Speculum perfectionis (Mirror of Perfection)

Speculum perfectionis (Mirror of Perfection)

This hybrid print and manuscript book consists of a printed edition of the fifteenth-century Franciscan mystic Hendrik Herp’s Mirror of Perfection.It is bookended by two eight-folio manuscript sections written and illustrated by Denis Faucher (1487–1562), a mystical poet and Benedictine monk, who spent the majority of his career at the Abbey of Lérins off the coast of Provence. Faucher’s poems are here mostly addressed to a scholasticate, a nun in the training period following the novitiate, and concern the attainment of spiritual perfection in the world. The poems are accompanied by two striking images, which he painted himself. The first shows a nun in a black habit being crucified, with a snake biting a heart, representing sin, entwined around her left arm, depicted here. The lit oil lamp the nun holds in her right hand represents faith and refers to the parable of the Wise Virgins (who tended their lamps).

Authors: Hendrik Herp and Denis Faucher; Illustrator: Denis Faucher; Printer: Sabio

1524 (printed portion); after 1524 (manuscript portion)

Manuscript and printed book on paper, 134 fols.

University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Codex 1620

Venice, Italy (printed portion); France (manuscript poriton)