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Add MS 18855
- Record Id:
- 032-003464139
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-003464139
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100087301907.0x000001
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100161518862.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 18855
- Title:
- Book of Hours, Use of Rome
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript is a Book of Hours, made in Tours in the 1st quarter of the 16th century.
Two leaves from a Flemish calendar illuminated by the artist Simon Bening (b. c. 1483, d. 1561) were added to the volume (ff. 108 and 109), probably in the first half of the 19th century. They were subsequently removed in 1927 and are now kept separately as Add MS 18855/1. Two further leaves from the same calendar series are now housed at the Victoria and Albert Museum (Salting MSS 2538 and 2600).
Contents:
ff. 1r-6v: Calendar.
ff. 7v-14v: Gospel readings.
ff. 16r-61v: Hours of the Virgin, with the Hours of the Holy Cross and the Hours of the Holy Spirit intermixed.
ff. 62r-70r: Seven Penitential Psalms.
ff. 70r-76v: Litany.
ff. 78r-99r: Office of the Dead.
f. 99r-v: Prayers for the Dead, beginning, 'Auete omnes anime fideles' and 'Domine iesu christe salus et liberatio fidelium animarum'.
ff. 101r-107v: Suffrages, including the following saints: Sts Peter and Paul, Sebastian, Catherine, and Barbara.
ff. 7r, 9r, 11r, 13r, 15r, 15v, 22v, 23r, 32r, 34r, 38r, 42r, 50r, 62r, 77r, 100r, 102r, 104r, and 106r are blank.
Decoration:
The manuscript's decoration was undertaken in the workshop of the French miniaturist and illuminator Jean Bourdichon (b. 1457/9, d. 1521) (see Limousin, Jean Bourdichon (1954), p. 94).
16 full-page miniatures, in colours with architectural borders in gold with all'antica elements (ff. 7v, 9v, 11v, 13v, 23v, 32v, 34v, 38v, 42v, 50v, 62v, 77v, 100v, 102v, 104v, 106v).
Full or partial borders on every page, with trompe l'oeil decoration of flowers, fruit, berries and insects on gold grounds.
Framed initials in gold on blue or red grounds. Paraphs and line-fillers in red, blue and gold. Rubrics in red.
The subjects of the miniatures are as follows:
f. 7v: St John the Evangelist on the Island of Patmos.
f. 9v: St Luke the Evangelist.
f. 11v: St Matthew the Evangelist.
f. 13v: St Mark the Evangelist.
f. 23v: The Visitation.
f. 32v: Pentecost.
f. 34v: The Nativity.
f. 38v: The Annunciation to the Shepherds.
f. 42v: The Adoration of the Magi.
f. 50v: The Flight into Egypt.
f. 62v: David and Bathsheba.
f. 77v: Job on the dung heap.
f. 100v: St Peter and St Paul.
f. 102v: St Sebastian.
f. 104v: St Catherine.
f. 106v: St Barbara.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-003464139", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 18855: Book of Hours, Use of Rome" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-003464139
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-003464139
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_18855 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1500
- End Date:
- 1524
- Date Range:
- 1st quarter of the 16th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 310 x 210 mm (written space: 175 x 100 mm).
Foliation: ff. 107 (+ 3 unfoliated parchment flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment leaf after ff. 30, 46 and 56 + 2 unfoliated parchment flyleaves at the end).
Script: Gothic cursive (Bastarda).
Binding: Post-1600. Bibliophile binding of red velvet; silver clasps; gilt fore-edges.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Tours, France.
Provenance:
Sir John Tobin (b. 1763, d. 1851), Liverpool shipping merchant, purchased by him from Robert Harding Evans (b. 1778, d. 1857), London bookseller in 1833 and given to his son, John Tobin, in 1838.
Reverend John Tobin (b. 1809, d. 1874) of Liscard Hall, near Brighton, sold by him to William Boone, London bookseller in 1851.
Purchased by the British Museum from William Boone (fl. 1815-1872), 2 February 1852, together with Add MSS 18850-18854 and Add MSS 18856-18857, for £3000.
- Information About Copies:
- Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum, 1848-1853 (London: British Museum, 1868), p. 161.
Leopold Delisle, Les Grandes Heures de la Reine Anne de Bretagne et l’atelier de J. Bourdichon (1913), pp. 25-27.
R. Limousin, Jean Bourdichon (1954), p. 94.
L.M.J. Delaissé, J. Marrow and J. de Wit, Illuminated Manuscripts: The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor (1977), p. 430.
Renaissance Painting in Manuscripts: Treasures from the British Library, ed. by Thomas Kren (New York: Hudson Mills, 1983), no. 10, pp. 79-85 [the calendar miniatures].
François Avril and Nicole Reynaud, Les Manuscrits à Peintures en France 1440-1520 (Paris: Flammarion, 1993), p. 320 [exhibition catalogue].
Judith Anne Testa, 'Simon Bening and the Italian High Renaissance: Some Unexplored Sources', Oud Holland, 114.2 (2000), 107-24 (p. 120).
Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe, ed. by Thomas Kren and Scot McKendrick (Los Angeles: Getty Museum, 2003), no. 159, pp. 483-84 [the calendar miniatures].
Scot McKendrick, Flemish Illuminated Manuscripts 1400-1550 (London: British Library, 2003), cat. 137-38, pp. 152-53.
Edward Morris, 'Early Nineteenth-century Liverpool Collectors of Late Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts', in The Making of the Middle Ages, ed. by Marios Costambeys, Andrew Hamer and Martin Heale (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007), 158-87 (p. 173).
Celia Fisher, The Medieval Flower Book (London: British Library, 2010), pp. 53, 124.
- Exhibitions:
- Gold, British Library, London, 20 May 2022 - 2 October 2022
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)