{"product_id":"a-renaissance-prince-bishop-s-personal-illuminated-missal","title":"A Renaissance Prince-Bishop’s Personal Illuminated Missal","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Amiens Missal of 1506 with 52 Illuminated Manuscript Leaves and Two Full-Page Grisaille Miniatures\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMissale [Ambianense]. Ad usum insignis ecclesie Ambianensis.\u003c\/em\u003e Rouen, Martin Morin, 1506.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne of the most spectacular surviving French liturgical books of the early sixteenth century: the Amiens Missal of 1506 printed on vellum and transformed into a unique princely object for Bishop François de Halluin through the addition of 52 magnificently illuminated manuscript leaves, extensive heraldic decoration, and two extraordinary full-page grisaille miniatures attributed to the Master of Thuison-les-Abbéville.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOnly three vellum copies of this edition are known. No surviving copy of the paper issue appears to exist. The present example is unquestionably the most lavishly embellished of them all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eEdition \u0026amp; Bibliographic Information\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMissale [Ambianense]. Ad vsum insignis ecclesie Ambianensis.\u003c\/em\u003e Rouen, Martin Morin, 1506. A8 A-M8 N-O6 [52 manuscript leaves] VI8 VII6 VIII4 P-R8 S6 T-X8 Y-Z6 a-d8 e-f6 g8 = 229 [instead of 234] printed leaves; together with 52 inserted manuscript leaves for a total of 281 leaves, early numbered by hand 1–209 and 300–371. Printed throughout in black and red with pale red ruling. Final blank page contemporarily filled in manuscript in double columns.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIllustrated with a large illuminated woodcut initial and woodcut printer’s device in black and red within a three-sided border on title, four illuminated half-page woodcuts within full-page border frames, two full-page illuminated Canon woodcuts in liquid gold and colours, and on their versos two full-page grisaille miniatures by the Master of Thuison-les-Abbéville. The inserted manuscript leaves contain musical notation in black on red four-line staves together with four very large illuminated initials on gold grounds incorporating the arms of François de Halluin, 75 additional illuminated initials on gold grounds, and 282 smaller gold initials on alternating rose and blue grounds. Folio (355 × 255 mm).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEighteenth-century brown calf binding over six raised bands with gilt spine title, crowned supralibros on covers, and paper page markers, preserved in a wine-red leather case lined with felt. Minor rubbing and repairs; a few wormholes at beginning and end.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eFrançois de Halluin and Episcopal Splendour\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrançois de Halluin (1483–1538), bishop of Amiens from the age of nineteen, belonged to a powerful Franco-Flemish noble family long connected to the Burgundian court.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFew bishops of the French Renaissance cultivated magnificence more aggressively. Halluin lived less like a cleric than a princely court figure. He famously erected an enormous funerary monument for himself beside the high altar of Amiens Cathedral, surpassing even those dedicated to the city’s patron saints.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis Missal reflects exactly that same culture of aristocratic self-fashioning.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlmost immediately after the book emerged from Martin Morin’s press in Rouen, Halluin appears to have commissioned the present copy for his own ceremonial use. His coat of arms was painted repeatedly into the great initials of the manuscript section, and in one full-page miniature he kneels in prayer before Saint Francis, his namesake patron.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eFrom Printed Book to Hybrid Masterpiece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat makes the volume extraordinary is the way printing and manuscript illumination become fused into a single object.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe printed Missal already possessed rich decoration: illuminated woodcuts, coloured borders, red-and-black typography, and musical notation throughout. But Halluin’s copy goes vastly further. Entire gatherings were replaced or expanded with manuscript leaves written in unusually large liturgical script and musical notation, perhaps because the young bishop himself was not yet fully secure in the ritual text.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe two great Canon woodcuts were painted so extensively in gold and colour that they begin to resemble miniatures rather than printed images. The manuscript additions integrate seamlessly into the printed structure, blurring the distinction between press and scriptorium at precisely the historical moment when manuscript culture was beginning to disappear.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eFrench and Flemish Renaissance Illumination\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe manuscript decoration represents an exceptional synthesis of northern French and Flemish Renaissance illumination around 1500.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe compartment borders with fruit, flowers, acanthus leaves, and liquid-gold ornament belong to the refined decorative language of French court illumination. Yet the two extraordinary grisaille miniatures of Saints Francis and Barbara introduce a distinctly Flemish pictorial sensibility.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese miniatures are attributed with high probability to the Master of Thuison-les-Abbéville, the important Picard painter associated with the famous Thuison Altarpiece today in the Art Institute of Chicago. The facial types, especially the eyes and sharply characterized noses, closely resemble securely attributed works by the artist.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf correct, the Missal preserves a newly recognized work by one of the most important painters active in Picardy around 1500.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eA Borderland Aesthetic\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe decoration also reflects Halluin’s own cultural identity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough bishop of Amiens, Halluin came from a Flemish family deeply tied to the borderlands between France and Flanders. The Missal’s mixture of French ornamental design and Flemish pictorial style perfectly embodies what scholars have described as the stylistic “melting pot” of the Franco-Flemish border regions in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe book therefore becomes more than a liturgical object. It is also a highly personal statement of aristocratic identity at the meeting point of two artistic worlds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eProvenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCommissioned shortly after printing for François de Halluin (1483–1538), bishop of Amiens. Later owned by Arnould-Hugues-Joseph Van der Cruisse, seigneur de Waziers et de Wervick (1712–1793), whose arms appear on the eighteenth-century binding. Later European antiquarian trade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eLiterature\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNot in Adams; Aquilon\/Girard 18; not in BM STC French; Frère II, 315; not in Van Praet; Weale\/Bohatta 15. On Halluin: Barbier. On the manuscript decoration: Brinkmann; Morgan et al.; Nash.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see \u003cem\u003eWunderkammer\u003c\/em\u003e Catalogue 90, number 13:\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/heribert-tenschert\/docs\/katalog_90_vol_1_web?utm_source=chatgpt.com\"\u003eWunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume I\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Atelier Zweig Rare Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46844889956540,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0736\/1285\/3436\/files\/p130_img01.jpg?v=1779299644","url":"https:\/\/atelierzweig.com\/products\/a-renaissance-prince-bishop-s-personal-illuminated-missal","provider":"Atelier Zweig Rare Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}