3-044-275 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Ruskin Hours, about 1300. Additional Info: Made in northeastern France about 1300, this manuscript is a relatively early example of a book of hours. Later in the 1300s, books of hours superseded psalters as the principal texts for personal devotion. The profusely decorated manuscript includes almost one hundred historiated initials, miniatures that illustrate the calendar, and a rare feature, an illustrated litany. Further illuminations called marginalia appear on many of the pages. Sometimes these scenes relate directly to a historiated initial on the same page; more often, the secular vignettes of humorous animals and figures are meant to provide a playful counterpart to the religious narratives.