Abstract
Printed books of hours, the best-seller of the late medieval trade in books, provide evidence of an information revolution equal to that occasioned by the Internet today. The Grey Collection of the National Library in Cape Town possesses eight books of hours, printed between 1498 and 1530, and they are almost completely unknown. Yet these valuable incunabula, all of them printed on vellum with hand-painted initials, and some of them with hand-painted miniatures, are of importance to anybody interested in books, the history of the book, the dissemination of information, the art of the late 15th to the early 16th centuries and early printing. They are also religious books, and of value to people interested in that discipline. The books are therefore eminently suitable as subjects for transdisciplinary research through which the subjects of history, sociology, art and religion can be drawn together. Two of these books, printed by Thielman Kerver in Paris, are discussed in detail in this article. The books are especially remarkable for their many illustrations that include pictures around the borders of each page as well as full-page illustrations. The pictures are neither metal cuts nor woodcuts, as were usual in that period, but relief prints. The most important part of the texts is a sequence of prayers to the Virgin Mary. Soon after these books were printed , in 1571, Pope Pius V prohibited the use of all existing books of hours.
Highlights
In the 15th century there was a radical change in communications technology, just as incisive as the digital revolution we are currently experiencing
The immediacy experienced in the 15th century is illustrated in the 21st century especially by Web 2.0 sites that allow users to interact in a social media dialogue (O’Reilly 2005)
The books of hours in manuscript have been described in articles but almost nothing has been written about the printed books of hours, even though the latter might be of even more importance
Summary
In the 15th century there was a radical change in communications technology, just as incisive as the digital revolution we are currently experiencing. Google has scanned more than 10 million books and put them online at no cost to the reader If this trend continues, and there is no reason why it shouldn’t, a huge amount of published material will soon be available to almost everybody almost all the time. The explosive development in devotional readings, especially books of hours, during the fifteenth century has similarities with the globalization in our time since one of the most direct ways in which globalization manifests itself is through information and communication technologies (Jameson 1998:55). In an era when some of the most important painting was in books, the illuminated miniatures in manuscript Books of Hours were the picture galleries of the Middle Ages’ (Wieck 1997:51). Michael Agresta has predicted, that the generation of paper books will likely rival the art hanging beside them on the walls for beauty, expense, and ‘aura’ (2012)
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