#fleur-de-lis

Portrait of the poet Vincent Voiture (1597-1648) as Saint Louis IX of France (1214-1270) by Philippe de Champaigne

Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga (1611-1667), known for her love of poetry, wished to bring Vincent Voiture, the most eminent French poet of the Précieuses style, to her court in Warsaw, but without success. Before her arrival in Poland, Voiture accompanied Marie Louise to the French borders as a marshal on behalf of the king. A magnificent portrait of the poet by Philippe de Champaigne is preserved in the Saint Louis Art Museum (oil on canvas, 68 x 56.9 cm, inv. 719:1961). Voiture was depicted as Saint Louis IX of France and he commissioned it as a gift for his daughter during her stay in the convent …

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BOOK OF HOURS for use in Rome. (France, c.1555) A liturgy in Latin made c. 1555 for King Henry II of France.

The pages of this Book of Hours appropriately resemble Fleurs-de-Lis, a symbol for French royalty. It was made for King Henry II of France contained prayers and other short texts, which were read at set times during the day. Not only does the very shape of the pages testify to the object’s royal patron, so too does the high quality of the decoration. The manuscript measures only 182×80 mm and has 129 leaves.

‘Written by hand, medieval manuscripts are very different from printed books, which started to appear after Gutenberg’s mid-fifteenth-century invention of moving type. One difference in particular is important for our understanding of manuscripts. While printed books were produced in batches of a thousand or more, handwritten copies were made one at the time. In fact, medieval books, especially those made commercially, came to be after a detailed conversation between scribe and reader, a talk that covered all aspects of the manuscript’s production. This is the only way the scribe could ensure the expensive product he was about to make was in sync with what the reader wanted. Consequently, while printed books were shaped generically and according to the printer’s perception of what the (anonymous) “market” preferred, the medieval scribe designed a book according to the explicit instructions of its user. ’—Erik Kwakkel on medievalbooks.nl (2014)

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Snep had a big seat to fill, and I think I fill it well~

Another entry for our “dragons and unicorns” week: Two unicorns hold up a crest decorated with two more little unicorns, again from Constitutiones provinciales ecclesiae Anglicanae.