BOOK OF HOURS, USE OF LYON, IN LATIN AND FRENCH [FRANCE (LYON), 15TH CENTURY (C.1480)]

c.150x110mm, manuscript on vellum, ii+132+ii leaves, foliation omits ‘100’ and repeats ‘102’, 19 lines, the ruled space c.95x55mm, the calendar in quires of six leaves, the rest mainly in quires of 8, but imperfect: leaves presumably with miniatures missing after ff.12, 19, 33 (Lauds), 40 (Prime), 52 (None), 70, 72, 73, and 85, and one blank cancelled after f.68, also somewhat mis-bound (the quire beginning on f.69 should follow f.19), vertical catchwords, tiny leaf signatures lower left, illuminated with four small miniatures, each accompanied by a border, and three large miniatures, each accompanied by full borders of semi-naturalistic flowers and foliage against panels of gold or plain vellum in panels of various shapes and patterns, one- and two-line initials and line-fillers throughout, in gold against fields alternately red or blue; the first and last pages very dirty, suggesting the book was without a binding for a significant length of time, thumbed throughout, the illumination with some rubbing and flaking of pigments; bound in 20th-century cream vellum over pasteboards framed by single gilt fillets

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
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Provenance
(1) Written for a female owner (‘michi famula tua’, f.19r) who doubtless lived in the diocese of Lyon. (2) Apparently from an early 20th-century English bookseller: inscribed in pencil ‘Small Office  £2’ (f.2r). Text
Full Calendar, in French (f.1r); Gospel extracts (f.13r); ‘Obsecro  te’ (f.17r); Hours of the Virgin, Use of Lyon (f.20r); the end of the ‘Obsecro te’ and Passion narrative based on the Gospel of John (f.69r); Hours of the Cross (f.71r) and of the Spirit (f.73r); Seven Penitential Psalms (f.74r) and litany (f.82v), including the rare St Elpidius, 5th-century bishop of Lyon; Office of the Dead, Use of Lyon (f.85r); Suffrages to saints (f.128v).

Illumination
Lyon illumination in the decades around 1500 is studied by E. Burin, Manuscript Illumination in Lyons (1473–1530), 2002, and while the present manuscript is apparently not painted by any of the artists whose work she reproduces, her plates provide some close iconographic comparisons: the way in which the infant lies back on the Virgin’s lap, instead of sitting up, is found in Rouen MS 3027 (fig.57), and the way in which the kneeling magus holds a chalice by its stem, with the fingertips of the other hand under its base, is found (in reverse) in Keble College MS 40 (fig.24) and an Hours in a private collection (fig.70). A remarkable iconographic peculiarity of the present composition is that the kneeling magus has not – as is absolutely standard in scenes depicting the Adoration of the Magi – removed his crown.

The subjects of the large miniatures are: (1) The Adoration of the Magi (f.49v), (2) The Flight into Egypt (f.55v), and (3) The Coronation of the Virgin (f.61v); and of the small miniatures: (1) St Luke painting a portrait of the Virgin and Child (f.13v), (2) St Matthew writing his gospel, copying from a book held open by his angel (f.14v), (3) St Mark writing, assisted his his lion (f.16r), and (4) The Virgin and Child (f.17r).