Book review

KARENLEE BOWEN,Ch[r]istopher Plantin's booksof hours:illustration and production,Nieuwkoop: De Graaf Publishers, 1997 [= Bibliothecabibliographica neerlandica, XXXII], xxxii, 460 pp., 156 plates, ISBN90 6004 427 4, f 250.

Books of hours have always been an attractive subject for art historians. Especially when it comes to medieval examples: precious hand-illustrated works such as the Très Riches Heures de Jean, Duc de Berry, the Grandes Heures de Roltan or the Hours of Mary of Guelder.s, to name only a few highlights. What's often forgotten is that books of hours saw their widest distribution only after the invention of letterpress . Numerous editions were put on the market beginning in the late fifteenth century, not only in France, but in Italy and the Netherlands too. Since they were no longer adorned with miniatures, but instead with printed illustrations, they have traditionally aroused less interest. They shared this fate with the illustrated printed book in general. This alone would have been reason enough to rejoice in Karen Lee Bowen's initia- tive to devote a study to the illustration of books of hours from the second half of the sixteenth century. But she has moreover turned her attention to the important publica- tions of Christopher Plantin and carried out her research thoroughly and systematically, making extensive use of the resources of the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp. For researchers, the business archives preserved there from Plantin and his successors are nothing less than the proverbial gold mine, not least for those interested in the history of book illustration. Bowen's book is an example of the recent revival of interest in the artistic aspects of the Officina Plantiniana's work. Another highlight of this revival was the 1996 exhibition on book illustration from the Moretuses' time.' The Book of Hours is often called a 'medieval bestseller'. That was the title, for exam- ple, of a recent exhibition in New York.2 Bowen's investigation shows once again that large numbers of copies were printed in later periods as well: Plantin alone produced some sixty different editions of books of hours between 1557 and 1589, an average of nearly two per year. The continuing importance of the Book of Hours is demonstrated by the fact that the church took the trouble to examine and revise its text anew around 1571. Along with the missal, , catechism and Vulgate Bible, it was one of the essential Catholic texts that the Council of '1'rent deemed in need of reform. The name Book of Hours is borrowed from the , the ecclesiastical hours of the day that were intended for . In monastic life, particular and Bible texts were designated for particular times. All together, these texts comprised the Divine Office. For the sake of the clergy, they were brought together in the breviary beginning in the eleventh century. The Book of Hours, created for laymen in the four- teenth century, was a compilation of texts from this breviary, the and supple- mentary sources. The exact contents of books of hours could vary from region to region, but there were eleven standard parts: the calendar; four lessons; the Passion (according to St John); the Office (Hours) of the Virgin; the Office of the Cross; the 220

Office of the Holy Spirit; a selection of psalms and the Litany; the ; Suffrages of the saints; two prayers to the Virgin and diverse extra prayers. The illus- tration of the Book of Hours was also quickly standardized. Particular illustrations were more or less permanently associated with each part, most of them based on the New Testament and on Mary's life. How strong was this ancient tradition of illustration? What influence did it have on such an innovative printer as Plantin? And did the reform of the text of the Book of Hours have consequences for the manner in which it was illustrated after that time? These are central questions in Bowen's book. But her primary goal is 'the documentation and analysis of Plantin's production of illustrated books of hours and the markets for which they were intended' (p. 5). In each case, she builds on the resources of the Museum Plantin-Moretus: the books themselves, the business accounts, and the surviving copper plates, wood blocks and drawings. These sources make it possible to follow the entire production process, from planning to sale. Thanks to her careful analysis of the sources, Bowen's study is not only important for the specific issue of the history of the illustration of books of hours: it also provides more general insights into Plantin's means of production and his publishing strategies. Bowen convincingly demonstrates that several prevailing views can no longer be accepted as valid. Thanks to the excellent archives, for example, we know who served as com- positors and pressmen for the specific editions, and when and how long they worked on them. Bowen (pp. 79-81) shows clearly that the collaboration between such workmen did not by any means strictly follow the well-defined rules, as some authors (the Hellingas, Gilmont) have supposed in the past. One of the interesting parts of the book is 'The costs of including illustrations in Plantin's books of hours' in chapter 3 (pp. 82-92). The detailed accounts from the years 1563-7 provide exact data on the costs of book illustrations. It is well known that there were always at least two people involved in the production of woodcuts: the one who provided the drawing and the one who then cut the wood block (the block cutter). The draughtsman's wages were related to the size of the illustration he had to draw. In r56q., for example, Geoffroy Ballain received 12stivers for each medium-sized and 30 stivers for each large drawing that he produced for Plantin's 1565 octavo book of hours (PP 1351). For producing the blocks from them, the block cutters received 20 and 50 stivers respectively. The higher wages for what we see as the more mechanical work of the block cutter is due to its more labour-intensive and time-consuming character. Beginning in 1570 Plantin also used copper-engravings to illustrate his books of hours. These were considerably more expensive. Instead of 50 stivers for the execution of a large woodcut in 1565, the engraving of a comparable copper plate in 1569 cost no less than to guilders (200 stivers!). It is not clear from Bowen's study whether Plantin's artists were well paid. It would have been interesting to compare the data with what is reported elsewhere about the production costs of prints. For a somewhat earlier period, for example, Landau and Parshall's overview brings together various related, albeit often less detailed, sources. A comparison with the wages that the Frankfurt publisher Sigmund Feyerabend paid to artists such as Jost Amman, could have given Bowen's account a broader perspective on this point Chapter 8, C,atalogueof ChristopherPlantin's books of hours, gives a convenient survey of Bowen's sources. This catalogue is based on the books of hours reported in Voet's Plantin