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Add MS 80800
- Record Id:
- 032-001986256
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001986256
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000036.0x000072
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 80800
- Title:
-
Leaf from a Book of Hours, Use of Rome (the 'Sforza Hours')
- Scope & Content:
-
Detached calendar page for October including a full-page miniature in colours and gold of peasants and noblemen engaged in the occupations and labours of the month of October: peasants making wine and nobles hawking.
This leaf was originally intended to form part of the 'Sforza Hours', the Book of Hours commissioned from the artist Giovan Pietro Birago by Bona Sforza, Duchess of Milan in 1490, now Add. MS 34294 (on Giovan Pietro Birago see, Laura Paola Gnaccolini, 'Birago, Giovan Pietro', in Dizionario Biografico dei Miniatori Italiani: Secoli IX-XVI, ed. by Milvia Bollati (Milano: Bonnard, 2004), pp. 104-10). According to an extant letter from Birago (see Provenance) a substantial part of the manuscript had already been delivered to Bona in 1494, but the remaining leaves were stolen by a certain Fra Gian Jacopo, who subsequently travelled to Rome and sold them to Fra Biancho, who later gave them to Giovanni Maria Sforzino. Three detached leaves, a full-page miniature of the Adoration of the Magi (Add. MS 45722), and two calendar miniatures for the months of May (Add. MS 62997) and the present leaf, all discovered in the twentieth century, have been identified as some of those stolen from Birago.
After Bona’s death in 1503, her unfinished Book of Hours became the property of her nephew Duke Philibert II of Savoy; after his death in 1504, it became the property of his widow Margaret of Austria, who took it with her to the Netherlands in 1506. In 1517 Margaret commissioned the scribe Etienne de Lale to replace the missing pages of text, and between 1519 and 1521, the court painter Gerard Horenbout was commissioned to replace the missing miniatures.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-001986256", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 80800: Leaf from a Book of Hours, Use of Rome (the 'Sforza Hours')" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001986256
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-001986256
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
1 parchment folio.
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_80800 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1490
- End Date:
- 1494
- Date Range:
- 1490-1494
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
-
Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 110 x 90 mm.
Foliation: ff. 1.
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Mounted in a double-window glazed frame.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Italy (Milan).
Provenance:
Bona of Savoy (b. 1449, d. 1503), Duchess of Milan, 2nd wife of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan: illuminated for her by the artist Giovan Pietro Birago; and originally intended to form part of her Book of Hours (now Add. 34924, known as 'the Sforza Hours') which includes her motto (f. 93r), inscriptions of Bona's name, e.g. 'Diva Bona' (ff. 80r, 122v) and 'Bona Duc[issa]' (f. 210v) and her initials 'B.M.' (ff. 56r, 88v); her motto 'Sola fata, solum Deum sequor', and her emblem of the phoenix (f. 93r).
Fra Gian Jacopo: allegedly stolen by him in 1494 with other leaves from an unfinished section of the Hours, which Birago had yet to deliver to its owner (see Birago's undated letter to an unidentified addressee, G. Mongeri, 'L'arte del minio nel ducato di Milano', Archivio Storico Lombardo, 12 (1885), p. 541. repr in Facsimile Commentary 1995, Appendix 2, pp. 831-32)
Giovanni Maria Sforzino (d. 1520), half-brother of Galeazzo Maria Sforza: acquired stolen leaves in Rome from Fra Biancho who bought them from Fra Gian Jacopo (see the above letter).
Marchese Girolamo d' Adda (b. 1815, d. 1881), of Milan, writer on art: probably passed by him to Charles Fairfax Murray before 1902 (see National Art Collections Fund Review, 2008, p. 78).
Charles Fairfax Murray (b. 1849, d. 1919), artist and connoisseur: with him by 1902.
Tammaro de Marinis (b. 1878, d. 1969), Italian dealer: probably one of two calendar miniatures from the Sforza Hours seen in his collection by Paul Wescher (see 'Francesco Binasco Miniaturmaler der Sforza', Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 2 (1960), 75-91 (p. 80).
Bernard H. Breslauer (b. 1918, d. 2004), of New York: bought by him in Switzerland in 1984.
Les Enluminures Ltd, Chicago: bought from Breslauer in 2004.
Purchased by the British Library for £191,000 in 2004, with a contribution of £131,000 from the Art Fund (including £20,000 from the Wolfson Foundation) and additional support from the Friends of the National Libraries.
- Administrative Context:
- Italy (Milan).
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Digitised Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
William M. Voelkle and Roger S. Wieck, The Bernard H. Breslauer Collection of Manuscript Illuminations (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1992), pp. 216-17.
The Sforza Hours: Add. MS. 34294 of the British Library, London, Commentary by Mark L. Evans and Bodo Brinkmann with Hubert Herkommer (Lucerne: Faksimile Verlag, 1995), pp. 29, 81, 159, 163, 400, 496, 538, 604, and 606-10 [facsimile].
Rowan Watson, 'Stolen Treasure', Art Quarterly (2004), 26-29.
National Art Collections Fund Review (2004), pp. 1, 78-79, cover image.
Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West, ed. by Paul Binski and Stella Panayotova (London: Harvey Miller, 2005), p. 225 [exhibition catalogue].
Les Enluminures 1991-2011, 20 Then, 20 Now, Catalogue 16 (Paris, [no pub.], 2011), no. 1.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)