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Miniatures and Borders from the Book of Hours Bona Sforza, Duchess Of

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Miniatures and Borders from the Book of Hours Bona Sforza, Duchess Of M I N I A T U R E S A N D B O R D E R S FROM TH E BOO K OF H O U RS BONASFORZA DUCHESS OF , I N TH E B RI T I S H M U S E U M WI TH I N TROD UC TI ON B " A. W A R N E R M. G E O R G E F . , ASS I STANT K EEPE R OF MAN U SC RI PT S P UB L I S H E D TR U S T E E S LONDON P RI NT ED B " \V I LLI AM C LO\VE AN D ON L I MITED S S S, , N O T I C E . T H E reproductions in this volume represent the choicest miniatures and borders in the exquisitely illuminated Book of Hou rs of Bona Sforza, Duchess of Milan , which the late Mr. John Malcolm , of s r Poltalloch , so generously presented to the Tru tees of the B itish “ Museum in 1 893 supplemented by a border from the Sforziada r in the Grenville Libra y, which has been added for purposes of comparison . N 0 more per fectly finished illuminated manuscr ipt than the Sforza Book of Hours could have been chosen for the purpose of exemplifying the best work of the miniatu rists of the Milanese and Flemis h Schools of the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries ; r and , although the colouring of the originals is wanting in the rep o d u cti ons w , the fine details of the dra ing and the artistic merits of the composition will not fail to excite the admiration of the student of art . r The plates , in pe manent collotype , have been skilfully executed r by the Autotype Company ; and the wo k has been superintended, and r . the I ntroduction has been w itten , by my colleague , Mr G F Warner, K the Assistant eeper of this Department . S C TT EDWARD . O J L , r o M an uscr s K eepe f ipt . D EPARTMEN T OF M SS . , S e tember 1 8 p , 94 . I N T RO D U T I N C O . H E beautifully illuminated manuscript known as the Sforza Book of Hours was brought to this 1 8 1 country in 7 by Sir J . C . Robinson , who had purchased it shortly before at Madrid . The Treasury having refused to provide the means for its acquisition by the State, it passed into the hands of a more appreciative private collector, the late Mr. John S r Malcolm , of Poltalloch . I t is due to his public pi it that the loss 1 8 r to the nation proved after all only temporary. I n 93 , with ra e m unifice nce r , he p esented the volume to the British Museum , which thus adds to its treasures one of the very finest extant examples of I talian r enaissance ar t as applied to th e decoration of service - books r and other manusc ipts . MS The . , which is numbered Additional is of small size , m easu ring only 555 inches in height by 4 inches in width . I n its r 8 p esent state it consists of 3 4 leaves of fine vellum , and is enriched 6 l - m r 1 with no less than 4 fu l page iniatu es , besides as many as 3 9 e v r r qually attracti e illuminated borde s . When it ar ived in England r red v it fo med a single volume only, in covers of faded elvet with r . r silve clasps This binding , however, was of no olde date than the 1 r latter part of the 7th centu y, and , as many of the leaves wanted r r r s . gua ding, Mr . Malcolm had the book newly bound in fou pa t The r E va n el ii r text , all in Latin , is as follows Cu sus g , comp ising r x r 1 2 sho t e tracts f om the four Gospels, f. ( ) Hours of the Holy Cross , r H ur s . 1 2 8 f. f 3 ; (3) Hou s of the Holy Spirit , ; (4) o s of the Ble sed r . 1 x . 1 . Vi gin , f 4 (5 ) Lessons of the Passion , viz . Luke xii to xxiii 5 3 , 1 6 r our . 1 6 5 r r f. 3 7 ; ( ) P ayers to Lord on the Passion , f 7 ; (7) P aye s 6 ii IN TROD UCTION 1 6 6 m r a . 8 to the Virgin , f 9 ; ( ) Me o ials of Saints , each consisting of r 1 8 6 v short p ayer on a single page , with a miniature , f. (9) Se en Peni tenti al 2 1 6 1 1 . I O . 2 Psalms , f 3 ( ) Litany, etc , f 3 ( ) Office of the Dead , l i ” . 2 8 1 2 r o I esu P a ul i nis E i s to s n f 5 ; ( ) O ati de Nomine ex p co gesta , — 8 o f ff. 3 43 34 . With the exception of the last , which is an addition r r r r 1 600 no inte est appa ently w itten about the yea , these divisions constitute an or dinar y Book of H ours , all that calls for remark being the m absence of the usual calendar . At the same ti e, although the r text as it stands is complete , many of the leaves in va ious places did not MS ae its belong to the original . , but fill lacun unhappily caused by i n mutilation . As will be shown presently, these later leaves were s rted 1 r e 1 and 1 2 1 . r between 5 9 5 Altogethe , they make up a thi d of , x the whole bulk , and among them are included si teen of the miniatures , s s r are which , beside being thu of a more recent date than the est , of a ff widely di erent school . T o x th e . some extent M S . tells its own history From the te t , r indeed, we only lea n that it had a Milanese origin . This is apparent f r . r o from the language used of St . Ba nabas and St Ambrose , pat ons “ r m s Milan , one of whom is pointedly described as Ba nabas qui pri u ” Medi ol ani cel eb ravi t r m missam , while the praye comme orating the other w as obviously penned under the shadow of the chur ch of which r r v he was a chbishop . The info mation con eyed in the illuminated r v . borders is more definite, p o ing beyond question that the M S owed r its existence to Bona of Savoy, wife of Galeazzo Ma ia, second Duke r r s of Milan of the house of Sfo za . Galeazzo, whose ty anny and vice m 1 6 2 6th . had made him justly odious , was assassinated on Dece ber, 47 H is widow then acted for a while as regent for her son Gian Galeazzo , 1 who was only eight years of age ; and some of the coins struck for h er in t his capacity bear on the r everse the dev ice of a phoenix rising fr om ” r s e uor . the flames , enci cled with the motto , Sola facta, solum Deum q “ ” r for With the slight, and doubtless merely accidental , va iation of fata 1 ’ - G necchi l e M am i e zl i 1 v 2 L tta Famz l i e C el eb i 21 274 720 1 8 8 . 8 l . x . , , 4 , p 3 , p ; i , lg I tal i a ze Sforza r e a z e e t b . v n o. , p dig , . , 9 . IN TROD UCTION iii a facta, both phoenix and motto form conspicuous feature of the r r border reproduced he e in pl . xlii . and , in addition to this , the wo ds f 66 6 6 r r f. Diva Bona appea in several other borde s , 79 , and Bona Duc[issa] is inscribed in extremely minute characters o n f the front o a building in the miniature of St . Clare (pl . M. Equally significant are the two initials B . , which may be seen in are s xxxviii . They repeated elsewhere , and no doubt repre ent the ” r names Bona Ma ia, which in one instance are found written at ll m 66 fi . length at the end of a psal (f. ) in order to up a line Although s h e r rs is almost inva iably called by the fi t alone, both these names were r in fact borne by the Duchess , who appears as Bona Ma ia in full , not ” o r nly in the contemporary chronicle known as the Dia ium Parmense , ll but in some of her own letters and official documents as regent . s The identity of the original owner of the MS . being thu placed r v r beyond doubt , it emains to disco er its mo e exact date and the special r purpose, if any , for which so exceptionally choice a wo k of its kind was r v w as p oduced . From the device and motto abo e noticed , it clearly completed after the tragedy that made the Duchess a widow ; and there is additional evidence of this in the fact that St .
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