1536-1540
I. HORÆ IN LAUDEM BEATISSIMÆ VIRGINIS MARIÆ, AD USUM ROMANUM.—Parisiis, apud Simonem Colinæum, 1543.
Large quarto of 44 sheets, in 22 signatures of 2 sheets, encartées, A to Y. On the verso of the title-page is a table of Easter-Days from 1543 to 1566; then comes the calendar, which fills the next six sheets. There are in the text fourteen large engravings, with a special border:—
1. St. John writing his Gospel (which begins on the following leaf). He is gazing at the Virgin, who appears to him in the sky, holding the Child Jesus.
2. Jesus betrayed by Judas.
3. The Salutation, with this device in French: 'Fait ce que tu vouras avoir fait quant tu moras.' ['Do what thou wouldst have done when thou diest.']
4. The Visitation (signed).
5. The Birth of Jesus.
6. The Annunciation to the Shepherds (with the date 1537).
7. The Adoration of the Magi (signed).
8. The Circumcision (signed).
9. The Flight into Egypt.
10. The Death of Mary (signed).
11. Jesus on the Cross (signed).
12. The Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles (signed).
13. The Penance of David (signed).
14. Jesus restoring Lazarus to life.
All the pages are enclosed in borders, but the latter are of two sorts:—
1. Eight complete borders, that is to say, thirty-two compartments, in simple line-engraving as in the Hours of 1524-1525. A single one of these eight is signed; but they are all by the same artist. They bear the dates of 1536, 1537, 1539, in little scrolls of the sort to which Tory was so much addicted. These dates preclude our attributing these engravings to himself, but they evidently came from his establishment which was then conducted by his widow. One of these borders appears in a book published in 1542: 'Rodolphi Agricolæ ... de inventione dialectica, libri III,' etc. 4to, Paris, Simon de Colines.
2. There are also eight complete borders, or thirty-two compartments, engraved in black in an entirely different style, alternating with those engraved in line. [Four of them are reproduced in this volume, on the pages bearing the Author's Preface.] They are in niello, are neither signed nor dated, and I doubt whether they came from Tory's workshop, although we shall see that he engraved some similar ones for Jean de Tournes. In any event their inclusion in this book, side by side with the borders and drawings engraved in line, seems to me in wretched taste which would have disgusted our artist.
We find also in this book some beautiful ornamental letters in the criblé style, which may be Tory's.