Specific

• Author: LIVRE D'HEURES
• Title: LIBRO D'ORE a l'usage de Rome
• Place: North of France
• Data: Last quarter of the fifteenth century
• Format: 130x180 mm

Product's description

Binding of the eighteenth century in Moroccan olive green, back to 6 compartments with title and gold ornaments, plates richly decorated in gold with floral border. 113 sheets of parchment, including 1 white and 1 white of the paper looks 23; handwritten text in italics of 17 lines, 13 full-page miniatures and 1 sheet of paper looks at the rear. Complete. Numerous small and medium-sized letters in gold, red and blue. The 13 large full-page miniatures are exquisitely painted by fine borders with elaborate decorations of plants and animals. Code medieval high school of painting and very rich in decorations and biblical scenes of remarkable freshness, typical of the mid-fifteenth century. Overall, the code is in excellent condition in beautiful eighteenth-century binding, slight smudge of color a few pages. In the codes of this type, the paintings were not only a decorative purpose, but integrated with the text were to assist in meditation and prayer. Especially for those who could not read, do not forget that the degree of illiteracy was high even among the owners of the books of hours and then the image was used to understand what prayers recited, from memory, such as text or remember. The arrangement of figures within the volume follows a well-ordered and the images represent episodes from the life of Jesus and the Virgin, but there are also passages and figures of the Old Testament. Let's start from the calendar, usually at the beginning of the book. The miniatures introducing each of the eight canonical hours are: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Annunciation to the Shepherds, the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation in the Temple, the Massacre of the Innocents and the Flight into Egypt. The sequence often ends with the Dormition and Coronation of the Virgin. Alternatively, scenes may appear from the cycle of Easter as the betrayal of Judas, the ascent to Calvary and the Crucifixion. In the Penitential Psalms are painted with scenes related to King David, while officiating at funeral rites of the dead appear, images of the Last Judgement or the story of Job, who met the brothers. In the final part of the book appear the Saints and their attributes or with the instruments of martyrdom, such as S. Peter is pictured with the keys, S. Sebastian pierced by arrows, St. Lawrence with the gridiron, with a stone St. Stephen, St. Catherine of Alexandria with the wheel. These illustrations are almost always smaller than the most important panel that opens the Canonical Hours. The miniatures are often surrounded by beautiful borders with different styles and characteristics depending on the season. They range from simple girar consist of stylized leaves and due to the Gothic period, to those, perhaps best known, saturated by a dense network of branches of acanthus leaves, flowers, fruits and animals to get to a more naturalistic borders Flemish derivation. The floral borders, to iconography and style, hortus Conclusus be traced, or that image inspired by the applicant in the Middle Ages and the Song of Songs that says "You are an enclosed garden, my sister, my bride, an enclosed garden, a fountain sealed." Represented by a secret garden and fantastic, which provides shelter from evil, in which flowers and fruits grow allegorical, always associated with the figure of the Virgin Mary and of Paradise. The rose is the flower par excellence linked to Madonna also called the "rose without thorns" that is not touched by original sin, because tradition says that the rose garden of Eden was thornless. The rose has thorns but with the attribute of martyrdom. The flower is also found in some episodes of the Holy Family and in the images of the Holy Sepulchre. Red roses can also represent the blood of Christ and the white are washed by the tears of the Virgin. Even the iris, the different colors, is commonly considered a flower of the Virgin and sometimes replaces the lily in the scenes of the Annunciation, in other cases it is associated with his grief over the death of Jesus in the popular purple is a symbol of modesty and humility, for this is also likened to the Virgin but also to Jesus who had the humility to become a man. The cornflower grows wild in fields of wheat is associated with the figure of Jesus as the bread of the Eucharist and even the defeat of the devil because the flower is attributed properties against snake bites. The strawberry is considered food of the blessed and as such recalls the image of Paradise. Is associated with the Annunciation and the Incarnation of Christ, who according to tradition, took place in spring, while the birth of the fruit. The lily, the Old Testament who was associated with fertility and beauty, in medieval iconography, recalls the story of baby Jesus who gives flowers of lily of the saints and is connected to chastity and purity. To this becomes one of the symbols that most often accompanies the figure of the Virgin, especially in the scenes of the Annunciation. The pomegranate in the Middle Ages is often depicted holding the Child Jesus and the Resurrection as a symbol of the future in the hands of Madonna may indicate chastity. We mention briefly the allegorical meaning attributed to the animals that inhabit the decorations in the books of Hours. The bird, often present in the border, like the butterfly represents the human soul leaves the body at death. The snail, animal closes the shell, in Christian doctrine has become a symbol of virtue and sobriety. What may seem like a simple range of decorations, but it reveals an interesting element to reveal some secrets of this era, where art, reality and faith come together in a single perception of the world.