Book of Hours of Maria of Navarre

The most popular genre of books in the Middle Ages was undoubtedly the books of hours. The private payer and devotional books, which enjoyed especially great popularity among the nobility, originated, for the most part, from Belgium and France. The illuminators of the Flemish school published the most coveted and artistic codices of this type. Other European master also preoccupied themselves with the design of illuminated prayer books. The Book of Hours of Maria of Navarre is the first book of hours that originated from the Iberian Peninsula. It contains 391 miniatures decorated with gold and is the masterpiece of the Spanish painter Ferrer Bassa.

By Order of the Royal House of Aragon

Ferrar Bassa was a Catalonian illuminator of the Gothic style. He stood in the service of the royal house of Aragon and designed numerous frescoes and tapestries in various chapels and churches along with illuminated codices. Bassa is considered to be a pioneer of the art of Italian Trecento in Spain. His style contains elements of both the Sienese and Florentine styles. The book of hours for his commissioner Maria of Navarre is one of his most famous masterpieces. As King Peter IV of Aragon was travelling in 1342, he wrote to his wife Maria in a letter that she should send him Bassa’s beautiful manuscript. This anecdote demonstrates the deep admiration that the master experienced from the royal household.

Luxurious Book Decoration

The extravagant layout of the book of hours is capable of astounding the beholder to this day. The magnificent pictorial scenes of the work are decorated by gentle forms and harmonious image composition. The realistic handling of spatial depth and the use of gentle shading are typical for Bassa’s art. An additional trademark of the painter was portraying faces of the personae depicted with straight and pointy noses and with penetrating looks. The lively, colorful miniature scenes further mirror a boundless narrative pleasure through the lush application of gold decoration. Miniatures and pages of text were bordered in fantastical frames in the form of floral tendrils. The vines also contain small miniatures with depictions of important people from the orbit of the Spanish royal house. Hardly any other Spanish manuscript is on par with this image-rich manuscript.