The development of the Italian Book of Hours

Abstract

The development of the Italian Book of Hours The pioneering work of great thinkers and scholars often falls victim to generalized allusion in the writings of a later period.1 So it is that ever since the publication in 1927 of the Abbe1 Leroquais1 monumental work on Books of Hours in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, it has been de rigueur for art historians to define a typical Book of Hours according to Leroquais.2 Yet the Abbe" himself used definitions and categorizations cautiously; he always hedged them with modifications and he was open to new evidence. Moreover, while his systematization and learned synthesis of a vast amount of material have indeed laid the foundations for future scholarship, it is important to recall that his findings concerning Books of Hours apply in the first instance to one particular collection in which French and FrancoFlemish examples predominate. More recent studies of both individual manuscripts and of national groups have helped to redress the balance in relation to Netherlandish and English works, but little research has been carried out to date on the origins and development of the Italian Book of Hours. Before addressing this problem it may be helpful to summarise the now conventionalized and accepted notion of a Book of Hours. John Harthan in his introduction to a survey of the genre puts it thus: The Abbe" Leroquais established a basic classification of the contents of Books of Hours. Three elements are distinguished: essential, secondary and accessory texts. The essential texts are those extracted from the Breviary: the Calendar, the Little Office or Hours of the Virgin, the Penitential Psalms, the Litany, the Office of the Dead and the Suffrages of the Saints... Secondary texts comprise the Sequences, which are the passages from the four Gospels in which the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John describe the coming of Christ; the account of St John; two special prayers to the Virgin which enjoyed great popularity, the Obsecro Te and O intemerata; a number of shorter alternative Offices, the Hours of the Cross, of the Holy Spirit and (less often) of the Holy Trinity; the Fifteen Joys of the Virgin; and the Seven Requests to the the Saviour. Even this substantial addition was not enough to satisfy the yearning for devotion among the laity. It was increased by Leroquais' third element, the accessory texts. These comprise more extracts from the Psalter, and miscellaneous prayers. The programme widely acknowledged as typical for the decoration of a Book of Hours is also based on Leroquais. It comprises the following elements: illustration of the calendar by a series of scenes depicting the appropriate signs of the zodiac and labours of the months; portraits of the Evangelists, usually engaged in writing, to accompany the Gospel sequences; 176 M.M. Manion a cycle of scenes from the Infancy or less frequently the Passion of Christ to illustrate the Hours of the Virgin (when the Infancy cycle is depicted, the final Hour of Compline is usually illustrated with a scene of the Dormition or Coronation of the Virgin); a single appropriate scene such as Pentecost for the Hours of the Holy Spirit and the Crucifixion for the Hours of the Cross to introduce the shorter Hours; a scene from the life of David or a representation of him at prayer to accompany the Penitential Psalms; depictions of the saints to illustrate some or all of the Suffrages; and one or two representations of the Virgin and Christ Child, sometimes in the presence of donors, to introduce the Obsecro Te and O Intemerata. Again, building on Leroquais, it is usually stated that the Book of Hours originated as an appendix to the breviary, that in the thirteenth century as it became more popular it was attached to psalters. In the fourteenth century the psalter-hours gave place to the independent Book of Hours. This enjoyed widespread favour among the laity. By the late fifteenth and eary sixteenth centuries manuscripts were yielding to printed editions of the texts often accompanied by coloured woodcuts or engravings. With this generally accepted outline of the contents and history of the Book of Hours in mind, let us turn to the best known early...