Photo. Giraudon.
MAY.
Pol de Limbourg.
From The “Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.”
To face page 160.
The greatest gem, however, of all these illuminated MSS. is unquestionably the precious volume known as Les Très Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry. The Duc d’Aumale himself relates the history of its acquisition in 1855. On his way to visit his mother Queen Marie Amélie, then lying ill at Nervi, he visited the Villa Pallavicini at Pegli, near Genoa—at that time a boarding-school for young ladies—in order to examine a MS. to which his attention had been drawn by Sir Antonio Panizzi, Principal Librarian of the British Museum. Without any hesitation he arranged on the spot to purchase the work of art for a sum of 18,000 francs. On his return to Twickenham (where he was then residing), the Duchess herself carefully unfolded the newly acquired treasure from its “cassetta foderato di velluto” and every connoisseur of note at once hastened to examine the wonderful MS. which the Duke had been so fortunate as to acquire. As early as 1857 Waagen wrote about it with much detail; later Count de Laborde, Anatol Gruyer, and Leopold Delisle followed; and recently, and more exhaustively, Paul Durrieu also. But it was Delisle who made the important discovery that the Très Riches Heures could be identified with the MS. described in the Inventory of the Duc de Berry: “Item une layette plusiers cayers d’une ‘Très Riches Heures’ que faisoient Pol et ses frères, très richement historiez et enluminez.” The same writer also discovered that these leaflets were valued at 500 livres tournois (about 20,000 francs), a very large price for that time, and one which showed the high value in which this manuscript was held even at that date.
The death of the Duc de Berry brought these precious pages, begun under such brilliant auspices, to a sudden standstill; and in consequence of that prince’s debts—which arose chiefly from his expensive artistic tastes—a sale of his property immediately took place. The Duc de Bourbon and the Comte d’Armagnac (the husbands of his two daughters and co-heiresses) were making war upon one another on account of the murder of the Duc d’Orléans by Jean Sans Peur—a war known in history as the War of the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. Amid these disturbances there was scarcely time to think of illuminated MSS.; for which reason the work of Pol de Limbourg and his brothers was suspended, and was not resumed until the year 1454, long after their death—unfortunately by a far inferior hand—that of Jean de Colombe. By that time the volume had come into the possession of Charles of Savoy and his wife Blanche of Monferrat. It is not difficult to explain how this Breviary came into the House of Savoy—a fact which is proved by the armorial bearings and two miniature portraits of Charles—because both husband and wife were descendants in direct line from Bonne de Berry (one of the daughters of the Duc de Berry), who had first been married to a Count of Savoy. In 1501 the MS. passed to Margaret of Austria, wife of Philibert of Savoy, a Royal patroness of the Arts who corresponded with Jean Perréal regarding the tomb of her husband in the church at Brou. By her this MS. was provided with a velvet cover and a silver padlock; and she no doubt took it to Flanders with her after her husband’s death.
Plate XXXI.