urb. lat. 1–2, now Vatican Apostolic Library), it measured 596 × 442 mm and was bound in gold brocade with silver locks — the preeminent manuscript in Federico's library of some 900 codices. Federico's biographer Vespasiano da Bisticci testified that the duke was 'very religious and observant of divine precepts,' rose early for prayer, and considered the Bible the 'chief of all writings.' The manuscript was produced not merely as a scholarly or status object but as the spiritual foundation of the humanist prince's library and personal devotion.
Missal of Barbara of Brandenburg (Messale di Barbara di Brandeburgo)
A magnificently illuminated missal — the mass-book for the Eucharist — commissioned by Gianlucido Gonzaga in 1442 and continued after his death in 1448 under the personal direction of Barbara of Brandenburg, consort of Marquis Ludovico III Gonzaga. Barbara herself hired Girolamo da Cremona at the recommendation of Andrea Mantegna to complete the sixty-eight miniatures, writing that he was 'a young man who illuminates very well.' The manuscript introduces the nine principal feasts with half-page miniatures and contains over two thousand decorated initials. Originally intended for the cathedral of San Pietro at Mantua, it was finally donated to the church in 1554 by Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga and remains in the Mantua Cathedral to this day.
Johannes von Indersdorf: Prayer Cycles for Duke Wilhelm III of Bavaria
Johannes von Indersdorf (1382–1470), Augustinian canon and confessor to Duke Wilhelm III of Bavaria-Munich, composed these prayer sequences for the duke in 1431–1432. The first documented sequence consists of eleven prayers addressing the Trinity, Christ's Passion, the Virgin Mary, and preparation for holy death. A Bavarian manuscript (c. 1517, bound by court binder Kaspar Schinnagl) also preserves these prayers alongside Heinrich Seuse's Sterbebüchlein, confirming their currency in noble Wittelsbach devotional culture well into the sixteenth century. These cycles represent the most directly documented devotional commission from a Wittelsbach duke to his spiritual director for personal use.