George Braziller, Inc. * Independent Publishing Since 1955


	The Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry Introduction and Legends by Jean Longnon and Raymond Cazelles. Preface by Millard Meiss.
			“The book is a work of astonishing beauty. Its yellowing vellum pages of handwritten text are exquisitely decorated with illuminated capitals and tiny brightly colored miniatures of religious subjects and scenes from 15th-century life. It is universally recognized as one of the two or three finest illuminated medieval manuscripts in existence. ‘Incomparable’ is how John Plummer, curator of medieval and renaissance manuscripts at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, describes it.” —The New York Times

	Cited as “one of the miracles of art history” by Kenneth Clark, The Très Riches Heures is the most luxurious and most famous of such books and marks the zenith of manuscript illumination in late medieval Europe. Commissioned by the influential patron, Jean de Berry, in the early years of the fifteenth century, this masterpiece was executed by the three Limbourg brothers, the greatest miniaturists of the time. The manuscript opens with a calendar illuminating scenes of daily life during the twelve months and is followed by the prayers of offices celebrated at different times of the day. These texts are often accompanied by miniatures, in which the artists’ imaginative and decorative genius are fully revealed. The personal approach to the Limbourgs to nature, human activity, and beauty represents the transition from medieval attitudes to those of the Renaissance. Their elegant images, in fact, were to influence the course of painting in France and all of Northern Europe. This edition reproduces each of the miniatures in The Très Riches Heures in full color and to scale. 8" x 11" • 224 pages • 139 pages in color ISBN: 978-0-8076-1596-6 $100 to Christmas 2008, $125 thereafter