Heures de Charles d'Angoulême
Les Heures de Charles d'Angoulême is a book of hours commissioned by Charles, Count of Angoulême, father of king Francis I of France, currently preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, under the number Latin 1173.
Description
The originality of this illuminated work for Count Charles d'Angouleme makes it one of the most unusual representatives of the great family of books of hours.
Such audacity was certainly the result of a deep intellectual understanding between the artist and the sponsor and went beyond the limits of the book of hours conceived as a simple instrument serving the personal devotion of its owner.
The licentious spirit which for centuries characterized the French court, the absence of religious inhibitions in a prince as powerful as the Count of Angouleme and the scientific perspicacity of a naturalist like Robinet Testard may contribute to explaining such a challenge in this ending Middle Ages.
Beyond his vocation as an instrument of personal devotion, this book also seems to have been deliberately conceived and executed to entertain Charles de Valois, to stir his curiosity (f. 52v), to divert his attention (ff. 28v and 52r), to amuse him (ff 3r, 4v and 5r), to satisfy his aesthetic sense (ff. 16v et 26v), to feed his taste for the charm of the pastoral life (f. 20v), to please this reader of courtly and chivalry novels (f. 2v), and even to flatter the vanity of this prince, if one accepts the allegorical interpretation of Ahuva Belkin (f.41v).
Moreover, it is doubtless not insignificant that the folios most likely to inspire devotion, such as those of the biblical cycle of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ (f. 106v), are not entirely from the Robinet's hand. Indeed, they are made up of a series of twelve engravings by Israel van Meckenem (I.M.) that Testard was content to color with his so characteristic luminous palette.
The fact that Robinet Testard renounced himself to illustrate the Holy of Holies of the Book of Hours by introducing in this place the work of other painters (Jean Bourdichon or engravers (Israhel van Meckenem), far from constituting an act of appropriation of the art of others, must perhaps rather be interpreted as a gesture of intellectual honesty of the artist not wanting to betray himself by representing scenes to which a naturalist such as him could not fully adhere.
Moreover, the introduction of elements of a profane nature, scenes of genre (ff. 4v and 20v), mythological (f. 41v) or chivalrous (f. 53v) in a book by definition entirely and eminently Latin, emphasizes its originality In relation to the canonical presuppositions of this category of works.
We could even go further and conclude that this curious artistic crucible contains almost a subversion towards the ultimate sponsor of the book of hours, a profanation of the sacredness of the book of hours, an antithesis of the book of hours: ultimately, an anti-book of hours.
It is evident how Robinet Testard was dependent on the art of engraving, and in particular on the magnificent work of Israel van Meckenem, in the making of this book.
Numerous miniatures will attract our attention: the animated scene of pastoral dance in the Announcement to the Shepherds, a naturalism accomplished in particular in the features and movements of the male characters, the mysterious scene of the Death of the Centaur surpassed by The Feral Woman, with its mythological dimension and its double allegorical meaning, both moral (Combat between Virtue and Vice) and political (Death of Louis XI, "the Spider King", and his daughter Madame Anne de Beaujeu and the legendary scene of Prince St. George of Cappadocia and the Queen of Lydia, an illustration as proper to a romance of chivalry as displaced in a book of hours.
The manuscrit
The manuscript is composed of 230 folios. It includes 38 miniatures.
| Folios | Description | Miniature |
|---|---|---|
| 1r-6v | Calendrier liturgique (f. 2v, 3r et 5r: I. M.) | 
|
| 7v | Christ Pantocrator et le Tétramorphe (I. M.) | 
|
| 9v | Annonciation (J. B.) | 
|
| 16v | Composition végétale avec des oiseaux (I. M.) | 
|
| 17v | La Pentecôte | 
|
| 18v | Nativité (I. M.) | 
|
| 20v | Annonciation aux bergers: danse paysanne(J. B.) | 
|
| 22v | Epiphanie ou l'adoration des Mages (J. B.) | 
|
| 24v | Présentation au Temple | 
|
| 26v | Composition végétale | 
|
| 28v | Prière à Notre-Dame | 
|
| 34v | Jugement de Salomon (I. M.) | 
|
| 41v | Décès du Centaure et la femme sauvage | 
|
| 52r | Acrostiche du Ave Maria | 
|
| 52v | Calendrier mobile de la Pâque | 
|
| 53v | St. Jacques et le dragon (I. M.) | 
|
| 59v | Dernière Cène et la prière dans le jardin (I. M.) | 
|
| 74v | Arrestation (I. M.) | 
|
| 77v | Jésus devant Caïphe (I. M.) |
|
| 80v | Flagellation (I. M.) | 
|
| 87v | Couronnement d'épines (I. M.) | 
|
| 89v | Ecce Homo (I. M.) | 
|
| 91v | Jésus devant Pilate et le lavage des mains (I. M.) | 
|
| 94v | Via Crucis (I. M.) | 
|
| 97v | Crucifixion (I. M.) | 
|
| 106v | Déposition et sépulture (I. M.) | 
|
| 110v | Résurrection (I. M.) | 
|
| 113v | Emmaüs (I. M.) | 
|
Bibliography
- Matthews, Anne (1986). "The use of prints in the Hours of Charles d'Angoulême". Print Quaterly. Vol. 3, no. 1. pp. 4–18. JSTOR 41823707.
- Les Heures de Charles d’Angoulême (Fac-similé du Manuscrit), éd. Moleiro, 230 p. Read online
See also
External links
- Notice of BNF catalog
- Reproduction intégrale du manuscrit on Gallica
- Présentation du manuscrit on the site of the Institut national du patrimoine