The Catherine Hours, Use of Rome, in Latin [France, Provence (probably Avignon), c.1460-70]

195x138mm, vellum, i+ii+105+i leaves (blank leaf foliated as 19bis), complete, 14 quires of 8 leaves except i-ii6 and xiv6, 24 lines, 6 LARGE MINIATURES with full borders, three-sided borders for prayers to the Virgin and Augustine and the Hours of the Virgin after Matins, illuminated initials, inked one-line initials and line-fillers, miniatures rubbed, vellum stained, modern brown velvet binding with two large clasps including shields with a chalice, a tree and a tower

PROVENANCE

This Book of Hours was made for a woman probably called Catherine. Her coats of arms included in the borders of the opening of the Hours of the Virgin are mostly erased (f.20r) but the prayers are for feminine use ('famula tua', f.17r), and the manuscript includes a whole Office for St Catherine which received special attention as it opens with a large miniature (f.96r).

TEXT AND ILLUMINATION

Calendar (f.1r); Passion of Christ according to St John (f.7r); Gospel extracts (f.13r); Obsecro te (f.16r), O intemerata (f.18r); suffrages to St Michael (f.19r) and St Anthony (f.19v), blank (f.19bis); Hours of the Virgin 'secundum usum romane curie' with Matins (f.20r), Lauds (f.25v), Prime (f.31v), Terce (f.33v), Sext (f.35v), None (f.37v), Vespers (f.39v), Compline (f.43v); Hours of the Cross (f.51r) and the Holy Spirit (f.53r); Penitential Psalms (f.55r), litany (f.62r); Office of the Dead (f.68r); Office of St Catherine (f.96r); prayer of St Augustine 'Deus propicius...' (f.98r), suffrage to St Sebastian (f.98v); Advent Office of the Virgin (f.100r).

This Book of Hours can be added to a group of manuscripts studied by François Avril in the context of the work of Enguerrand Quarton and Barthélemy d’Eyck, the greatest painters of 15th-century Provence ('Pour l'enluminure provençale', Revue de l'Art, 1977, pp.9-40). Characteristic for this style are especially the plastic and pictorial qualities as apparent in the present manuscript.

The subjects of the miniatures are: (1) f.20r, Annunciation; (2) f.51r, Crucifixion; (3) f.53r, Pentecost; (4) f.55r, King David in Prayer; (5) f.68r, Death as a Corpse climbing out of a sarcophagus (f.68r), (6) f.96r, St Catherine of Alexandria with a sword and a large broken wheel, her persecutor, the Emperor Maxentius at her feet.