Book of Hours, fragment, in Latin [Flanders, c.1470-80]

fragment, c.135×90mm, vellum, iv+11+iv, foliated 53–63, 23 lines (c.82×53mm), one five-line foliate initial, and several one-, two-, and three-line illuminated initials, some minor smudging and thumbing, bound in 20th-century polished black calf signed ‘G’, spine lettered ‘Prayers to the Virgin – MS. – c.1475’

Provenance: (1) Written for the English market, and still in England at the Reformation when the rubric on f.61 was partially erased to remove the reference to its Indulgence of 100 days, and its supposed author, Pope Clement, who wrote it with his own pen (‘qui ea proprio stilo composuit’). (2) Priv. coll., UK (the same as lots 53 and 56).

Text: The farsed Salve regina, typical of Flemish Books of Hours for the Use of Sarum (f.53r); prayers O intemerata (f.57r) and Obsecro te (f.58v) for masculine use; the Seven Joys of the Virgin (f.61r).