Beneficio di Cristo

'Benefit of Christ') or, in its full title, the Trattato Utilissimo del Beneficio di Iesu Cristo Crocifisso (lit.

'A Most Useful Treatise on the Benefit of Jesus Christ Crucified') was one of the most popular and influential books of spiritual devotion in sixteenth-century Europe.

The number is likely inflated, but the historian Benedetto Croce describes how the book, "barely off the press, ran swiftly like a torch through all Italy, igniting others".

The work had then been substantially edited by Marcantonio Flaminio - a protege of Juan de Valdes and Cardinal Reginald Pole, and presented mystical themes from "Valdesian" theology.

The work was believed completely lost until a copy was rediscovered in England in the 19th century in St John's College, Cambridge.