Leaf 41. "This composite text includes the Dialogues of Pope Gregory I (St. Gregory the Great, 540-604 A.D.), which are largely autobriographical, and his writings on the lives and miracles of the early Italian Church Fathers. The book hand used is…
Leaf 42. "This leaf from the Book of Psalms was written from the Benedictine monastery of St. Stephan in Wurzburg and dated 1499 A.D. The book hand closely resembles the fine early gothic types called lettre de forme and used by Fust and Schoeffer in…
Leaf 43. "In general, the Books of Hours produced for the devout layman in the Netherlands at the end of the XVth century were written in Dutch. This particular example, however, is in Latin. The heavy, angular, and closely spaced vertical strokes,…
Leaf 44. "This leaf was written in Germany nearly sixty years after the invention of printing by movable type. Its semi-gothic book hand is similar to the type-faces used by the early printers. The numerous contractions and marks of abbreviation have…
Leaf 45. "This manuscript leaf came from a Book of Hours, sold probably at one of the famous shrines to which wealthy laymen made pilgrimages. To meet the demand for these books, the monastic as well as the secular scribes produced them in great…
Leaf 46. "The laymen who ordered and purchased theses books would at times stipulate the style of ornament and the amount of burnished gold to be used, and could even, to a certain extent, select the saints they esteemed most and wished to glorify.…
Leaf 47. "In assigning this leaf from a Book of Hours to the Netherlands it must be remembered that some sections of the country were once part of France, while others belonged to what is now Germany. In this leaf French characteristics predominate,…
Leaf 48. "In the middle of the [15th] century this whole area [the Netherlands and Northern France] was interested in naturalism and made its illustrations so vivid that sometimes they approached those of our seed catalogues. It is not difficult to…
Leaf 49. "One wonders why this particular manuscript copy on vellum was written some forty years after Antonius Zarotus had printed the first Missal in Milan (1471 A.D.), for, at this time, Missals were frequently reprinted on paper and sold at only…
Leaf 50. The following text is taken verbatim from the infromation card, written by Ege: This beautiful manuscript leaf was written and illuminated about the year 1535 A.D. At this late date Books of Hours were also being printed in great numbers by…