"[Illuminated Leaf]", Anon.

Book of Hours were prayer books designed for the laity, but modeled on the Divine Office, a cycle of daily devotions, prayers and readings, performed by members of religious orders and the clergy. Its central text is the Hours of the Virgin. There are eight hours (times for prayer ): Matins, Lauds. Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline. During the Middle Ages, the leaves making up a Book of Hours were written by hand on expensive parchment and beautifully illuminated with jewel-like pigments and gold leaf. These illuminated manuscripts combined the collaborative efforts of an array of highly skilled craftspeople; requiring the joint labors of the parchmenter, professional scribes to write the text in Gothic script, artists to illuminate the pages with decorations, and masterful binders to complete the process.

A superb, larger leaf from a Book of Hours, written on a fine sheet of buttery, white vellum in black ink. The leaf is decorated with three large initials, twelve small initials, and several line fillers illuminated in red, blue, white and burnished gold leaf. Both sides feature a decorative panel painted with gold leaves and red and blue flowers on hairline stems. The recto of this leaf includes "Memento Salutis Auctor, the traditional hymn for the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the Little Hours, which translates as:

Remember, O Creator Lord,
that in the Virgin's sacred womb
Thou wast conceived, and of her flesh
didst our mortality assume.
Mother of grace, O Mary blest,
to thee, sweet fount of love, we fly;
shield us through life, and take us hence
to thy dear bosom when we die.
O Jesu! born of Mary bright!
Immortal glory be to Thee;
praise to the Father infinite,
and Holy Ghost eternally. Amen.

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Condition: A

Light marginal soiling and a small chip at bottom right.