Illustrated Manuscripts

This manuscript, a Book of Hours, was intended not for a cleric, but for the private devotions of a lay person--in this case, Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Spain (1451-1504). Isabella's coat of arms embellishes the book's frontispiece. It is unlikely that the book was commissioned by the Queen herself; rather, she probably received it as a diplomatic gift from someone courting her patronage. While the donor of the manuscript remains unknown, it may have been given to Isabella by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros. Jiménez, a Franciscan friar, was dependent upon Isabella for his advancement, first as the queen's confessor in 1492, and then as Archbishop of Toledo in 1495.

This deluxe manuscript was illuminated by a circle of at least five highly organized manuscript painters active in the two cities of Ghent and Bruges. The principal illuminator, Alexander Bening, painted the majority of the miniatures. Manuscripts produced by this circle of artists are renowned for the decoration of their borders, which typically feature a rich variety of realistically painted flowers, birds, and butterflies.

The Ghent-Bruges School represents the culmination of Flemish book painting. Its main features were the use of rich colors, decorative and illusionistic effects, a love of landscape, and a strong sense of visual narrative. Its most distinctive innovation was the development of a new style of border decoration featuring realistic motifs casting shadows on colored grounds to create a trompe l'oeil effect. These motifs included a rich assortment of flowers, butterflies, insects, birds, and sprays of acanthus foliage. Foremost among the exponents of this style was the illuminator Alexander Bening, father of the esteemed 16th-century miniaturist Simon Bening. Alexander has been presumed to be the artist known as the Master of the Older Prayerbook of Maximilian I, but no scholarly consensus exists as to Alexander's oeuvre. He is known to have entered the painter's guild in Ghent in 1469, but little else is know about his career. It must be assumed, however, that he worked in close association with other miniaturists and panel painters, like Roger van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes, and Gerard David, whose compositions are often adapted or replicated in Alexander's miniatures