The Hours of Isabella d’Este, Use of Rome, in Latin, opulently illuminated manuscript on parchment [Italy (Florence), c. 1490] 240 leaves, text complete, wanting a single leaf before fol. 233 (probably with a miniature), collation: i12, ii11 (i a singleton with miniature), iii-xi10, xii11 (i a singleton with miniature), xiii-xvii10, xviii8, xix11 (i a singleton with miniature), xx-xxi10, xxii11(i a singleton with miniature), xxiii-xxiv8, catchwords, single column of 13 lines of a fine rounded gothic bookhand, headings in red and burnished gold, one-line initials in blue or burnished gold, 2-line initials in same with contrasting infill and penwork, each initial followed by ornate penwork capital, seven large illuminated initials formed of coloured leaves, with full borders of dense coloured foliage and bezants extending into three margins, five large historiated initials and borders by the Florentine brother-artists Gherardo and Monte di Giovanni del Fora (Gherardo producing the miniatures and Monte the decoration), each with full borders of foliage enclosing smaller miniatures within roundels, putti, birds and architectural features, and the first four of these facing four full-page miniatures also by the same artists, within full borders enclosing further miniatures within roundels, prayers added in italic hand at end, a few small holes (mostly repaired), edges trimmed affecting extremities of borders, slight scuffs and stains in places, else in excellent condition, 130mm. by 88mm.; binding of late nineteenth-century Parisian black morocco, with gilt inlaid with brown strapwork in entrelac style by Marius-Michel (either Jean Marius-Michel, 1821-1890, or his son and successor in the firm, Henri, 1846-1925), splitting along edges of spine, but solid in binding An exquisite Book of Hours, reflecting the very heights of Renaissance book production, and made for that period’s supreme female patron and art-collector; and almost certainly the last book connected with her or her court available on the market Provenance:1. Written and illuminated for Isabella d’Este (1474-1539), daughter of Ercole I d’Este, duke of Ferrara, and the wife of Francesco Gonzaga, marquis de Mantua: arms of Este and Gonzaga in the bas-de-page of the first illuminated double page opening, facing each other. She sat at the centre of a wide political network that encompassed almost all of Italy, with her father’s contacts in Rome, Naples and Venice, and her brother Alfonso’s marriages to Anna Sforza of Milan and then the infamous Lucrezia Borgia, the natural daughter of Pope Alexander VI. Her sister Beatrice married Ludovico ‘il Moro’ the Duke of Milan, and her sister-in-law became the Duchess of Urbino. She had a privileged and enlightened upbringing, and was encouraged from a young age to assert herself regardless of the male-centric world of Renaissance Italy. Ercole had all his children educated to the same high standard, and even as a youth she had her own substantial library rich in Classical texts and a complete presentation set of Aldines on parchment. Her husband lamented later in life “Havemo vergogna di avere per nostra sorte una mogliere che sempre vol fare di suo cervello” (‘we are chagrined at our fortune of having a wife who always wants to do things according to her own mind’), but seems to have secretly been pleased with a companion who would rule in his stead during his numerous absences from Mantua. She excelled in traditionally male arts, such as oratory and horse riding, and above all in art-collecting. She built a private museum in her apartments in the palace at Mantua, her studiolo, and pursued the greatest artists of the day to fill it with commissions from Mantegna, Raphael, Titian and Leonardo da Vinci (the last two both painting or sketching her portrait; Kenneth Clarke remarking of that by da Vinci, that the pose “must have influenced Venetian portraiture for the next ten years … in its ease and breadth [it] anticipates the Mona Lisa”), as well as a vast library and collection of sculpture and other valuable objects. She received literary tributes in works by Ariosto, Castiglione, Bandello, Bembo, Trissimo, and the diplomat and poet Niccolo da Correggio proclaimed her “la prima donna del mondo”. She has commanded the fascination of a modern audience and spawned a vast armada of modern writing on her and her collecting (see for example, E.P. Meyer, First Lady of the Renaissance: A Biography of Isabella d’Este, 1970, G.R. Marek, The Bed and the Throne: The Life of Isabella d’Este, 1976, D. Shemek, Ladies Errant: Wayward Women and Social Order in Early Modern Italy, 1998, and D. Looney and D. Shemek, Phaethon’s Children: The Este Court and its Culture in Early Modern Italy, 2005, and references there). This jewel of a book was produced at about the same time as her marriage to Francesco Gonzaga, when she was only 16 years old. The principal patron of the two artists here was the great Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449-92), who retained Gherardo di Giovanni in his intimate household. Isabella knew Lorenzo personally, and he is recorded incidentally as sending other costly gifts to her at the time of her marriage. This book was most probably a wedding gift. It does not appear in the inventories of books in the walnut cabinets in her Studiolo (S. Campbell, The Cabinet of Eros, 2006, appendix 1, pp.270-79), and was perhaps kept for private devotions in her bedroom or chapel.2. Most probably passing to the infamous Cardinal Richelieu in the seventeenth century. The political connections and power of the Mantua dukes collapsed in the seventeenth century, and under the ineffectual leadership of Ferdinando Gonzaga (1587-1626), and Carlo di Gonzaga (1609-31) agents for King Charles I of England and Cardinal Richelieu negotiated the sale of the artworks in the main palace (the former getting Raphael’s Madonna of the Pearls and Mantegna’s series of nine paintings, The Triumph of Caesar, for 68,000 great ducats; the latter Mantegna’s Parnassus and Minerva, transferred to the Louvre in 1801). Richelieu was also a book collector, and took possession of much of Isabella’s library, probably explaining the French binding on the present manuscript. His library of 900 volumes was mostly transferred to the Sorbonne c.1660, with a small number of books re-emerging on the market in the second half of the nineteenth century: William Bragge owned one (his sale in Sotheby’s, 7 June 1876, lot 374), as did Eugene Piot (his sale in Paris, 23 April 1862, lot 348), followed by others from Isabella’s library, and perhaps with a shared provenance: a Philostratus, Imagines, made in the early sixteenth century, once in the Sneyd collection, was sold at Sotheby’s, 16 December 1903, lot 615, and a copy of elegies, made c. 1500, also from the Cartier family, was sold in their sale with Lefèvre and Guérin, 1 March 1962, lot 1.3. Louis Cartier (1875-1942), jeweller, perhaps acquired on 14 June 1921: pencil note on last endleaf; by descent to his son, Claude Cartier (1925-1975): his sale in Sotheby’s, Monte Carlo, 25-27 November 1979, lot 1296.4. Re-emerging in Sotheby’s, 5 December 2012, lot 23, and sold for £217,250 to the current owner.Text:The text comprises: a Calendar (fol.1r); the Hours of the Virgin, with Matins (fol.14r), Lauds (fol.29r), Prime (fol.46r), Terce (fol.52r), Sext (fol.58r), None (fol.63v), Vespers (fol.69v), and Compline (fol.79v); the Office of the Dead (fol.115r); the Penitential Psalms (fol.184r) and Litany; the Fifteen Gradual Psalms (fol.215r); and the Hours of the Cross (fol.233r) The library of Isabella d'Este: Only a tiny handful of books from this crucial Renaissance library are now traceable.
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