AN ESPECIALLY FINE ILLUMINATED VELLUM MANUSCRIPT BOOK OF HOURS IN DUTCH.

USE OF UTRECHT.

      Northern Netherlands [Delft?], ca. 1475 - With Extraordinarily Exuberant Elaborated Initials Complete containing 186 leaves single column 21 lines to the page in a very readable clean gothic book hand. CONTEMPORARY BLIND PANELLED CALF OVER WOODEN BOARDS with a large diapered central panel expertly rebacked (perhaps in the 19th century) original brass catches. Capitals struck with red rubrics in red hundreds of one- and two-line initials painted in red or blue and 43 PAGES WITH TWO- TO EIGHT-LINE DECORATIVE MAIBLUMEN INITIALS EACH FEATURING ELABORATE MARGINAL EMBELLISHMENT in red green and blue INCLUDING EIGHT CAPITALS WITH FULL BORDERS OF EXTRAORDINARY INTRICACY 10 with similar three-quarter borders and eight with two-sided borders. Front pastedown with the bookplate of J. F. M. Sterck. Leather a bit scuffed and abraded but the binding entirely solid and generally very well preserved. Opening to the Hours of the Virgin with slight blurring at bottom very occasional fading in the text (though nothing illegible) isolated wrinkling of no great consequence other trivial defects but IN QUITE FINE CONDITION the leaves especially bright and clean and featuring remarkably ample margins with pricking at the fore edge throughout and with quire signatures partly visible. This handsomely written and decorated manuscript includes the Calendar; the Hours of the Virgin; the Hours of Eternal Wisdom; the Hours of the Cross; the Seven Penitential Psalms and Litany; the Hundred Articles on the Passion of Christ; a section of prayers including prayers before and after receiving Communion on the wounds of Christ of Augustine against sudden death and prayers to the Virgin; and the Office of the Dead. The text is in the translations of Geert Groote and written in a littera textualis script. The leaves have been trimmed for binding but there is considerable margin with quire signatures remaining on some leaves (for example folios 19-22 and 140-142). The Calendar has major saints' days of Utrecht use in red. St. Jeroen or Hiero (17 August) an Irish missionary killed by Normans at Noordwijk in 856 also in red establishes the County of Holland as the region of origin. The ecclesiastical authority of the bishop of Utrecht extended over much of the northern Netherlands far beyond the bishopric as a secular state under his temporal power. Internal evidence suggests further localization to Delft an important center for the production of Books of Hours of this type with penwork border decoration but without miniatures. The border decorations in red and occasionally in blue with green washes are unusually varied in style. One leaf (folio 107) has oak branches with acorns and green leaves emanating from a vase. The principal decorated pages (especially folios 11 46 67 91 108 verso and 155) are characterized by exuberant penwork similar to the Delft scallop group type in Korteweg's classification system.The Litany lends further support to a Delft provenance with invocations of Hippolytus and Ursula and her 11000 virgin companions the patron saints of Delft to whom the Oude Kerk and the Nieuwe Kerk were respectively dedicated. The manuscript is an altogether attractive example of a vernacular Book of Hours done for a client of means. Many 15th century Dutch Books of Hours have initials and marginal embellishment that resemble what appears here but these leaves especially those containing major openings are atypically decorated in a memorably flamboyant way. [Attributes: Hard Cover]