Book of Hours: MS 268

Titles

Book of Hours

Maker(s)

Artist: Master of Fitzwilliam 268

Entities

• Book of hours
• Use of Rome

Categories

• Illuminated manuscript
• Manuscript

Description

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Parchment, iii contemporary parchment flyleaves + 171 fols. + i contemporary parchment flyleaf, 147 x 107 (97 x 65) mm, 18 long lines, ruled in brown or pink ink, leaf lost before fols. 72 and 76.

BINDING: late seventeenth- or early-eighteenth century, red morocco over pasteboards.

CONTENTS: fols. 1r – 12v Calendar; fols. 14r – 62r Hours of the Virgin; fols. 64r – 67r Office of the Virgin during Advent; fol. 67v Indulgence of Pope Innocent VIII for recitation of Ave virgo gratiosa (addition); fols. 68r – 71v Hours of the Cross; fols. 72r – 75v Hours of the Holy Spirit; fols. 76r – 79r Mass of the Virgin
fols. 79r – 82v Gospel Sequences; fol. 83r Hymn to the Virgin in time of pestilence and verse against fire (addition); fols. 84r – 98v Penitential Psalms and Litany with nine collects; fols. 100r – 130r Office of the Dead; fol. 130v Oratio matutina (addition); fols. 131r – 133v Obsecro te; fols. 133v – 134v O Maria mater lucis (addition); fols. 134v – 135v Prayer of St Anselm, Domine deus meus si feci (addition); fols. 136r – 137r Prayers at Mass; fols. 137r – 137v Hymn Adoro te devote latens veritas (additon); fols. 139r – 142r Suffrages
fols. 144r – 156r Psalter of St Jerome; fols. 156v – 158r Iuste iudex Iesu Christi Regum Rex et domine (addition); fols. 158v – 159r Rubricated prayer concerning cure for snake and other bites (addition) fol. 159v Hymn Christe que lux et es dies (addition); fols. 161r – 168r Passion according to St John
fols. 169r – 171r Devotions to the Five Wounds.

DECORATION: Twenty-three border miniatures of Zodiac signs and labours of the month in Calendar, with full acanthus and foliate borders on brushed gold grounds: fol. 1r January, Aquarius, man warming by fire while servant brings his food; fol. 2r February, Pisces, pruning trees; fol. 3r March, Aries, breaking soil; fol. 4r April, Taurus, youth with flowers; fol. 5r May, zodiac sign excised, hawking; fol. 6r June, Cancer, mowing; fol. 7r July, Leo, reaping; fol. 8r August, Virgo, threshing; fol. 9r September, Libra, treading grapes; fol. 10r October, Scorpio, sowing; fol. 11r November, Sagittarius, banging trees for pigs; fol. 12r December, Capricorn, slaughtering bull.

Fifteen full-page framed miniatures at main text divisions with full acanthus and floral borders on black, brown, purple or plain grounds containing animals, birds, insects, hybrids, drolleries, and combat scenes: fol. 13v Hours of the Virgin, Matins, Annunciation; fol. 27v Lauds, Visitation; fol. 36v Prime, Adoration of the Child; fol. 40v Terce, Annunciation to the Shepherds; fol. 44v Sext, Adoration of the Magi; fol. 48v None, Circumcision; fol. 52v Vespers, Massacre of the Innocents; fol. 58v Compline, Flight into Egypt with Miracle of the Sower; fol. 63v Office of Virgin during Advent, Coronation of the Virgin; fol. 83v Penitential Psalms, David penitent, God sending forth angel with flaming sword; fol. 99v Office of the Dead, Raising of Lazarus; fol. 138v Suffrages, St Nicholas reviving three boys in tub, lay patron kneeling in prayer, with arms of Aragon surmounted by coronet against window; fol. 140v Martyrdom of St Catherine; fol. 143v Psalter of St Jerome, St Jerome penitent; fol. 160v Passion according to St John, St John writing inspired by angel, with Agony in the Garden, Carrying of the Cross, Crucifixion, and Resurrection scenes in distant landscape.

ORNAMENTATION: Blue or pale violet initials [5 – 6 ll.] with graded, white or gold ink foliate motifs on blue, brown or red grounds, and full borders identical to those for the full-page miniatures on facing versos at main text divisions (border on green ground on fol. 76r); gold initials [1 – 4 ll.] on blue and dark pink white-patterned grounds; gold initials [1 – 3 ll.] on blue or red grounds with white scrollwork for additional, early sixteenth-century texts; blue and dark pink bar line-fillers with gold and white decoration.

Notes

History note: Made for an Aragonese patron from the kingdom of Naples (arms on fol. 138v); in Italy by the early sixteenth century (additions in Humanistic minuscule, rubricated instruction in Italian, fol. 159r); in Aragon by 1575 when it was inspected by the inquisitor Pedro del Suelves (inscription on fol. iii recto); Don Antonio Villadiego da Montoya (seventeenth-century ownership inscription on recto of flyleaf at end); purchased from Techener, Paris by Henry Yates Thompson (1838 – 1928), February 1897 (his MS 20); his sale, Sotheby’s, London, 14 May 1902, lot 21; purchased by Pickering and Chatto; purchased by Noel Barwell; presented to the Museum by members of Cambridge University, 1903.