Book of Hours, Use of Paris

Book of Hours, Use of Paris

This Book of Hours is unusual in several ways. Its text is written in gold leaf and lapis lazuli only. Chrysography, or writing in gold, is extremely rare and marked of the superlative status of the patron. The text was completed around 1425, either in France or by a French-trained scribe. The book’s sixteen miniatures date from the end of the fifteenth century and are by two distinct artists that were trained north and south of the Alps. Cristoforo Majorana (act. ca. 1472–94), an illuminator for the Aragonese court in Naples, painted twelve of the miniatures. The other four miniatures are from the workshop of the Master of the della Rovere Missals (act. ca. 1467–1506?), a prolific painter alternately active in France and Rome from the 1460s to 1506. This manuscript constitutes a hybrid object that speaks of the intense cultural exchanges that took place between Italy and the North.

Illuminators: Cristoforo Majorana and a follower of the Master of the della Rovere Missals (Jacopo Ravaldi?)

ca. 1425 (text); ca. 1480–90 (illumination)

Manuscript on parchment, 243 fols.

The Free Library of Philadelphia, Widener 8

France (text); Naples or Rome, Italy (illumination)