Book of Hours, Use of Rome (MS Crouch 2)

Manuscript location
Place
Repository	Art Gallery of Ballarat
Collection
Shelf mark	Ms. Art Gallery of Ballarat, MS Crouch 2
Former shelf mark
Manuscript name
Name	Book of Hours, Use of Rome
Contents
Summary	1r-12v. Calendar 13r-102r. Hours of the Virgin. Incipit officium beate marie uirginis secundum consuetudinem romane curie. 103r-162r. Office of the Dead 162v-197r. Office of the Passion 201r-214r. Penitential psalms 214v-226r. Litany 226v-229v. Office of the Cross (Officium paruum) 231r-244r. Fifteen psalms of Degrees
Physical description
Support	Vellum
Dimensions	115 x 80 mm
Extent	i-ii (modern parchment) + 248 fols. + iii-iv (modern parchment). i^v-ii^v, 102^v, 197^v-200^v, 230^r-230^v, 244^v-248^v, iii^r-iv^v are blank.
Collation	1¹², 2-19¹⁰, 20⁸, 21-24¹⁰, 25⁸.
Catchwords	Catchwords agree.
Signatures	Quire signatures are present but are often cut off.
Foliation	Foliation by modern pencil in ararbic numerals on upper and lower right-hand corners of the recto sides. No pagination.
Condition
Layout	16 long lines, ruled in light brown ink; Text: 65 x 43 mm.
Scribes
Scripts	Fifteenth-century Italian liturgical gothic hand in black ink.
Decoration	Illuminated in gold, ink & watercolour. Black and red entries in the Calendar; red rubrics; caps blue, with red penwork or red, with blue penwork. Edges cut and gilded. One- and two-line initials alternating in red and blue occur throughout the text, flourished in mauve and red respectively. Five historiated initials (from 40 x 35 to 30 x 30 mm; 6-7 lines high) with full borders of floral sprays, spangles and intertwined branches, Florentine work – all in green, blue, red and gold. In the lower margin of 13^r is a blank shield supported by putti. Program of Decoration and Illustration Fol. 13r ‘D’Virgin and Child Fol. 103r ‘D’ Death armed with a scythe Fol. 163r ‘D’ Imago Pietatis Christ with arms folded Fol. 201r ‘D’ David with harp Fol. 226v ‘P’ Bare Cross
Musical notation
Binding	Nineteenth-century dark brown pigskin over boards. Covers bear simple panel with a fleur-de-lis at each corner and centre leaf design, all gilt. Spine has a fleur-de-lis in each compartment and the lettering OFFICIUM / B.M. VIRGINIS / M.S.S / SEC. XIV, all gilt.
Seals
Accompanying material
History
Origin	Florence, 1450-1500
Provenance	Inside front cover is an engraved buckler bearing the motto ANIMO ET FIDE and the interlaced monogram EWB. i^r has in modern pencil ‘Officium B.M.V. Italian MS. 15^th century with five illuminated pages’ and ‘Ex libris R.A. Crouch’ who presented the volume; now MS Crouch 2.
Acquisition	Presented to the Art Gallery of Ballarat by Colonel the Honourable R.A. Crouch in 1944.
Bibliography
Bibliography list	K.V. Sinclair, Descriptive Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Western Manuscripts in Australia, Sydney, 1969, pp. 272-273 (Item 167). M.M. Manion and V.F. Vines, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Australian Collections, London, 1984, pp. 74-75 (No. 20).
Analysis
Commentary	“This late fifteenth-century Book of Hours was probably executed in Florence or a smaller neighbouring centre. The old-fashioned scroll designs of the historiated initials, the unsophisticated adaptation of the contemporary ‘tendril’ border and the laboured figure style all brand it as a product from an undistinguished workshop. The programmed of illustration is an abbreviated version of the double-page type characteristic of many contemporary de-luxe Florentine Hours… Iconographic themes common to both books are presented here in much more simplified form. For ‘the triumph of Death’, the figure of a skeleton with appropriate attributes suffices and the Pietà scene which often introduces the Hours of the Cross in Florentine Hours is replaced by the rendering of a bare cross. The owners to whom the buckler and monogram belong have not been traced.”[1] [1] Celia O’Brien in M.M. Manion and V.F. Vines, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Australian Collections, London, 1984, p. 75.
Description by
Acknowledgements
Other descriptions
Digital copies	http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/168947