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Book of hours: use of Paris, c.1500
MSS 16936-M.Ms.AE, Book of hours: use of Paris, Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.
Limited Restrictions: This item has limited restrictions for use due to its fragility. Please contact Director of Operations, Special Collections Library (scpubserv@virginia.edu) to discuss your research needs and handling guidelines.
This collection contains a highly illuminated medieval vellum Book of Hours in Latin and French, from the 1500s. It is housed in a deluxe, custom-made red morocco folding box, with gilt lettering on the spine: "Horae France Early 16th Cent." The book has 19th-century red velvet over wooden boards, endpapers composed of a vellum document dated 1467, with a notarial signature, pastedowns removed. The book itself measures 7 7/8 x 5 ¾ inches (200 x 145 mm) in a single column, with 26 lines per column, in a bâtarde hand. There are 132 leaves and the contents include Calendar, Gospel lessons, Passion Sequence, Hours of the Virgin, mixed with the Hours of the Cross and Holy Spirit, Penitential Psalms, Litany, Office of the Dead, "Obsecro te," "O Intemerata," and "Stabat Mater," prayers to various Saints, other prayers in French and Latin, Passion Sequences, Fifteen Joys of the Virgin. Each page is illuminated with decorative borders featuring acanthus, flowers, rustic branches, painted gold patterns, and more than fifty large and small miniatures. The calendar is illustrated with 24 small miniatures consisting of the appropriate labor and zodiac sign for each month. Eight paintings in the text measure up to half the page and are placed as space fillers at the ends of texts (subjects including the Arma Christi, the Wound of Christ, two depictions of the Holy Spirit as a dove, two flower arrangements, and two hearts pierced with the nails of the Crucifixion). Nineteen large miniatures, each surrounded by a full border composed of angels holding a coat of arms (painted over in silver), with subjects St. John on Patmos, Betrayal, Annunciation, Visitation, Crucifixion, Pentecost, Nativity, Annunciation to the Shepherds, Adoration of the Magi, Presentation in the Temple, Flight into Egypt, Coronation of the Virgin, David in Prayer, Funeral Procession, Adoration of the Virgin, with kneeling patron, Entrance into Jerusalem, Last Supper, and Man of Sorrows.
This collection was purchased from Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books and Manuscripts by the Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia on November 20, 2025.
NoC-US: No Copyright - United States: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/. Materials in this collection, which were created in c.1500, are in the public domain. Permission to publish or reproduce is not required.
There is no written evidence of the original owner; however, a portrait of a male patron adoring the Virgin and child on folio 104 suggests that he was a young, wealthy member of the merchant class. In the 19th century, it was in the library of Eugenie-Marie van Tieghem (1799-1864) and sold at the auction of her estate in 1865, and, according to Sotheby's, was purchased by the collector Major John Roland Abbey (1894-1969) from Alan Thomas in 1967. This was lot #3032 in the Abbey sales auctioned at Sotheby's on June 19, 1989.