Book of Hours: An Incunable Best-Seller
The book of hours was a popular devotional book, usually an abbreviated form of the breviary which was created for lay people who wished to incorporate the psalms, prayers and other readings used in the Divine Office into their devotional lives. Books of hours were usually written in Latin, though they could also be written in vernacular languages. They frequently included calendars of church feasts, segments from the Gospels, masses, psalms, prayers, and an Office for the Dead. Handwritten books of hours (such as the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry) were often beautifully illustrated, with lavish decoration and extensive illumination. Illustrations in these works often featured scenes from daily life and included portraits of the owners and their family members. It was not uncommon for books of hours to be modified for new owners. Printed books of hours borrowed this tradition of extensive decoration.
HEURES A L’UISAIGE DE ROMME
[Parigi]: [Philippe Pigouchet per] Simon Vostre, 8 agosto 1497
This book dates from 1497—late in the incunable period. It includes characteristics of the manuscript tradition such as the remains of clasps (which were used to hold vellum books—prone to warping and swelling—closed) and initials rubricated in red and blue.
The book includes a large printer device of Adam and Eve, 12 full-page engravings, and 29 smaller vignettes depicting the anguish of Christ and the martyred saints. The printer used woodcuts based on designs by two of the leading illuminators of the period, the Master of the Très Petites Heures of Anne of Brittany and Jean Pichore. Panels of the calendar borders for each month contain the sign of the zodiac and vignettes of seasonal labors; numerous panels in the text replicate manuscript ornamentation and are filled with flowers, leaves, vines, animals, and grotesque figures.
This book’s creator, Philippe Pigouchet, was an active printer and engraver who worked for French publisher Simon Vostre. Pigouchet was known for his work with the book of hours—of the over 150 works that he created, 90 were books of hours. Paris (Parigi) had seen the arrival of the printing press in 1470, and by the end of the 15th century had established itself as the second largest locale for early printed editions.
La Danse Macabre
Heures a l’uisaige de Romme includes the Office of the Dead, and is unique in its inclusion of the Danse Macabre, or Dance of Death. The Dance of Death was an allegorical set of illustrations originating in the 1420s, which stressed the universality of death, regardless of one’s station in life. Everyone from the pope and the emperor to the child and the laborer are depicted as being lead away by the skeleton representing death. The dance was a way of assimilating the persistent threat of death (plague, war, famine) and to remind people of its inevitability, stressing the need for penance and preparation.
