Black Prayer Book of Galeazzo Maria Sforza Facsimile Edition

The Black Prayer Book of Galeazzo Maria Sforza is a book of hours, a Christian prayer book for laypeople's private devotions. It is a stunningly beautiful manuscript, its text written entirely in silver and gold on black surface-dyed parchment and boasting exquisite illumination, including fifteen full-page miniatures and thirty painted full borders with small figural scenes in roundels. The manuscript was created in Bruges, probably for Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in the third quarter of the fifteenth century.

The prayer book includes prayer services, psalms, and readings commonly found in books of hours, preceded by a liturgical calendar. The longest text is the Hours of the Virgin, a series of eight daily prayer services (hours) dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Shimmering Gold and Silver

Every page of the manuscript was painted with iron gall ink, the usual substance for writing brown-black text in medieval manuscripts. The painting has been achieved mostly using gold and silver to define form and create highlights, with sparing use of red, blue, green, and flesh-tone paint.

The identity of the manuscript's illuminator is debated by scholars, as is the question of whether the book can be identified with one described in a contemporary document as having been given to Charles the Bold (1433-1477) by the citizens of Bruges. The painting is in a style associated with Bruges, and it is assumed to have been destined for someone in the Burgundian court if not for the duke himself.

Access to Sacred History

The figural scenes—full-page miniatures, historiated initials, and small scenes in border medallions—are all the work of the same painter, who mastered the definition of form with networks of gold and silver lines. Figures shown from behind invite the viewer to feel a part of the unfolding narratives. Figures with bowed heads, their faces hidden, also draw the viewer into the drama.

Passion and Infancy Juxtaposed

The Hours of the Virgin is the most lavishly illuminated portion of the manuscript, with each hour introduced by a full-page miniature depicting a scene from the Passion of Christ. Each miniature faces a page of text opening with a historiated initial showing a scene from Christ's infancy. The medallions in the borders of the miniatures contain New Testament scenes, and those in the borders of the text pages contain Old Testament subjects.

One of Three

The Black Prayer Book is one of three closely related manuscripts with nearly identical texts, all on black surface-dyed parchment and written and illuminated mostly in silver and gold. Its cousins are the Black Hours and Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 9488.

Acanthus Vines of Silver and Gold

The silver text and gold headings and rubrics are written in long lines in Gothic Textualis, the formal book script of the period. The silver and gold are nearly pure, with little admixture of other metals, and the silver is amazingly untarnished. The decoration of the borders and initials is dominated by silver and gold acanthus vines with stylized flowers.

A Gift to the Duke of Milan

The manuscript must have been given to Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1444-1476), Duke of Milan, by its original owner, whether Charles the Bold or someone in his circle. Sforza's coat of arms was added (fol. 1r), presumably before his death in 1476. The manuscript entered the Hapsburg imperial court library in the eighteenth century, but we do not know exactly when or how it came into that collection.

The manuscript is now disbound to protect its brittle pages, and its original binding of red velvet over wooden boards with gilt silver fittings and enameled gilt silver clasps survives. The roundel showing an apostle preaching from the lower border of the opening page of the Hours of the Holy Spirit (fol. 22v) is now in Berlin.