Abstract

In the Middle Ages, the Pater noster, a fundamental text both for learning to read and for religion, was the object of a long exegetical tradition. At the end of the 15th century, Girolamo Savonarola wrote three short spiritual treatises on the prayer, while Giovanni Pico della Mirandola dedicated a thorough Expositio to it. With their interpretations, the Dominican preacher and the philosopher responded to the new emergent needs for spiritual health and anticipated the triumph of catechetical literature. Pico’s Expositio, published for the first time in the second decade of the 16th century, was edited and translated into Italian several times. The first Italian versions of Pico’s commentary were dedicated to women, such as Girolamo Benivieni’s translation for a community of nuns at S. Gaggio outside Florence.