Summerfield B491: Hybrid Marginal Cycles, Enriching Devotion

Summerfield B491: Hybrid Marginal Cycles, Enriching Devotion

Books of Hours were intended to serve for private reading and devotion. Innovating freely with language, borders, and modular blocks, Philippe Pigouchet enriched the significance of this particular Book of Hours. For instance, he drew on the contemporary discourse of death—explicitly on the “Dance Macabre” first popularized in a wall painting in a Parisian cemetery circa 1424—to decorate the section dedicated to the veneration of the death, commonly known as Office of the Dead or Hours for the Dead. Labelled with French captions identifying classes of society, these metalcut illustrations functioned to encourage prayer by reminding the viewer of their own mortality and the inevitability of death. Death awaits everyone, whether the queen, the duchess or the regent. Viewing, interacting with, and praying this particular office allowed readers to approach death with an awareness of its scope.

Summerfield B491

Spencer Research Library Special Collections, University of Kansas

c. 1502

Book of Hours

Spencer Research Special Collections, Summerfield B491, fol. k_ivv

Ink on paper, 16th c. printed Book of Hours