Coëtivy Hours

Illuminated book of hours attributed to the Dunois Master, written in Latin and French in a bastarda script, made in Paris and dated 1443–1445. It was commissioned by Prigent de Coëtivy (1399?–1450), noted bibliophile and Admiral of France, on the occasion of his marriage to Marie de Rais (1429–1457) and includes 148 three-quarter page miniatures painted in demi-grisaille. All but four were removed from the bound volume between 1933 and 1960. The manuscript includes a perpetual calendar, Gospel lessons, John's account of the Passion, Mixed Hours of the Virgin, Holy Cross and Holy Spirit, Penitential Psalms, Litany with prayers, Office of the Dead, Psalter of St Jerome, prayers to God, Christ, the Trinity, St Michael and the Holy Cross, Litany of Peter of Luxembourg, prayers to the Virgin in Latin and French, Suffrages, prayers to the Virgin and John the Baptist, a debate between Life and Death, and the Seven Articles of Faith in French. The calendar is illustrated with the labours of the month, signs of the zodiac and relevant saints. Every folio is ornamented with foliate borders inhabited by a variety of entertaining marginalia. The quartered arms of Prigent de Coëtivy—a barry of sable and or (Coëtivy) and cross of sable on or (Rais)—appear on numerous pages within heater shields, elliptical cartouches and lozenges. These were later over-painted with the single charge of Alain de Coëtivy (1407–1474), Cardinal of Avignon, Prigent's brother. Prigent’s mottos—'dame sans per' and 'helas bella mercy'—also appear within circular shields or amongst the foliage throughout. In 2019, a number of folios were examined by a team of academics from Durham and Northumbria universities using Raman spectroscopy, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (FORS) and multispectral imaging. The pigments identified are vermilion, minium, organic red, mosaic gold, lead-tin yellow, ochre, organic yellow, copper-green, vergaut (indigo and lead-tin yellow), lapis lazuli, indigo, organic purple, carbon black, white lead, gold leaf, shell gold and silver. Infrared (IR) revealed detailed carbon-based underdrawings. The manuscript was rebound in the nineteenth century in a gold-tooled, green-dyed armorial leather binding designed by P. Marcelin Lortic (1822–92). The arms and monogram have been identified as those of the Conte di Bardi. By 1897 the manuscript was in the hands of the Florentine book dealer, Guiseppe Pallotti, when the French bibliophile, scholar and administrateur général at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Léopold Delisle (1826–1910) examined the book. The manuscript was acquired by Henry Yates Thompson (1838–1928) in 1900 from the book dealer Gustave Pawlowski. Edith Beatty (1886–1952) bought it from Yates Thompson in 1919 as an anniversary gift for her husband, Chester Beatty. The inscription on the flyleaf reads: 'To A. Chester Beatty from his loving wife Edith Beatty'.