Prayer Book
Title
Prayer Book
Description
This Prayer Book epitomizes a customized product commissioned to suit the user’s devotional needs. The first four texts contain six-line, abridged versions of the prayers found in the Hours of the Virgin, a kind of memory aid to the longer Offices. The four radiant but childlike miniatures reflect the soft style championed by Leonardo da Vinci’s followers, Marco d’Oggiono and Bernardino Luini. The most innovative aspect of the book is found in the illusionistically painted sprigs of violas, carnations, and other flowers surrounding the four miniatures, painted so as to appear threaded through cuts in the parchment. This clever visual device is much more closely associated with Netherlandish manuscript illumination, particularly work from the so-called Ghent-Bruges school. The Litany includes saints more typical of France, including Denis, Eustache, and Lubin, which might indicate that the book was produced in Milan during the period of French domination, from 1500 to 1512.
Date
ca. 1510
Format
Manuscript on parchment, 52 fols.
Identifier
The Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis E 207
Coverage
Milan (?), Italy
Collection:
5. Showcasing Salvation; Devotion by Design
Tags
Citation
“Prayer Book,” Making the Renaissance Manuscript, accessed May 17, 2024, http://makingrenmanuscripts.exhibits.library.upenn.edu/items/show/34.
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