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Making the Renaissance Manuscript

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

Tags

No tags recorded for this item.

Citation

“Prayer Book,” Making the Renaissance Manuscript, accessed December 23, 2024, http://makingrenmanuscripts.exhibits.library.upenn.edu/items/show/34.

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Files

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