Illustrated Manuscripts

This leaf is an excellent example of the highpoint of the penmanship for which Delft manuscripts were famous. The red and blue penwork flourishes filling the margins of the page belong to what Dutch scholars call the "block group," in which the borders consist of formal geometric compartments, each tightly infilled with contrasting penwork. This form of decoration appears to be unique to a group of horae and breviaries produced in Delft and therefore points unambiguously to that city as its place of production. An additional feature of these manuscripts is the emblematic border in the form of figures with banderoles, which generally relate in some didactic way to the subjects of the texts or main miniatures. In the right margin, for example, is an angel with a banderole. Many Delft devotional manuscripts were associated with religious houses that decorated books for the secular market, including the Augustinian convent of St. Agnes and the Brothers of the Common Life at St. Hieronymusdal. St. Agnes herself was listed in the calendar of the original manuscript for January 21. The text follows Geert Groote's (d. 1384) translation of the book of hours into Dutch. The Netherlands was the only region within Europe in which the vernacular replaced Latin in the book of hours.

Reprinted from The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations