Title

The Isabella Breviary

Master of the Dresden Prayer Book (¿Gante?, ca. 1450 - ?, 1510)

Gerard Horenbo (Gante, ca. 1465 - London, 1541)

Generic classification

Object

Date

Century

Cultural context / style

Dimensions

Material

Technique

Iconography / Theme

Provenance

Current location

Inventory Number in Current Collection

Inscriptions / Marks

Manuscript. 1046 pages.

Object history

Although there is no doubt that it belonged to Isabella the Catholic, we lack any documentary evidence of this. When the queen died on November 26, 1504, in Medina del Campo (Valladolid), it is likely that she had it among her personal belongings, given its religious nature and the book’s beauty. If this was the case—and it is only a hypothesis—it was not put up for auction along with the rest of her estate. The lack of documentation suggests that the queen may have given it directly as a gift to someone close to her, and if, as has been argued (Waagen, 1838, p. 177), the book remained at El Escorial until the French invasion of Spain, it must have been donated by a monarch. The founder of the monastery of El Escorial was Philip II, who ordered its construction and took charge of endowing it with works of art and a magnificent library. In the monarch’s inventory records, between 1562 and 1598, and in the one compiled by his son Philip III in 1611, there is no reference that can identify the Breviary. In Book I, it is noted: “Plus a richly written and illuminated breviary by hand, which is placed in a waxed cover for binding,” and in the fourth inventory: “Two folio-sized breviaries for binding.” This reference to the bindings is what largely prevents us from knowing which piece is being described, as subsequent changes due to use have obscured the trail.

In any case, the reality is that there is no certain information until the early 19th century. If it was at El Escorial, and if it left there during the Napoleonic invasion—which is plausible—it is not until 1815 that we know of its whereabouts in England. The history of the illuminated manuscript has been studied in detail by Scot McKendrick( The British Library), to whom we refer for further details. It is first located in the hands of the English banker, parliamentarian, and bibliophile John Dent. The quality of the Breviary led bibliographer Thomas Frognall Dibdin to write a laudatory review in 1817, in which he praised the binding by the Londoner Charles Hering. From Dibdin’s note, we know that the illustration depicting the devotions to Saint Catherine (fol. 368) was missing; he insisted that it should be completed with a high-quality miniature, as was eventually done.

After Dent’s death in 1826, his library was sold the following year at an auction conducted by Robert Harding Evans in London. The Breviary passed into the hands of Philip Hurd, a bibliophile who paid the substantial sum of 378 pounds, but he was unable to enjoy his acquisition for long, as he died in 1831. A year after his death, it went up for auction again and fetched a much higher price: 520 pounds. It was purchased by Sir John Tobin, a businessman who served as mayor of Liverpool, and the price had risen to 645 pounds. In the same year, Tobin acquired, among other works, the so-called Hours of Joan I (The British Library, Add. Ms. 35313. Facsimile edition by Manuel Moleiro Editor S.A., 2005).

Sir John Tobin kept the Breviary at Oak Hill, near Liverpool, until his death in 1851. A year later, it would become part of the British Museum’s collection, but not before passing through the hands of bookseller William Boone, who purchased eight codices—including the Breviary—from Tobin’s son for 1,900 pounds. The London bookseller attempted to resell the books to a private individual but ultimately offered them to the British Museum for 3,000 pounds. The museum’s board agreed to purchase the codices, among which was the Breviary of Isabella the Catholic, which, since the British Library was established as an independent body from the British Museum in 1973, has been one of its most prized treasures.

Description

The British Library in London houses a magnificent illuminated manuscript known as the Breviary of Isabella the Catholic. Of standard size for this type of book (23 x 16 cm), it consists of 1,046 illuminated pages. Manuscript and illuminated breviaries were highly prized by the powerful, especially toward the end of the Middle Ages, and Isabella the Catholic is counted among the leading collectors of this type of book. It was a liturgical text, originally intended for the clergy to fulfill their obligations, whereas the so-called books of hours were more personal and their owners were usually laypeople; however, in practice, it is not always easy to distinguish between the two types of books.

Isabel la Católica owned a large number of illuminated manuscripts, the existence of which we know from the accounts of her stewards and from the estate inventory drawn up in Toro (Zamora) in early 1505, a few months after the queen’s death. In total, the existence of twenty manuscript breviaries in her possession is documented, of which five—the most lavish, made on vellum—were for personal use. However, the method of cataloging objects at that time was far from the precision of today, so specific details were rarely provided beyond their appraised value. In the case of illuminated manuscripts lacking a stated author and a specific title, they were recorded as books with images, more or less expensive (a book was often described as “rich” when its monetary value was high), and the cover was usually described. We are told what kind of binding they had and whether there was any distinctive feature (the owner’s coat of arms, or an inscription…), but nothing more. This in itself is insufficient to determine which specific copy is being referred to, but if we consider that bindings have changed over time, identifying which copy it is based on the inventories is sometimes a fruitless task.

This is the case with the Breviary of Isabella the Catholic, which has not been identified as any of the items listed in the inventories of the queen’s treasury. There is no doubt that it belonged to her, for the miniature on folio 436v features the coat of arms of the Catholic Monarchs and the motto Sub umbra alarum tuarum protege nos (Psalm 17:8), and in the facing miniature (fol. 437r) there is a dedication to the queen:“Diue Elisabeth, Hispaniarum et Sicilia regine…”.This same inscription includes the name of the donor: “…Franciscus de Roias… breviario hoc ex obsequio obtulit.” Furthermore, next to the inscription is the coat of arms of Francisco de Rojas, who was the architect of the double wedding between the children of the Catholic Monarchs and those of Emperor Maximilian I of Austria.

As royal ambassador, Francisco de Rojas played a key role in the marriage policy of the Catholic Monarchs, and they were grateful to him. It was not easy to secure the agreement for the double wedding, as it was not reached until late 1495 after arduous negotiations, and it was not until August 1496 that the then-Infanta Juana traveled to the Netherlands to marry Archduke Philip the Handsome, the eldest son of Maximilian I and the late Duchess Mary of Burgundy; the same fleet that brought Doña Juana also brought Princess Margaret of Austria to Spain, who in 1497 married Prince Don Juan.

During the time Rojas spent in the Netherlands, he must have come into contact with artists from those lands, and he was undoubtedly interested in the extraordinary creations of what is known, somewhat simplistically, as Flemish art, since cities such as Antwerp and Brussels were part of Brabant. This interest was not exclusive to Francisco de Rojas, to whom Elisa Ruiz García attributes the possible commission of the queen’s book of hours, now in The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ms. 63256. We have other examples, such as that of the powerful Bishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, who acquired important works of art from the Netherlands, including paintings and tapestries.

Written in late medieval Latin, it is a work produced according to Dominican custom, with so many images that several artists had to be involved. The principal artist is believed to be the anonymous Master of the Dresden Book of Hours, who was active from the last quarter of the 15th century through the second decade of the following century. As is typical of illuminators, his style is reluctant to embrace Renaissance principles, especially perspective; however, since the illuminations lack a fixed viewpoint or distance—as the reader moves closer or farther away depending on their interest (and visual acuity)—the unchanging principle of perspective was meaningless. On the other hand, what was sought was an expressive power that this master achieves in his images, both through his drawing and his use of vivid colors. Another illuminator was the so-called Master of James IV of Scotland, generally identified as Gerard Horenbout, active between the 15th and 16th centuries, perhaps the most prominent illuminator before Simon Bening, and who was also the author of the so-called Book of Hours of Joanna of Castile, from around 1500 (The British Library, London, Ms. 35313. Facsimile edition by Manuel Moleiro Editor S.A., 2005).

Thanks to the facsimile edition produced by Manuel Molerio Editor S.A., it has been possible to study the Breviary of Isabella the Catholic in detail and consequently clarify certain terms. Since the coats of arms of Prince Juan and Margaret of Austria appear beneath the royal coat of arms (fol. 436v), along with those of Philip the Handsome and Joanna, the book must have been presented by Francisco de Rojas to Queen Isabella before October 4, 1497, the date on which the heir of the Catholic Monarchs died in Salamanca. Since it is virtually certain that the book was adapted for the occasion of the double wedding, the time frame for its current state is between the marriage agreement, in late 1495, and the prince’s death.

It was not commissioned from scratch by Ambassador Rojas; rather, he acquired it largely completed and ordered the addition of a folio, number 436, which includes the royal coats of arms and mottos. This was incorporated via a tab, a common practice in such works whose production spanned a long period of time, and which led José Lázaro Galdiano to believe it was a forgery, and he argued as much at a conference in Paris in 1921, when in reality it was a standard procedure. The facing folio (437r) was also altered, introducing the coat of arms of Francisco de Rojas—five eight-pointed stars in azure on a gold background—and his motto,“Lux in tenebris luces et tenebrae eam non comprenhenderunt”(John 1:5), an inscription that was restored in the 19th century. Likewise, the cartouche on the right was added with the dedication to the Catholic Queen:“Diua Elisabeth…”.The ambassador had decided to present the book to the sovereign and did not hesitate to include this inscription, placing it in a fitting spot since the miniature at the top depicts the coronation of the Virgin. The somewhat blasphemous identification of Isabella the Catholic with the Mother of God, and the fact that the cartouche begins by referring to the queen as divine, demonstrate Francisco de Rojas’s character as a faithful servant.

Locations

• ca. 1503 - ca. 1504

  palace

  Isabella I of Castile, Medina del Campo, Medina del Campo (Spain)

• Second half of the XVI^th c. - XVIII^th c.

  library

  Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial?, San Lorenzo de el Escorial (Spain)

• 1815 - 1827

  private collection

  John Dent Collection, London (United Kingdom) *

• 1827 - 1832

  private collection

  Philip Hurd Collection, London (United Kingdom) *

• 1832 - 1852

  private collection

  John Tobin collection, Liverpool (United Kingdom) *

• 1852 - 1973

  museum

  The British Museum, London (United Kingdom)

• 1973 - present

  study center

  The British Library, London (United Kingdom)