Folio ir: Calendar (January & February)

Our Breviary is an outstanding example of a Venetian incunable receiving this top level of hand-illumination. At least 45 other copies from this edition still exist; many of these were decorated to some extent and over twenty were similarly printed on vellum. However, containing highly original artwork, our volume is the most extensively illuminated Italian copy known and is, in fact, of great significance for establishing the artistic abilities of Petrus V who was its sole illuminator. This same artist created several important works in Venice and Padua in the 1470s before moving to Rome where he worked in the 1480s. As well as being responsible for some illuminated manuscripts (including the major pictures in a manuscript Breviary from Ferrara, now at Harvard), Petrus is known to have worked on at least two other Venetian incunables, both copies of Pliny's Historia naturalis.

A Breviary is a book containing the divine office designed for use by the clergy. This edition contains all the standard components: Calendar; Psalter; Temporale; Sanctorale; and Common of Saints. In this copy the opening Calendar is adorned by pen and ink drawings. These are amongst the Breviary's most unusual features: instead of the standard imagery of Zodiacal signs or labours of the months, Petrus has drawn classical heads in roundels. To the left, Janus and a king are shown in the lower margin of the calendar page for January and February. 

Although the first part of the work is richly decorated, from folio 147 onwards no further major illustrations occur: the pages are rubricated but not flourished. In fact, the volume is a composite made up from two copies of the original work. The book was bought for William Hunter at the Louis-Jean Gaignat sale in Paris in 1769 where it was simply described as a 'Psalter'; Van Praet's early nineteenth century catalogue of works printed on vellum notes that this Gaignat copy had been incomplete and was made-up using another copy of the Breviary formerly owned by Cardinal de Loménie.  

Folio 146v: Temporale (Resurrection scene)

Folio 1r: opening page of the Psalter (King David enthroned in a landscape)

The art of printing was perfected by Johannes Gutenberg in Germany by 1450. The first Italian press was set up by the partnership of Sweynheym and Pannartz at Subiaco outside Rome by 1465; four years later a German named Johannes de Spira began printing in Venice. Venice quickly became the printing capital of the fifteenth century. Boasting a huge immigrant population, it was renowned as a place where foreigners could thrive, all new settlers being promised protection and liberty. Most of the early 'Venetian' printers were in fact immigrants, including Nicolaus Jenson who was originally from France. His was one of the most successful Venetian printing establishments of the early years. He began by producing Latin works and classics, and managed to survive a collapse in the book trade in 1473 (largely thanks to a glut in the market owing to the over production of  classical works) by diversifying into the fields of law, theology and medicine. He endured in the precarious world of early printing by merging his business with that of a fellow Frenchman, Jacques le Rouge, and in 1474 entered into partnership with Johann Rauchfas and Peter Ugelheimer. 

The Breviary was produced in one of Jenson's most active periods. Cited as being one of his typographic masterpieces, Jenson designed the Gothic rotunda typeface and demonstrated his technical skill in printing the text in a combination of red and black inks. It is physically a large folio work consisting of some 404 leaves: it was probably intended to be read at a lectern rather than in the hand. 

Folio 14r: Psalter (Fool and others in a landscape)

  
Folio 34r: Psalter

Folio 20r: Psalter (roundels of putti and angels)