Book of Hours, Use of Rome (Étienne Thirion Hours)

Book of Hours, Use of Rome (Étienne Thirion Hours)

This Book of Hours reveals much concerning its first owner. The style of the manuscript’s decoration suggests that it was produced in Burgundy, likely Dijon, where in the early sixteenth century a rather scruffy, busy painterly style predominated. The presence of an almanac for twenty years beginning in 1518 confirms a date of production on or shortly before that year. The full-page miniature showing the martyrdom of Saint John is based on Albrecht Dürer’s Apocalypse woodcut print from 1511. This manuscript features the arms of Étienne Thirion, depicted no less than three times. Thirion used his Book of Hours regularly, for its folios contain numerous superimposed imprints of sixteenth-century eyeglasses. These faint but unmistakable circular impressions all occur within the final gathering, which contains prayers to be recited at specific points during the Mass.

Illuminator: Master of Bénigne Serre

1518

Manuscript on parchment, 111 fols.

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1945.65.14

Lyon, France