Abstract
One of the treasures of Modena’s Biblioteca Estense Universitaria is a small manuscript prayer book with five portraits of a young girl. Written in a clear humanist script and handsomely decorated with twelve miniatures, a rich series of floral or vegetal borders decorates every page. In this chapter, Roger Wieck carefully examines the book’s textual and pictorial contents, as well as the artist who painted the illuminations, in order to elucidate the historical and cultural circumstances surrounding its commission and its patron’s motivations. Wieck argues that Claude de France, Renée’s sister and Queen Consort of François I, commissioned this small, yet intriguing book, and he offers a detailed analysis of its genesis and artistry. This chapter highlights also the manuscript’s complicated history and fascinating journey, ultimately explaining perhaps why, upon her return to France in 1560, Renée preferred to leave her primer—and the Catholic tradition that it represented—behind.
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