Hours of Engelbert of Nassau Facsimile Edition

The Hours of Engelbert of Nassau is a deluxe Christian prayer book. Expert calligrapher Nicolas Spierinc wrote the text, and the Vienna Master of Mary of Burgundy, an illuminator who revolutionized Netherlandish manuscript painting, provided its miniatures. Made in Ghent around 1475-1485, the book brims with pictorial invention. It boasts seven full-page miniatures, one three-quarter-page miniature, thirty half-page miniatures, and dozens of charming marginal vignettes.

The manuscript is a book of hours, a collection of texts designed for private devotions focusing on the Hours of the Virgin. The book also includes suffrages (short prayers) to saints, the Penitential Psalms, the Office of the Dead, and other prayers and psalms, all preceded by a liturgical calendar in French.

New Naturalism Inspired by Panel Painting

The Vienna Master of Master of Burgundy, named for his work in the Hours of Mary of Burgundy, demonstrates in this manuscript an art of profound emotion with paintings of complex narratives featuring subtle atmospheric effects. The master's miniatures, especially in the treatment of deep landscapes, betray the influence of the contemporary panel paintings of Joos van Gent (Justus of Ghent).

Captivating Vignettes

The master worked with an assistant on the charming vignettes of hunting and jousting found in the margins of the Hours of Passion and the Hours of Virgin (fols. 47r-159r). The hunting sequence starts with a young man kneeling before a finely dressed lady and ends with a lady seated on the ground (fols. 47r and 68v). The jousting begins with a woman kneeling to place a helmet on a spear-bearing monkey and concludes with a group of primates, two mounted on a unicorn, parading across the page (fols. 91v and 159r).

Elaborate Cadelles

In the Hours of Engelbert of Nassau, the scribe Nicolas Spierinc amply demonstrates his command of cadelles, extensions of the letters into the top and bottom margins of the page. Added by Spierinc after completing the main letterforms of the French Bâtarde script, the cadelles feature bold strapwork and delicately shaded leaf forms. An added luxury is the use of blue ink for the rubrics identifying the prayers.

A Complicated Genesis

The manuscript's original painted borders, most of which can still be seen, feature scrolling tendrils with gold dots, flowers, and naturalia accented with blue and gold fleshy acanthus on unpainted parchment. These, the book's text, and the miniatures constitute the original campaign of creation in the 1470s. A number of the borders were soon—in the 1480s—overpainted in an innovative illusionistic style of naturalistically painted flowers, insects, peacock feathers, jewelry, and other objects on colored grounds.

Probably the master's work, the replacement borders were certainly painted at the behest of Engelbrecht II (1451-1504), Count of Nassau-Dillenburg-Dietz (Engelbert of Nassau). They often feature his coat of arms, motto, or initial E. It is uncertain, however, that the book was made for him. The initials GG also appear conspicuously three times in scenes that are a part of the original illumination (fols. 151v, 158v, and 269r), and there is another coat of arms on the collars of depicted hounds in the marginal hunt sequence (fols. 50r, 53r, and 56r). It is possible, therefore, that Engelbert obtained the manuscript from another owner or that the intended recipient changed during production.

A Signed Binding

The manuscript found itself in the library of Philip the Fair (1478-1506), Duke of Burgundy, who had his coat of arms painted over that of Engelbert on several pages. It was in the library of Charles-Adrien Picard (d. 1779) by 1767 and was bound in two volumes of gold-tooled dark green morocco by Nicolas-Denis Derome for a member of the Le Meyzieu family around 1770-1775. It subsequently was owned by Henry Fiennes Pelham-Clinton (1720-1794), Duke of Newcastle, and Francis Douce (1757-1834) before entering the collection of the Bodleian Library in 1834.