Books of hours contain devotional texts designed to aid private prayer, and they were often lavishly illuminated. Because no other book was created in greater quantity in the late Middle Ages, the book of hours has come to be called the medieval bestseller. This exhibition from the Getty's permanent collection explores manuscripts dating from the mid-1100s to the mid-1500s, including illuminated books of hours and their earlier monastic precursors, psalters and breviaries.
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These personalized books were often tailor-made for a specific patron, and their
pages were illuminated by some of the most accomplished artists of the period. Jean
Fouquet, a favorite painter at the French royal court, depicted this book's patron, Simon
de Varie, praying to the Virgin and Child painted on the opposite page (see the image above).
Varie's coat of arms, as well as his mottoes, Vie à mon
désir (Life according to one's desire) and Plus que jamais (More than
ever), appear behind him and in the borders. Often obscure in meaning, personal mottoes were fashionable in late medieval court
circles.
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One might say that the book of hours is a church calendar and day planner of prayer, for
it helps to organize time throughout the year and to structure daily devotion. The central
text is the Hours of the Virgin, which includes Psalm verses, hymns, prayers, and readings to be
recited during the eight canonical hours of the day: Matins (before dawn), Lauds (daybreak), Prime
(6:00 a.m.), Terce (9:00 a.m.), Sext (noon), None (3:00 p.m.), Vespers (sunset), and Compline
(evening). In addition, these manuscripts include a calendar of the major feast days and
the tools used to calculate the date of Easter, the most important feast day of the
Christian calendar.
This illumination for Compline, the last canonical hour, shows
the Entombment of Christ. It was meant to inspire devotional meditation at the end of the day.
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These books became popular during the late Middle Ages among lay Christians (the faithful
who were not ordained as clerics or did not take monastic vows) seeking greater participation
in the devotional life of the Catholic Church and a more intimate relationship with God and
the saints. During this period, groups of pious laypeople assembled for communal worship beyond regular church
attendance. The Hours of the Virgin, a small text that had previously
appeared in the breviary and the psalter, became the core text of the book of hours.
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A number of other texts were commonly included in books of hours. Unlike the Hours of
the Virgin, which consists mainly of Psalm verses and readings from the Bible, this prayer, the O Intemerata,
directly addresses the Virgin and asks for her aid. The French artist Georges Trubert
illuminated the prayer with a portrait of another work of art, a celebrated Byzantine
icon of the Virgin that belonged to the artist's patron, King René I of Anjou
(1409–1480).
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Most books of hours contain suffrages, short prayers asking for the aid of individual
saints. These prayers reflect both personal and regional preferences for certain saints. This
miniature for the suffrage for Saint George is an example of courtly sophistication. Saint
George, who came to be an important model for the nobility, was said to have saved the only
daughter of a pagan king and queen (shown looking out of a tower in the upper left corner of
the border) from a dragon. In recognition of his help, the whole kingdom converted to
Christianity.
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