Original leaf from a medieval manuscript Book of Hours. Red-ruled for 17 lines of text, written in Latin gothic textura script with dark brown ink, on animal vellum. (177 x 123mm).
Eight illuminated two-line initials, eighteen illuminated one-line initials, and thirty-two illuminated line-extenders in burnished gold on red and blue ground with delicate white penwork.
Northern France or Flanders, c. 1430-50.
The illuminated ''S'' continues the Litany of the Saints (first prescribed by Pope Gregory in 590 for a public thanksgiving following a plague that ravaged Rome) The leaf lists the names of saints with each invocation followed by the abbreviation for “ora pro nobis” (Pray for us).
Among the saints listed are: St. Anthony, St. Bernard (patron saint of beekeepers), St. Anne (patron saint of miners), St. Mary Magdalene (patron saint of repentant sinners), St. Katherine (patron saint of philosophers & preachers), and St. Barbara (patron saint of architects).
Books of Hours are personal prayer books of a devout and status-conscious society and are not only works of art, but cultural documents of their time. They reveal a unique combination of sacred and secular imagery - made of the finest materials, by the best craftsmen, for a small audience that could both appreciate and afford them.
Shipped in archival 14x11'' mat.
