Our friend Fr Joseph Koczera SJ recently went to the Chateau de Chantilly in Chantilly, France, (about 27 miles north of Paris) to see one of the most important illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, a work that has only been shown publicly three times in the last two centuries. It is currently on display as part of a special exhibition marking the occasion of its comprehensive restoration. The manuscript was created between 1412 and 1416 by a team of three artists, the brothers Limboug (Paul, Jean and Herman) for Jean, the duke of Berry (1340-1416), third son of King Jean II of France, brother of Charles V, and one of the regents during the minority of his nephew Charles VI. Like many men of his position, the duke was a generous patron of the arts, and the exhibition also has several other items of interest, including a few of the other 300 manuscripts that once formed his collection. Many thanks to Fr Koczera for sharing these photos with us.
The manuscript is displayed open to these two images of the Crucifixion of Christ on the left, and His death on the right.
An illustration from the Très Riches Heures depicting the duke as he presides over a New Year’s banquet in one of his palaces.
The duke wears royal blue and a bearskin cap, and receives his guests as they are called forward by the bailiff holding a rod in his right hand, saying «Approche, approche», while tiny dogs eat from the table...
The calendar page for November, with the names of the Saints written in French, and the most important feasts noted in gold (All Saints and All Souls, Saints Martin, Clement, Catherine and Andrew). In many Books of Hours, especially the more elaborate ones, every day of the calendar has a Saint or feast noted, but though many of them were not celebrated liturgically.
The calendar pages are accompanied by a full page illustration of an agricultural labor appropriate to the month, and the sign of the zodiac that begins that month. This page also shows what the palace of the Louvre in Paris looked like at the beginning of the 15th century; the building owes its current appearance to the radical overhauls of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Two pages of the Belles Heures du duc de Berry, also commissioned from the Limbourg brothers by the duc de Berry, executed in 1405, and now housed at The Cloisters Museum in New York City.
Another Book of Hours, commissioned from Jacquemart de Hesdin in Bourges around 1400, now in the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique. On the page at left, the duke is accompanied by his patron saints, John the Baptist and the Apostle Andrew, kneeling before the Virgin and Child on the right page.
Many of the manuscripts in the duke’s collection include images of him; here he is seen receiving gifts of precious jewels, in a copy of the «Livre des propriétés des choses», a thirteenth-century encyclopedia by Barthélémy l’Anglais. This book was commissioned around 1415, and is now kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
The duke’s handwriting and signature in one of his books: “This book belongs to the duke of Berry, Jean.”
His copy of St Augustine’s City of God, with illustrations of the earthy (left) and heavenly (right) cities, now in the collection of the Musée Condé at the château de Chantilly.
Another depiction of the duke, at center in red, this time in the Grandes Heures du duc de Berry commissioned in 1409 and now at the BnF.
A miniature of the Visitation in the Heures de Guise, produced around 1415, and now in the collection of the Musée Condé at the château de Chantilly.
The frontispiece of a 1404 edition of Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend, now at the BnF.
The exhibition also brings together other objects associated with the duc de Berry, including this white marble gisant (mortuary sculpture) produced by Jean de Cambrai for his tomb at the Sainte-Chapelle de Bourges, a chapel which the duke built on the model of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. Completed in 1449, 33 years after the duke’s death, the tomb and its gisant were moved to Bourges Cathedral in the eighteenth century after the chapel was seriously damaged by a hurricane; this exhibition is the first time it has ever left Bourges.
Some of the other sculptures that formerly surrounded the tomb in the Sainte-Chapelle de Bourges.
The Très Riche Heures in the display case set up for the exhibition. In the background, one can see some of the leaves that have been set up on display before the restoration of the binding is finished.
A quotation from Christopher de Hamel, a well-known British expert on medieval manuscripts: “It is easier to meet the pope or the president of the United States than to touch the Très Riches Heures.”
A sign advertising the exhibition, which calls the book “The Mona Lisa of Manuscripts.” (In French, the Mona Lisa is known as “La Joconde”, from the last name of the subject, Lisa del Giocondo.)
The château de Chantilly houses an exceptional collection of medieval art and manuscripts, assembled in the nineteenth century by Henri d’Orléans, duc d’Aumale, one of the sons of King Louis Philippe. At his death in 1897, the duke donated the château and its collections to the Institut de France, on the condition that the entirety of his collection remain at Chantilly, and that nothing be removed even temporarily, which means that treasures like the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry cannot be lent out for temporary exhibitions in other museums.
