Hidden Treasures: Illuminated Manuscripts from Midwestern Collections | Page 3

often commissioned by popes, bishops, abbots, and cardinals, or by secular rulers and members of the nobility who gave books to religious institutions as a form of self-memorialization.

fig 2: Initial ‘S’ from a
Choir Book with The
Celebration of the Feast
of Corpus Christi and
Initial ‘R’ with A Funeral
Scene, Northern French
or Flemish, ca. 1375,
tempera and gold on
parchment, Hill Museum
& Manuscript Library,
St., John’s University
(Collegeville, Minn.). Bean
ms. 3, fols. 42v-43

One of the Missals (Mass books) in the exhibition was produced around 1300 for the Dominican
convent of Heiligen Kreuz (Convent of the Holy Cross) in the south German city of Regensburg,
which was founded in 1233, only eleven years after the death of St. Dominic. The Canon of the
Mass, in which the bread and wine are consecrated by the priest as the sacrificial offerings of the
body and blood of Christ, is illustrated by the Crucifixion flanked by the Virgin and St. John with
a diminutive figure of a Dominican monk kneeling in adoration at the base of the cross. fig 4
This exhibition reunites three initials that were cut out of a 1539 Antiphonary made for Pope
Paul III Farnese to be used in the Sistine Chapel. The large-scale initials, painted in jewel-like
colors and embellished with gold, served as easily recognized place markers for the choir members who would have sung from the oversized musical manuscript perched on a high wooden
lectern, easily visible to the assembled singers. page 1, figure 11

Books of Private Devotion: Psalters,
Breviaries, Books of Hours, and Prayer Books
From the early thirteenth to the fourteenth century, illustrated psalters became the most common prayer books used by the laity for private devotion. The practice of reciting the psalms
as part of their daily prayers emulated the daily liturgy of the Divine Office performed by the
clergy; all 150 psalms would have been read or, most likely, recited in the course of a week.

fig 3: Folio from a
Carmelite Gradual with the
Ascension, Scenes of the
Prophets Elijah and Elisha,
and The Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse, French
(Bourges or Tours),
1475–1483, ink, tempera,
and gold on parchment,
University of Illinois at
Urbana–Champaign,
Spurlock Museum,
1929.14.0003

A breviary contains the canonical prayers, hymns, the Psalms, readings, and notations for
everyday use. fig 5 The Book of Hours developed from the Psalter and the Breviary as early as
the thirteenth century and quickly became the bestselling book of private devotion for laymen
and laywomen in the medieval period. The text and decoration in books of hours generally
follow a predictable sequence, though variations occur depending on the patron commissioning the manuscript, the manuscript’s place of origin, and historical and political concerns.
Miniatures from Netherlandish and French Books of Hours painted by some of the leading
artists of the time such as Willem Vrelant and Jean Poyet are included in the exhibition, fig 6
as well as two examples of prayer books produced in the Netherlands for the English market.
The latter contain a variety of additional prayers, including illustrated prayers addressed to
each of the wounds of Christ.
According to its colophon, the latest prayer book in the exhibition was written and illuminated
in 1597 by the Cistercian nuns of the La Cambre monastery in Brussels, on the order of their abbess. The volume was produced for the Cardinal Archduke Albert VII of Austria, son of the Holy
Roman Emperor Maximilian II and nephew of King Philip II of Spain. The miniature on the page
displayed shows the Cardinal embracing the crucified body of Christ as he takes it off the Cross,
an image that reflects an intensely empathetic strain of personal piety that had developed by the
end of the sixteenth century. fig 7 Books of hours often contained heraldry, mottoes, portraits, and
other personalizing features that indicated who owned and used a particular manuscript.