Collection ID: 0023 | Metadata type: TEI | TEI XML | Data

Title

Book of Hours, Use of Bourges

Other related names

• Lewis, John Frederick, 1860-1932, former owner (http://viaf.org/viaf/63874811)
• Crane, W. C., former owner
• Labitte, Alphonse, 1853-, former owner (http://viaf.org/viaf/31986060)
• Lallemant, Jean, -1548, former owner (http://viaf.org/viaf/28718908)
• Lewis, Anne Baker, former owner

Funders

• Council on Library and Information Resources

Call number

Lewis E 87
(Philadelphia, Free Library of Philadelphia, John Frederick Lewis Collection of European Manuscripts)

Alternate identifiers

• https://know.freelibrary.org/Record/1538093
• deRicci: 93

Publisher

Free Library of Philadelphia

Language

Latin

Origin

Place

Bourges, France

Summary

This manuscript is a compact Book of Hours of the Use of Bourges produced around the turn of the sixteenth century. The Hours of the Virgin are intercalated with the Hours of the Cross. Its miniatures have been excised, but every remaining text page has been decorated with a shaded gold border on the three outer sides, a blue cherub at the outer margin and two red seraphim above and below the text respectively. The lower pastedown contains a signed ownership note by the prominent Bourges patrician and book collector Jean Lallemant the Younger (d. 1548), dated to July 12, 1544. This has been taken erroneously as the date of the book, which is in fact significantly earlier.

Notes

• Ownership inscription dated 12 July 1544 by Jean Lallemant on the lower pastedown (inside back cover) has been erroneously considered to be of the same date as the manuscript; script and decoration indicate a date of circa 1490-1510 (according to Nicholas Herman, January 2017); at least four leaves, probably with full-page miniatures, have been excised before the Hours of the Virgin, the Hours of the Cross, the Penitential Psalms, and the Office of the Dead, with additional leaves missing elsewhere
   

Extent

I+63+i; 167 x 105 mm bound to 177 x 118 mm

Foliation

Modern foliation in pencil, lower right recto

Collation

1 (6), 2 (8, -2), 3 (8), 4 (8, -3 -4), 5 (8), 6 (8, -3), 7 (8, -7 -8), 8 (10, -10), 9 (8, -7 -8)

Support

Parchment

Binding

Embroidered and brocade cloth over pasteboards, nineteenth century

Layout

One column of twenty-seven lines; frame ruled in faint red ink, some pricking visible; written area: 110 x 62 mm

Decoration

Margins of each gold-framed page decorated with two red seraphs and one blue cherub, eleven illuminated initials, red and blue line-endings for the Suffrages, alternating red and blue rubrics and initials throughout

Script

Bâtarde (with humanistic elements)

Provenance

• Armorial bookplate of Alphonse Labitte on front pastedown; W. C. Crane sale via Anderson Auction Co., New York, December 10, 1912; given to the Free Library of Philadelphia by John Frederick Lewis's widow, Anne Baker Lewis, in 1936; provenance inscriptions on inside back cover
   

Related resources

• Reinburg, Virginia, French books of hours: making an archive of prayer, c. 1400-1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 246.
• Bagnoli, Martina, ed., Prayers in Code: Books of Hours from Renaissance France (Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2009), p. 31, n. 30.

Keywords

• Book of Hours
• 15th century
• France
• French
• Damage
• Miniature
• Illumination
• 16th century
• Prayer book
• Private devotional text
• Illustration

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis E 87: Book of Hours, Use of Bourges are free of known copyright restrictions and in the public domain. See the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark page for usage details, http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/.

  URL

  http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

• Text

  To the extent possible under law, Free Library of Philadelphia, Special Collections has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this metadata about Free Library of Philadelphia Lewis E 87: Book of Hours, Use of Bourges. This work is published from: United States. For a summary of CC0, see https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/. Legal code: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode.

  URL

  https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode

Table of contents

• fol. 1r — Graded Calendar, Use of Bourges
• fol. 7r — Gospel Lesson for John
• fol. 8r — Hours of the Virgin, Use of Bourges, with Hours of the Cross intercalated
• fol. 38r — Penitential Psalms, Litany, and Prayers
• fol. 49r — Office of the Dead
• fol. 63r — Prayer to Christ and Prayers to the Virgin to be said on different days of the week (end lacking)

Decorations

• Inside front cover — Bookplate, Alphonse Labitte
• fol. 8r — Initial D
• fol. 18v — Initial D
• fol. 24r — Initial D
• fol. 24v — Initial D
• fol. 27r — Initial D
• fol. 28v — Initial D
• fol. 30v — Initial D
• fol. 32r — Initial D
• fol. 36r — Initial C
• fol. 38r — Initial D
• fol. 49r — Initial D
• Inside back cover — Ownership inscriptions
• Inside back cover — Sale catalog clipping