Utopia, armarium codicum bibliophilorum, Cod. 101
Leuchtendes Mittelalter, Neue Folge III, Vom Heiligen Ludwig zum Sonnenkönig: 34 Werke der Französischen Buchmalerei aus Gotik, Renaissance und Barock, beschrieben von Eberhard König mit Beiträgen von Gabriele Bartz und Heribert Tenschert, Ramsen Antiquariat Heribert Tenschert 2000, S. 322.
Manuscript title: Book of Hours, Horae B.M.V. for the use of Paris.
Place of origin: Paris
Date of origin: 2nd quarter of the 15th century
Catalogue number:
21
Support: Vellum
Extent:
210 leaves of vellum
Format: Octavo (169 x 128 mm)
Page layout:
written space:
105 x 67 mm
Writing and hands: Textura
Decoration: 66 pictures, nine of them large ones: one with the main motive in an architectural frame with eight pictures over four lines of text with 3-line initial, two with arched miniatures in a frame with painted trompe-l'œil jewels over four lines of text with 3-line initial, one of them with six, the other with four medaillons in the border, the other six with large miniatures in full border à compartiments, one of them over 3 lines of text, four over 4 lines of text and one over 5 lines of text with 3-line initials; 24 small illustrations in the full borders à compartiments of the calendar; nine others in the plain borders of the Office of the Dead; two small pictures in the space of 3-line letters as well as four 3-line historiated initials, each with borders at the outer margins.
Main language: Latin and French
Contents:
Book of Hours, Horae B.M.V. for the use of Paris.
Manuscript in Latin and French in brown, red, gold and blue on vellum, in textura.
Manuscript in Latin and French in brown, red, gold and blue on vellum, in textura.
Origin of the manuscript:
- Written in Paris in the 2nd quarter of the 15th century, illuminated in Paris and perhaps in Tours c. 1490: by the Master of the Chronique Scandaleuse, with parts added by Jean Bourdichon and the Master of the Vigiles of Charles VII from the circle of Jacques de Besançon.
- A very handsome Book of Hours, written before 1450 in Paris, but with picture spaces left blank until illumination was undertaken in Paris, possibly in Tours as well, toward the end of the 15th century. This work was divided: Two main miniatures and the decoration of calendar and Office of the Dead were contributed by artists from the cirde of Maitre François, the miniatures probably by a dose collaborator of the Master of Jacques de Besançon who celebrates Notre Dame de Paris in a view of that town. Glowing colours and monumental forms in the other pictures betray at least the influence of Jean Bourdichon in Tours who in fact may have supervised the Master of the Chronique Scandaleuse who apparently was responsible for this Book of Hours in his younger years.