Martyrology of Usuard Facsimile Edition

The Martyrology of Usuard in the Diocesan Museum in Girona is a dazzling example of the International Style in manuscript illumination. Created around 1410 in Prague and destined for a Cistercian monastery, it presents a series of brief biographies of Christian saints arranged according to the dates of their commemorations. The Master of the Krumlov Anthology and the Master of the Mandeville Travels are among the talented artists who provided its more than 700 marginal vignettes. Despite their often gruesome subjects, the paintings are highly appealing, with their delicate figures and decorative backgrounds.

The text of the Girona manuscript is a historical martyrology also known as a passionale since its biographies mostly describe the passions—sufferings—of martyr saints. Each biography would be read after the monastic prayer service of Prime on the saint's feast day.

The Beautiful Style

The manuscript is a consummate expression of the Beautiful Style, the Bohemian version of the International Style: the solemn figures, their bodies disguised rather than revealed by the drapery, are generally pictured in minimally defined spaces before diapered (geometrically patterned) grounds. Together with the jewel-like palette and generous use of gold, these features are hallmarks of the Beautiful Style.

One Style, Many Painters

The manuscript's illumination is the work of several artists, representing two generations of illuminators. The Master of the Krumlov Anthology (aka Master of the Prague Speculum) and the Master of the Antwerp Bible (aka Joshua Master) represent the older generation. Younger artists include the Master of the Martyrology (named for this manuscript) and the Master of the Mandeville Travels (from his slightly later miniatures for the London Travels of John Mandeville).

The Phase of the Moon

The primary decorative appeal of the text lies in the series of nineteen pen-flourished letters (A through T), in gold or alternating red and blue, that precede each day's biographies. These, and the Roman numerals written above them, alternating between red and blue, allow the reader to determine the moon's phase on that date in any given year.

Local Flavor

The manuscript's text was primarily compiled by Usuard, a ninth-century monk of the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Germain des Préz in Paris. Usuard's historical martyrology has been supplemented by the inclusion of Bohemian, Silesian, and Polish saints: Wenceslas (d. 935), Adalbert of Prague (d. 997), Procopius of Sázava (d. 1053), Hedwig (1174-1243), and Stanislas (1030-1079).

Saint Hedwig, duchess of Silesia, is depicted holding the Cistercian nunnery she founded at Trebnitz, where she died and was buried (fol. 85r). This image, painted by Master of the Martyrology, features a deep hilly landscape setting.

A Well-Traveled Book

It is possible, but by no means certain, that the manuscript was a gift from Wenceslas IV (1361-1419), King of Germany and Bohemia, to the Cistercian monastery at Sedlec. The sixteenth-century bibliophile and art collector Stephanus Radecius gave it to a member of the Dietrichstein family, probably Adam (1527-1590), from whom it descended to Franz von Dietrichstein (1570-1636). The book seems to have traveled to Italy by the second half of the seventeenth century when Pedro Antonio de Aragón (1611-1690) acquired it and had it bound in Naples before he donated it in 1673 to the Cistercian monastery at Poblet. It reappeared in 1936 in the Bernardine convent of Mercadal in Girona. After a short stay at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, it came to the museum in Girona.