Books of hours are Christian prayer books, which were used to pray the canonical hours. The use of a book of hours was especially popular in the Middle Ages, and as a result, they are the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Like every manuscript, each manuscript book of hours is unique in one way or another, but most contain a similar collection of texts, prayers and psalms, often with appropriate decorations, for Christian devotion. Illumination or decoration is minimal in many examples, often restricted to decorated capital letters at the start of psalms and other prayers, but books made for wealthy patrons may be extremely lavish, with full-page miniatures. These illustrations would combine picturesque scenes of country life with sacred images.
The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, or Très Riches Heures, is the most famous and possibly the best surviving example of manuscript illumination in the late phase of the International Gothic style. It is a book of hours: a collection of prayers to be said at the canonical hours. It was created between c. 1412 and 1416 for the extravagant royal bibliophile and patron John, Duke of Berry, by the Limbourg brothers. When the three painters and their sponsor died in 1416, possibly victims of plague, the manuscript was left unfinished. It was further embellished in the 1440s by an anonymous painter, who many art historians believe was Barthélemy d'Eyck. In 1485–1489, it was brought to its present state by the painter Jean Colombe on behalf of the Duke of Savoy. Acquired by the Duc d'Aumale in 1856, the book is now MS 65 in the Musée Condé, Chantilly, France.
Simon Bening was a Flemish miniaturist, generally regarded as the last major artist of the Netherlandish tradition.
William de Brailes was an English Early Gothic manuscript illuminator, presumably born in Brailes, Warwickshire. He signed two manuscripts, and apparently worked in Oxford, where he is documented from 1238 to 1252, owning property in Catte Street near the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, roughly on the site now occupied by the chapel of All Souls College, where various members of the book trade lived. He was married, to Celena, but evidently also held minor orders, as at least three self-portraits show him with a clerical tonsure. This was not unusual: by this date, and with the exception of the St Albans monk Matthew Paris, the only other English illuminator of the period about whom we have significant personal information, most English illumination seems to have been done in commercial workshops run by laymen.
The Grandes Heures de Rohan is an illuminated manuscript book of hours, painted by the anonymous artist known as the Rohan Master, probably between 1418 and 1425, in the Gothic style. It contains the usual offices, prayers and litanies in Latin, along with supplemental texts, decorated with 11 full page, 54 half page, and 227 small miniatures, decorated with tempera paints and gold leaf. The book margins are decorated with Old Testament miniatures with captions in Old French, in the style of a Bible moralisée. The full page illuminations are renowned for the highly emotional and dramatic portrayal of the agonies of Christ and the grief of the Virgin. According to Millard Meiss, "The Rohan Master cared less about what people do than what they feel. Whereas his great predecessors excelled in the description of the novel aspects of the natural world, he explored the realm of human feeling." Meiss concludes that the Rohan Master was the "greatest expressionist in 15th century France." The manuscript is currently housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France.
The Turin–Milan Hours is a partially destroyed illuminated manuscript, which despite its name is not strictly a book of hours. It is of exceptional quality and importance, with a very complicated history both during and after its production. It contains several miniatures of about 1420 attributed to an artist known as "Hand G" who was probably either Jan van Eyck, his brother Hubert van Eyck, or an artist very closely associated with them. About a decade or so later Barthélemy d'Eyck may have worked on some miniatures. Of the several portions of the book, that kept in Turin was destroyed in a fire in 1904, though black-and-white photographs exist.
Michelino Molinari da Besozzo was a notable fifteenth century Italian painter and illuminator, who was widely praised for his work. He worked mostly in Milan and Lombardy, and was employed by the Visconti family, rulers of Milan. Michelino's work follows the traditions of the Lombard School, and maintains the Trecento style.
The Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry, or Belles Heures of Jean de Berry is an early 15th-century illuminated manuscript book of hours commissioned by the French prince John, Duke of Berry, around 1409, and made for his use in private prayer and especially devotions to the Virgin Mary. The miniatures of the Belles Heures are mostly painted by the Limbourg brothers; very few books of hours are as richly decorated as it.
The Rothschild Prayerbook or Rothschild Hours, is an important Flemish illuminated manuscript book of hours, compiled c. 1500–1520 by a number of artists.
The Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany is a book of hours, commissioned by Anne of Brittany, Queen of France to two kings in succession, and illuminated in Tours or perhaps Paris by Jean Bourdichon between 1503 and 1508. It has been described by John Harthan as "one of the most magnificent Books of Hours ever made", and is now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France catalogued as Ms lat. 9474. It has 49 full-page miniatures in a Renaissance style, and more than 300 pages have large borders illustrated with a careful depiction of, usually, a single species of plant.
The Black Hours, MS M.493 is an illuminated book of hours completed in Bruges between 1460 and 1475. It consists of 121 pages (leaves) with Latin text written in Gothic minuscule script. The words are arranged in rows of fourteen lines and follow the Roman version of the texts. The lettering is inscribed in silver and gold and placed within borders ornamented with flowers, foliage and grotesques, on pages dyed a deep blueish black; hence its designation as a Black books of hours. The book contains fourteen full-page miniatures and opens with the months of the liturgical calendar, followed by the Hours of the Virgin, and ends with the Office of the Dead.
Jean Poyer, was a French miniature painter and manuscript illuminator of the late 15th century. As a multitalented artist - illuminator, painter, draftsman, and festival designer active from 1483 until his death - he was a painter of Renaissance France, working for the courts of three successive French kings: Louis XI, Charles VIII, and Louis XII.
The Black Hours of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, M 1856 is an illuminated book of hours, now in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. The book used to be the property of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the fifth Duke of Milan. It was produced in Bruges, Flanders, probably between 1466 and 1477. Its name derives from its black borders and dark colour scheme, also found in the New York Black Hours, Morgan MS 493, and of a type favoured by the Burgundian court. It is one of about seven surviving black books of hours, all luxury books from the circle of the Burgundian court around this time. It is identified by some with the Black Hours of Charles the Bold that is mentioned in contemporary records, but others disagree.
The Hours of Maria d'Harcourt is an illuminated book of hours produced in 1415 in Arnhem and Nijmegen in the Duchy of Guelders. It follows the Roman liturgy, with 6 full-page miniatures and 86 smaller miniatures, with stylised borders. It is divided into two volumes, the larger of which is held in Berlin at the Staatsbibliothek, the smaller is held in Vienna by the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.
The Hours of Giangaleazzo Visconti is a Roman-liturgy, illuminated Book of Hours in Latin, which was commissioned by the ruler of Milan, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, in Italy in the late 14th century. A Book of Hours is a personal prayer book that contained, in part, the Hours of the Virgin, a daily devotional that was popular at the time. This particular Book of Hours was created by two master illuminators, beginning with Giovannino dei Grassi before his death, and completed by Luchino Belbello da Pavia.
The Hours of Philip the Bold is a late 14th-century illuminated book of hours produced in Paris for Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (1363-1404). It contains illustrated calendars, figured initials and 11 large miniatures with ivy borders, following the Paris liturgy. The manuscript has a devotional use. Philip reportedly recited his daily prayers from this manuscript. His hours, which contains almost 200 images, is one of the most worldly manuscripts to survive from the library of the Burgundian Dukes. It is now MS. 3-1954 in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
The Taymouth Hours is an illuminated Book of Hours produced in England in about 1325–35. It is named after Taymouth Castle where it was kept after being acquired by an Earl of Breadalbane in the seventeenth or eighteenth century. The manuscript's shelf mark originates from its previous owner, Henry Yates Thompson, who owned an extensive collection of illuminated medieval manuscripts which he sold or donated posthumously to the British Library. The Taymouth Hours is now held by the British Library Department of Manuscripts in the Yates Thompson collection.
The Sforza Hours, is a richly illuminated book of hours initiated by Bona Sforza, widow of Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan, around 1490, who commissioned the illuminator Giovanni Pietro Birago. The book remained in an unfinished state for 30 years until Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, commissioned its completion in 1517–20 from the artist Gerard Horenbout. The book therefore contains decoration of the highest quality by two artists. It provides a unique example of an early sixteenth-century Northern Renaissance illuminator's response to Milanese art of the late Quattrocento. The history of the Sforza Hours also includes one of the earliest recorded examples of art theft.
The Bedford Hours is a French late medieval book of hours. It dates to the early fifteenth century (c. 1410–30); some of its miniatures, including the portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, have been attributed to the Bedford Master and his workshop in Paris. The Duke and Duchess of Bedford gave the book to their nephew Henry VI in 1430. It is in the British Library, catalogued as Add MS 18850.
The Psalter–Hours of Yolande de Soissons is an illuminated manuscript produced in Amiens between about 1290 and 1297. It is currently kept at the Morgan Library in New York, accession number MS M.729.
