BOOK OF HOURS, USE OF ROME.

ILLUMINATED LATIN MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM. NORTHERN ITALY (TORINO DIOCESE), 1470/1480.

      120 ff. 140 x 115 mm, lacking one single leaf in quire xii (end of "Oratio S. Anselmi" before Office of the Dead, which was removed as a whole in the 18th century); otherwise complete. Collation: i8, ii4, iii-xii8, xiii3 (instead of 4), xiv-xvi8, xvii3 (instead of 6: three final blanks omitted). Vertical catchwords, 16 lines, written space 110 x 850 mm. Written in brown ink in a rounded gothic liturgical hand, rubrics in red, 13 large historiated initials, initials 4-5 lines high in burnished gold on panelled grounds, one with a one-sided illuminated border of colored leaves and flowers with tiny gold bezants. 158 two-line illuminated initials for each psalm in burnished gold on panels divided into red, green, and blue with delicate tracery in white and yellow, one-line and two-line initials throughout alternately in blue and burnished gold. 18th-c. calf with cover fillets; remains of clasps. Book of Hours written for a layman close to the Third Order of St. Francis, as suggested by red highlighting of the feasts of St. Bernardino of Siena and of the Order's founder (Oct. 4) within the (non-liturgical) calendar. The emphasis on St. Francis and St. Bernardino in the litany (they are placed immediately after St. Benedict), as that on Clara of Assisi and Elizabeth of Thuringia, and also a prayer from the Office of St. Francis, appended shortly after the completion of the ms. on fol. 94v, support this attribution. - The calendar and litany commemorate three great popular preachers besides St. Francis, namely the Franciscan Bernardino of Siena, d. 1444 (5v, 105r), the Dominican Vincent Ferrer, d. 1419 (105r), and the Augustinian Hermit Nicholas of Tolentino, d. 1305 (9r), a fact that underlines the lay element of the manuscript. - The illumination of the text is remarkable: while the Office of the Virgin is usually illustrated by a childhood or passion cycle (the Annunciation classically forming the opening scene), the first historiated initial here contains a rather abstract devotional picture of Mary, serving as an obligatory bow to the Virgin's eschatological importance; the following hours, however, invoke a series of additional advocates for the reader's salvation. Especially noteworthy is the distinction awarded to St. Michael, who occupies the only five-line initial, while all the other figures are fitted within four-line characters. The illustrated litany extends beyond the Office of the Virgin to another text (59v), so that a total of nine saints (Mary, Michael, John the Evangelist, Catharine, Jerome, John the Baptist, Anthony, Francis, Elizabeth) are commemorated in illuminations. - Some leaves (including the first) rather rubbed; decorative initials within calendar trimmed during rebinding; a few smudges and small stains, but mostly sound.