Catalogue Roberti Fine Art, TEFAF Maastricht 2026 (1) compressed - Flipbook - Page 24
The text
The textual programme of the two volumes follows the Use of Rome and combines the standard
offices of a luxury Book of Hours with an unusually expansive cycle of indulgenced prayers and
suffrages. Alongside the Calendar and computistical tables, the Hours of the Virgin, Penitential
Psalms and Office of the Dead are accompanied by a dense sequence of Passion devotions,
intercessory prayers, and invocations to Germanic and universal saints. The manuscript is
particularly notable for the prominence of indulgence texts promising specific remissions of years
and days, reflecting the devotional climate of the early sixteenth century and the confessional
environment in which Cardinal Albrecht operated. A full listing of the textual contents of both
volumes see Appendix III.
Miniatures by Simon Bening (1483–1561)
The Brandenburg Hours contains forty-three large miniatures securely attributable to Simon
Bening 4 an exceptional concentration of autograph work within a single manuscript. By the early
1520s, when this book was commissioned, Bening was at the height of his career and widely
regarded as the foremost illuminator in northern Europe.
For a full listing of illuminated pages, see Appendix IV.
Born in 1483 in either Antwerp or Ghent, and trained within the Ghent3Bruges tradition
established by his father Alexander Bening, Simon joined the Bruges guild in 1500. By mid-career
he was the most sought-after manuscript painter of his generation. Damião de Góis described him
in 1530 as the finest illuminator in Europe; modern scholarship continues to view him as the
culminating figure of the Flemish manuscript tradition, the artist in whom its technical and pictorial
ambitions reached their apogee.
24
