Boston Public Library, MS q Med.90
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Metadata
- DS ID:
- DS3554
- Shelfmark:
- MS q Med.90
- Title:
- Book of hours : use of St-Brieuc or Dôl : in Latin and French].
- Catholic Church
- Place:
- France]
- Date:
- between 1425 and 1430
- Language:
- In Latin, with some French
- Physical Description:
- Extent: 150 leaves : parchment, ill. ; 190 x 135 (90 x 60) mm bound to 20 cm, in box 23 cm
- Former Owner(s):
- Hofstede, Petrus, 1716-1803
Bragge, William, 1823-1884
Bernard Quaritch (Firm)
- Note:
- Ms. codex.
Bibliographic record created by BPL staff based on description by Dr. Lisa Fagin Davis.
Collation: Parchment, fol. iii (first flyleaf 16th-century paper, second and third are parchment) + 150 + iii (first and second flyleaves parchment, final leaf 16th-century paper ; 1-1510 ; modern arabic pencil foliation, upper, outer corner of each recto.
Layout: Single column, 13 lines. Bounding and writing lines in red plummet.
Script: Written in a northern gothic textualis formata (textus quadratus) in black ink with red rubrics.
Decoration (primary): Thirteen three-quarter-page miniatures with gold-scroll or diapered backgrounds: The Annunciation (fol. 21, Matins) -- The Visitation (fol. 42, Lauds) -- The Crucifiction (fol. 52v, Matins, Little Hours of the Holy Cross) -- The Trinity (fol. 54, Matins, Little Hours of the Holy Spirit) -- The Nativity (fol. 55v, Prime) -- The Annunciation to the Shepherds (fol. 61...
Decoration (secondary): 1-line gold initials on red and blue throughout; 2-line initials throughout alternating salmon or blue with white filigree highlighting on gold with gold bar extensions filling inner margin, leafy extensions into upper and lower margins with black tracery vines and gold leaves, 3-lines high with full border in similar style on leaves with miniatures.
Binding: 16th-century calf over pasteboard, elaborately gilt and tooled in Grolier style, possibly by Claude de Picques or Jean Picard (see Nixon, #25, pp. 95-97), spine gilt in compartments, all edges gilt, mottoes on front and back with initials: "Plenitudo legis dilectio/A.M." (front, Romans 13:10) and "A.M./Humilitas exaltat/FOL.I." (back); clasps lacking; formerly housed in a custom blue...
Origin: Produced in Brittany for the use of a woman around the year 1425. The Hours of the Virgin suggests the use of St-Brieuc (on the northern coast of Brittany), while the Office of the Dead points to Dôl, some 50 miles to the east. The calendar includes saints that also point to both locations: St. Sansonis, Bishop of Dôl (in red, 28 July), and St. William, Bishop of St-Brieuc (in red, 29...
Provenance: Bound in the Grolier style in the mid-sixteenth century for an unidentified patron, presumably with the initials "A.M." as found on both covers. Belonged to Dutch Reformed minister Petrus Hofstede (1716-1803), according to a description pasted inside the front cover written by the next (unidentified) owner in 1804: "Plenitudo legis dilectio sine anno mss splendidissimi in membr...
Immediate source of acquisition: Purchased from Quaritch in December 1939.
Call number: MS q Med.90.
Former call number: MS 1517.
Bibliography: Howard M. Nixon, Sixteenth-century gold-tooled bookbindings in the Pierpont Morgan Library (New York, 1971); Nancy Netzer, ed., Secular/Sacred 11th-16th Century Works from the Boston Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston College, 2006), no. 42. - Keyword:
- Institutional Record:
- https://catalog.mbln.org/Polaris/search/title.aspx?ctx=12.1033.0.0.5&pos=1&cn=8444921
- IIIF Manifest:
- https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/rv046j33x/manifest
- Holding Institution:
