Hours of Gregory XIII Facsimile Edition

The Hours of Gregory XIII is an illuminated book of hours, a manuscript used in the private devotions of a Christian layperson. Made in France for an English patron around 1500, it is a deluxe manuscript, featuring illumination by the Master of Philippa of Guelders, Jean Coene IV, and the Gotha Master. Every page has a painted border in rich colors and gold, and the book boasts forty large miniatures.

A distinctive feature of the manuscript's illumination is that the beginnings of four textual divisions are marked by three-quarter page miniatures with historiated borders. The scenes in the borders focus on the parents of the Virgin Mary (fol. 23r), the Passion of Christ (fol. 71v), King David (fol. 96r), and the Jewish prophet Job (fol. 113r)

The Woman Clothed in the Sun

The only full-page miniature in the book shows the crowned and glowing Virgin standing on a crescent moon and holding the infant Jesus (fol. 18v). She occupies a heavenly realm, flanked by angel musicians and surrounded by wispy clouds. She recalls the woman clothed in the sun described in the biblical book of the Apocalypse.

Focus on the Office of the Dead

There is an unusual concentration of major illumination for the Office of the Dead: each of the services of First Vespers, Matins, and Lauds opens with a large miniature (fols. 113r, 112v, and 129v. This is difficult to understand now because leaves 113-115 are bound out of order.

Vespers is introduced by the story of Job in three scenes, including a rare depiction of the destruction of his sheep in the lower border. A miniature of the Raising of Lazarus opens Matins, and a burial scene precedes Lauds.

Characteristically French Decorated Borders

The painted borders feature fleshy stylized acanthus and small flowering vines on grounds often apportioned into geometric compartments. Birds, animals, insects, and hybrid creatures abound, finding their places among the vines. The animals are sometimes challenging to identify, such as a bear-like bagpiper that walks on two legs (fol. 118v).

A Personal Touch?

One miniature portrays an interaction between the human and the divine (fol. 138r). It shows a contemporary pilgrim—identifiable by his scrip (a satchel) and walking stick—before the enthroned Virgin and Child. The infant twists away from his mother to reach out to the gray-haired and bearded pilgrim, perhaps representing the person for whom the manuscript was illuminated.

Thin Letters

The text is written in Gothic Textualis, the formal script generally preferred for Christian liturgical and devotional books. The letters are laterally compressed, with the bodies of many letters forming tall hexagons. The text is in Latin, except for the rubrics for the suffrages (short prayers) to saints, which are in French (fols. 38r-71r).

A Papal Donation

Although we do not know precisely where and for whom the manuscript was made, in the later sixteenth century it was in the possession of the calendar reformer Pope Gregory XIII (1502-1585), who donated it to the Vatican Library in 1578 and to whom it owes its nickname