Book of Hours, Use of Rome, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Italy (Padua?), late 15th century]

Property from the Brooklyn Museum, sold to support Museum Collections

Book of Hours, Use of Rome

in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Italy (Padua?), late 15th century]

iii + 262 + ii leaves, c.97×70 mm, the vellum exceptionally fine; written with 13 lines per page, c.51×32mm; ILLUMINATED WITH FIVE LARGE HISTORIATED INITIALS ACCOMPANIED BY FULL INHABITED BORDERS, the start of each major text, the individual hours and other lesser textual divisions with five- to ten-line foliate initials and partial borders; some flaking of pigments and oxidisation of the lead white pigment, and smudging of the initial on f.212r. Bound in 19th-century (c.1830?) English brown calf with a gilt Grolieresque design, the centre of each cover with the name and arms of Henry Gee Barnard, the spine with title ‘Missale Romanum Sec. XVI’; edges gilt and gauffered; detached from the textbook at the back joint.

TEXT

Calendar (f.1r); Hours of the Virgin, ‘secundum curiam’, with Matins (f.14r), Lauds (f.27r), Prime (f.43v), Terce (f.50v), Sext (f.57r), None (f.63r), Vespers (f.69r), Compline (f.80v); the 7 Penitential Psalms and litany (f.115r); Office of the Dead (f.145r); Hours of the Cross (f.212r), and of the Spirit (f.221r); Psalter of St Jerome (f.227r); devotions to St Jerome (f.250v) and St Katherine (f.254r); the Verses of St Bernard ‘O bone Ihesu …’ (f.258r); prayers to St Michael and God, ending at f.263v.

PROVENANCE

1. The volume was written for use in or near Padua: the litany includes Justina of Padua, and the calendar has Daniel (3 January) and Anthony (13 June), both in red, and Prosdocimus (7 November). Homobonus of Cremona, patron of merchants, is also present but written as ‘Hominis boni’(!) (13 November). The dimidiated arms of the first owners are in the margin of the first page of the Hours of the Virgin, surrounded by gems of the same colours (gules and vert); the initial to the prayer to St Katherine is exceptionally large (f.254v), suggesting that the wife’s name was Caterina, while an unverified flyleaf note states that the ‘Arms are Daghoni of Belluno’.

2. Henry Gee Barnard (1789–1858), of Cave Castle, Yorkshire; bound for him. Clearly a discriminating collector, three of his other Books of Hours are now in the British Library (Yates Thompson MS 6) and Morgan Library (MSS M.199 and M.227).

3. Unidentified English bookseller(s?), with pencilled catalogue no.(?) ‘527’ and price ‘£35’ (f.i verso), and price-code (back flyleaf).

4. Miss Mary Benson, of Brooklyn; bequeathed in 1919 to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, with their accession no. ‘19.75’ (f.iir) (cf. S. A. Hutchinson, ‘The Mary Benson Bequest of Illuminated Manuscripts and Autograph Letters’, The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly, 6 (October 1919), pp. 222–27). de Ricci, Census, II (1937), p. 1195, no. 8.

ILLUMINATION 

1. (f.14r) The Virgin and Child, flanked by putti; the border with a bird, and red and green gemstones set in gold mounts surrounding heraldic arms

2. (f.115r) King David in prayer; border with a pet monkey in a landscape

3. (f.145r) A human skull; border with flying stork, and a deer in a landscape

4. (f.212r) The Man of Sorrows; border with a squirrel(?)

5. (f.221r) The Dove of the Holy Spirit; border with a flying bird, and a white rabbit(?).

The illumination is by two artists. The extremely fine King David can safely be attributed to Antonio Maria da Villafora, who is well documented in Padua from 1481 to 1511, including many commissions for the Bishop of Padua, Pietro Barozzi (on which see especially ‘La biblioteca del vescovo Pietro Barozzi e l’attività avanzata di Antonio Maria da Villafora e Benedetto Bordon’ in the exhibition catalogue, La miniatura a Padova (1999), cat. nos. 153–159). The last three main illuminated pages are probably also by him: their borders are the same, but it is difficult to do stylistic analysis on subjects such as a skull and a dove. Another artist was responsible for the first miniature, whose border with gemstones show the influence of Girolamo da Cremona, whose early career was also in Padua. It may be by Mariano del Buono, who met Girolamo in Florence.

We are grateful to Anna Melograni and Federica Toniolo for advice about the illumination.