Beschreibung:

BOOK OF HOURS, use of Geneva, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
BOOK OF HOURS, use of Geneva, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [France or Switzerland, c.1515] 198 x 140mm. i + 202 leaves: 1-2 6 , 3 8 , 4 6 (of 8, final two blanks cancelled), 5-26 8 , COMPLETE, with modern pencil foliation including the added frontispiece, followed here; 19 lines written in a gothic bookhand between two verticals and 20 horizontals ruled in pink, text justification: 132 x 84mm, rubrics in red, one- and two-line initials of burnished gold on grounds and infills of pink and blue with white decoration, line-fillers of the same colours, three-line initials of blue or pink patterned staves against burnished gold grounds with trefoil leaf sprays in the infills, TWENTY-FOUR SMALL MINIATURES IN THE FULL-PAGE BORDERS OF THE CALENDAR with occupations of the month on the rectos and zodiac signs on the versos, FIFTY-FOUR LARGE MINIATURES ACCOMPANIED BY FULL-PAGE BORDERS with divided grounds with fields of liquid gold with naturalistic sprays of fruit and flowers between areas with acanthus sprays on the vellum ground, occasional birds, grotesques or beasts (some rubbing, spotting and smudging). Panelled brown morocco gilt by Rivière, silver clasps and catches (upper joint split at foot, spine rebacked at head and upper cover restored at head, lacking one clasp). PROVENANCE: The Office of the Virgin is introduced as ad usum eccl[es]ie Geben[ensis] ; the Office of the Dead is also for the use of Geneva. Among the highest ranking feasts in blue in the calendar are Abbot Romanus of Condat 20 March, King Sigismund of Burgundy 2 May, Archbishop Mamertus of Vienne 11 May and Claud 6 June; the dedication of the church on 8 October is that of St Peter's Cathedral in Geneva. St Claud is invoked in the litany and in one of the suffrages. Liturgical books for the use of Geneva are rare: the Protestant reform reached Geneva early -- the canons of the cathedral were leaving from the mid-1520s -- and was very thorough and, under Jean Calvin, would be particularly suspicious of religious imagery. Only two other manuscript books of hours of the Use of Geneva are recorded at auction, both of the 15th century, one now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (lat. lit. f.15) and one sold at Sotheby's, 21 June 1994, lot 104; a 15th-century Netherlandish book of hours had the dedication of Geneva Cathedral added to its calendar (Sotheby's 18 June 1962, lot 136). The commissioner was Philibert de Viry, seigneur de Planaz, as shown by the coats of arms integral to the original decoration. The arms of de Viry de Planaz, paly of 6 argent and azure , on a bend gules a crescent or , appear on f.183; on f.184v, they are quartered 1 and 4 with the arms of des Clets, gules on a cross or five mullets azure ; on f.106 they impale those of Menthon de Montrottier, gules a lion rampant argent , a bend gobonny or and azure . Philibert de Viry, seigneur de Planaz, was the son of Jean de Viry (d. by 12 January 1492) and Jeanne, daughter and co-heiress of Anthoine des Clets. Philibert took part in a tournament in Geneva in 1498 bearing the arms shown on f.183. Although the name of his wife is not known, this book shows that she was a demoiselle de Menthon de Montrottier, as does the fact that his younger son, Pierre, chambrier of the Benedictine abbey of St-Claude de Joux and prior of Seyssel, had the arms of Viry de Planaz and Menthon de Montrottier sculpted on the doorway of the chapel at Planaz (near Fontainemore, Aosta). In 1525 Pierre gave the chapel a missal for the use of Geneva, written in 1452 for his great-uncle Amblard, canon of Geneva cathedral, to which Pierre added the arms of Viry, apparently without the de Planaz difference of the gold crescent, and of Menthon de Montrottier (Turin, Biblioteca Reale, ms 14602, see A. de Foras, Armorial et nobiliaire de l'ancien duché de Savoie, V , 1910, pp.374-5). The Viry were one of the great noble houses of Savoy, particularly associated with Geneva: they appear with the Menthon and the Sallenove, o