[1] A scholar of striking versatility, Nannini's "fame as an author of profane literature [...] did not prevent him from being, at the same time, an active participant in the counter-Reformation [...] he was a Dominican friar who admired Machiavelli and Guicciardini.

He entered the Dominican Order at Santa Maria Novella when young, continuing his education there.

He edited Petrarch's De remediis, and translated several classical Roman historians, including Cornelius Nepos and Ammianus Marcellinus.

[3] In Venice Nannini worked with several publishers, but particularly with Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari.

From the mid-16th century, the Catholic Church forbade vernacular translations of the Bible, and this generally included the lectionary for daily Mass.