Book of Hours, Use of Cologne
Breviary, Use of Cologne (Köln)
German, ca. 1462
Language: Latin
height 8 cm
width 6 cm
384 leaves. Gothic script with bâtard elements. 21 lines. Gatherings mostly of 10. Text in Latin: Breviary with Calendar and tables for finding the date of Easter. Many decorated acanthus initials and borders with gold interlace. Binding: vellum. Various pages (manuscript is dismembered
Provenance: London dealer, 1943
Mount Angel Abbey Library, Ms 8
Parshall, Peter. Illuminated Manuscripts from Portland Area Collections. Portland, OR: Portland Art Museum, 1978, p. 24 - Quoted with permission
The initials and borders of this tiny manuscript are executed with exceptional refinement in brilliant colors with lavish application of gold leaf. The acanthus leaves, blossoms, and pistil forms are modeled with touched of white highlighting to give them a strong, plastic dimension. The bold sculptural approach to the decoration and the delicate interlace patterns are typical of works produced in the eastern Netherlands and Middle Rhine region, especially around Cologne, during the second half of the fifteenth century. Close parallels are found among manuscripts associated with the workshop of Stephan Lochner, the famous painter of devotional panels active in Cologne from the 1430s to 1450s. The Breviary can be dated with reasonable certainty on the basis of the calendar table of dominical numbers used to establish the dates for Easter beginning in the year 1462.
Diebold, William. The Illustrated Book in the Age of Printing: Books and Manuscripts from Oregon Collections. Portland, OR: Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, 1993, p. 6 - Quoted with permission
This manuscript has unfortunately lost its cover, but the resulting damage to its binding makes the book useful for showing how medieval manuscripts were made. The basic unit was the single rectangular sheet of parchment or paper, folded in the middle. Several loose folded sheets were placed one inside the other to form the signature or gathering; the scribe wrote the text in these gatherings and the painters decorated them. Here, one of the gatherings, comprising five separate sheets, has been fanned out. Each gathering was sewn through its center to keep the leaves together. Then, all the gatherings were assembled into a book and sewn together. Finally, the book was covered with a binding, either a wrapper of parchment or a more substantial cover of wooden boards and cloth or leather.
Wilma Fitzgerald, PhD, SP - Quoted with permission from an unpublished study
Breviarium (cum kalendario). ca. 1469. Köln use. FF 378 + i (paper), 80 x 60 (60 x 40). Trimmed top and bottom. One column, 22 lines. Foliated. 1 = [1]-94; 2 = 95-237; 3 = 239-378 [208]. Initials for major feasts with gold in leaf patterns. Purchased from Ines Dickmann, Bachemer Str. 68 5093 Koln. 3/9/93. Purchased in London by Mark Schmidt, OSB, 1943?. Mt. Angel College Library seal Ms. 13 on last folio of third portion.
Calendar 1, fol. 6-14v with charts for determining the year 1-7v. Year marked as 1462. Highest grading is duplex and ix lectiones. Note: (30 January) Aldegundis; (1 March) Switbertus confessor; (1 May) Walburga (3 May) Translation of Saints Cassius and Florentius (4 May) Godardus (9 May) Translation Hieronimus cardinal et doctor; (24 June) Lebuinus; (4 July) Udalricus (7 July) Willibaldus; (3 October) Duorum Ewaldorum; (7 November) Willibrord. Please note that the Cologne feast of the two Ewaldi is 12 October while that of SS Cassius and Florentius is 10 October at Cologne. The prayers for the Three Kings is on 3, fol. 318. The Litany of Saints is noteworthy for number of women saints
Library notes describe the decoration as "very close to manuscripts of the 60's. For example the manuscripts from the Canons Regular of St. Augustine in Gaesdonck near Goch which belongs to the Congregation of Windesheim (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Ms. theol. lat. fol. 46, 46a and 46b, 68, 69, 70, 205) or the Arenbergbibel, Malibu, G. Paul Getty Museum L. 1, 13. Gothic script with bâtard elements. 21 line gatherings mostly of 10. Many decorated acanthus initials and borders with gold interlace. Close parallels with manuscripts associated with workshop of Stephan Lochner active at Cologne 1430s-1450s." See Parshall, Illuminated Manuscripts #9.