in grisaille between 1325 and 1328. In the 15th century, the most famous book of hours
is the one produced for John, duke of Berry, known as the Très Riches Heures (Chantilly,
Musée Condé), begun by the Limbourg brothers before 1415 and finished by Jean
Colombe ca. 1485.
Robert G.Calkins
[See also: BOOK OF HOURS; CAROLINGIAN ART; COLOMBE, JEAN;
LIMBOURG BROTHERS; MANUSCRIPTS, HEBREW ILLUMINATED;
MEROVINGIAN ART; PALEOGRAPHY AND MANUSCRIPTS; PUCELLE, JEAN]
Avril, François. Manuscript Painting at the Court of France: The Fourteenth Century (1310–
1380). New York: Braziller, 1976.
Cahn, Walter. Romanesque Bible Illustration. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982.
Calkins, Robert G. Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
——. Monuments of Medieval Art. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985, pp. 201–39.
de Hamel, Christopher. A History of Illuminated Manuscripts. Oxford: Phaidon, 1986.
Kessler, Herbert. The Illustrated Bibles from Tours. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977.
Meiss, Millard. French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry. 5 vols. New York:
Phaidon/Braziller, 1967–74.
Mütherich, Florentine, and Joachim Gaehde. Carolingian Painting. New York: Braziller, 1976.
Pächt, Otto. Book Illumination in the Middle Ages. London: Harvey Miller, 1986.
Plummer, John. The Last Flowering: French Painting in Manuscripts 1420–1530. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1982.
Porcher‚ Jean. Medieval French Miniatures. New York: Abrams, 1959.
Robb, David M. The Art of the Illuminated Manuscript. Cranbury: Barnes, 1973.
Thomas, Marcel. The Golden Age: Manuscript Painting at the Time of Jean, Duke of Berry. New
York: Braziller, 1979.
MARBODE OF RENNES
(ca. 1035–1123). An important representative of the humanistic revival of the early 12th
century in the Angers region, Marbode was born at Angers and remained in the cathedral
school there as pupil, teacher, and by ca. 1067, master. Among his pupils was Baudri of
Bourgueil; he was acquainted with Hildebert of Lavardin, bishop of Le Mans (1096–
1125) and Tours (1125–33). Marbode was elected bishop of Rennes in 1096 but retired to
Angers shortly before he died.
Marbode’s best-known works in the Middle Ages were his hexameter lapidary, written
between 1067 and 1081, and his treatise on rhetoric, De ornamentis verborum. Over a
hundred manuscripts of the Latin text of the lapidary survive. The earliest of the four
verse translations into French was by Philippe de Thaün; there are also at least five
French prose translations, as well as versions in Spanish, Italian, Provençal, Irish, Danish,
and Hebrew.
The Liber decem capitulorum (1102) opens with a discussion of subjects that Marbode
considered suitable for writing about. The chapters treat time, harlots, good women, old
age, fate, the pleasures of the flesh, true friendship, good death, and bodily resurrection.
Some of his shorter and lighter verses are addressed to nuns and girls at the convent of Le
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