Book of Hours use of Roma

Octavo, roman type, black illustrations. Brown morocco, decorated spine, dentelle, filled corners, gilt edges. Trautz‑Bauzonnet.

150 x 96 mm.

Hours According to the Use of Rome.
Paris, Thielman II Kerver, 1550.

Folio A₁, above the small mark of Thielman II Kerver (Silvestre no. 1084): Horae in Laudem beatissime virginis Marie, ad usum Romanum. Device. Parisiis, apud Thielmannum Kerver, in vico Sancti Jacobi, sub signo Cratis. m.d.l (1550). On the verso: Almanac for 1549-1556.

[Sainte-Geneviève Library. Reserve. BB. 1482]; ruled for 172 leaves, text within borders, illustrations, .

One of the finest French books of hours of the Renaissance, thanks to the talent of Geofroy Tory, painter, draughtsman, engraver and printer to King Francis I^st.

“The present copy was thus described in Bulletin Morgand no. 37787 from the year 1900 and was then listed at the remarkable price of 1000 F Gold, i.e. 20 times the value of a fine collector’s book: ‘Beautiful book of Hours printed in round gothic type, adorned with borders of flowers, fruits, animals, etc. One also notices the crowned F, the Salamander, the arms of France, etc. All these borders are inspired by the illustrations of the remarkable Hours by Tory of 1527. The woodcuts that ornament this volume are of great beauty and must be ranked among the most remarkable illustrations of the period. Superb copy in a delightful binding.”

Coming from the illustrious Édouard Rahir library, this volume was described under no. 1381 of its catalogue: “Beautiful book of Hours printed in round gothic type, decorated on each page with borders featuring angels, flowers, fruits, animals, reminiscent of the modern borders adorning Tory’s Hours of 1527.

Within these frames, one notices the crowned F of Francis I^st, the Salamander, the arms of France, etc.

The volume contains a series of 19 small woodcuts of very accomplished composition, animated with many figures: the Annunciation to the shepherds is represented by 3 subjects, one of which has a shepherd playing the bagpipes; the Presentation in the Temple comprises 2 subjects. The Massacre of the Innocents, the Bath of Bathsheba, Death mowing down men, women and animals, are all treated in a new way.

These illustrations are of remarkable beauty; they come from the workshop of Geofroy Tory and were used by his immediate successor, Olivier Mallard, then by Kerver.

Charming ruled copy, covered in a beautiful Trautz binding, from the library of L. de Montgermont.”

“After the death of Olivier Mallard, which occurred in 1542, his typographical materials seem to have been acquired by Thielman (II) Kerver (son of Thielman I^st of the name and Iolande Bonhomme, also living on rue Saint-Jacques), for he published in 1550 a Book of Hours similar to the one printed in 1541 by Olivier Mallard.”

This book is printed in red and black. I have seen a paper copy at Mr. Potier’s, bookseller. There is also an incomplete copy in the Bibliothèque Mazarine and a complete one at Sainte-Geneviève, no. B. B. 148” (Aug. Bernard – Geofroy Tory).

Born in Bourges in 1480, Tory went to study classical art in Italy. He returned to France dazzled by the Italian Renaissance and eager to take part in the powerful innovative movement in French art. Admitted as a bookseller around 1520, he set to work in 1523 on Champfleury, which required 6 years of work and resulted in 1529 in the most innovative French book of the Renaissance.

In parallel with this immense creative undertaking, Tory, using the same innovative techniques (typography, engravings, layout), published a famous and magnificent Book of Hours, the iconographic masterpiece of the French Renaissance, renewed several times in always different forms, ever closer to the typographical and iconographic ideal of the period.

It appeared in 1524, then in 1527 in two different forms, on February 8, 1529, in September 1531, in 1541, eight years after his death, under the direction of Olivier Mallard, and in 1550 with Thielman Kerver (the present copy).

This is the edition we present here. It is one of the most accomplished.

In small octavo format, printed in roman type, it is adorned with sixteen different modern frames very well described by Auguste Bernard, page 169.

“In 1531, Tory printed another book in octavo, with borders composed of plants, animals, insects, birds, as in the 1527 quarto Hours, but drawn on a smaller scale, naturally. I have not seen this book, but its existence is proven to me by the publication of a Book of Hours, subsequently by Olivier Mallard, with the same frames and vignettes. I cannot say with certainty either the title or the date of printing of Tory’s book; but the period of the engraving is easy to determine approximately, thanks to certain ornaments in Mallard’s book. There, as in the 1527 Hours, we find the crowned F and the Salamander of Francis I^st, the crowned L and the parti-shield (France and Savoy) of his mother, who died in September 1531, and a blank shield that recalls the king’s widowhood, thus proving that these woodblocks were cut before July 1530.

As for my attribution of these woodblocks to Tory, it appears to me from the form of the frames, copied from the Hours of 1527. Moreover, he gave them a particular hallmark: it is the arms of Bourges (three sheep, placed two and one, wearing collars), which sometimes appear at the bottom of the pages, next to the emblems of Francis I^st and his mother. As I said, I do not know the title of the book for which Tory first used these woodcuts; however, it seems to me one may conclude from Olivier Mallard’s own use of them in 1541 that it was a Book of Hours: Tory must have wished to issue an octavo edition of his modern Hours of 1527, as he had, in 1527, issued an octavo edition of his antique Hours of 1524-25.”

The borders always appear on the recto and the verso of each leaf.

This 1550 edition contains 19 engravings from the 1529 sextodecimo Hours, described by Bernard as a genuine jewel and of which only a single complete copy is known to survive (pages 163 to 165).

Brunet mentions that “Nowadays, collectors seek out these Books of Hours illustrated by Tory with the utmost eagerness and pay for them, so to speak, by the weight of gold. Thus, copies of these charming Hours, which could hardly have sold for 12 to 15 F fifty years ago, easily find buyers today for 500 or 600 F, and even copies printed on vellum have recently sold for 3,000 F.”

Superb copy from the libraries ofLebeuf de Montgermont and Édouard Rahir with ex-libris, listed at 1,000 F Gold in the Morgand bulletin for the year 1900.