Hours of Anna Colonna Facsimile Edition

The Hours of Anna Colonna is an exuberantly illuminated Christian prayer book made for its namesake, who was married to Gian Antonio Orsini, Prince of Taranto, and who is pictured in the book. The manuscript's illumination is characterized by lively narrative scenes and imposing figures of saints isolated before burnished gold backgrounds with punchwork embellishment. Created in Puglia in southern Italy in the mid-fifteenth century, it boasts nineteen historiated initials with rich narrative detail and six full-page miniatures of saints by the San Corrado Master.

The manuscript is a book of hours, a collection of texts designed for private devotions. Its longest text is the Hours of the Virgin. The book also includes the Hours of the Cross, the Hours of the Holy Spirit, an Office for Saint Catherine, the Penitential Psalms, and prayers.

San Corrado Master

The manuscript's illuminator is named for a missal associated with the cathedral church of San Corrado in Molfetta on the Adriatic coast. In Anna's book of hours, he painted the often-crowded narrative scenes in the historiated initials, the full-page portraits of saints, and the borders of blossoming branches either incorporating or set against punched gold leaf.

Personalized for Anna

The book's prayers were personalized for the patron; her name, Anna, appears once in full (fol. 227v) and abbreviated by its first initial four times (fols. 191r, 192r, 194v, and 195v). The Colonna family coat of arms, featuring a column topped by a crown, is included in a painted border (fol. 50r), and Anna is depicted kneeling in prayer to Saint Peter Martyr. Although the figure has been partially effaced, her sumptuous garment and crown are still visible (fol. 217r).

King David Scourged

Some of the subjects depicted in the historiated initials are unusual. Saint Catherine is pictured kneeling before the Lord, her prayer book open on a lectern (fol. 91r). The most intriguing initial opens the Penitential Psalms: the Lord in heaven strikes King David's bare shoulder with a whip as he prays for mercy (fol. 97r).

A Gallery of Saints

The six full-page miniatures of saints appear together on successive leaves, each with a bold gold background (one of which has almost entirely flaked away). They include three thirteenth-century Italian saints—Francis, Anthony of Padua, and Peter Martyr. Peter is shown holding a model of a church, which is unusual (fol. 207r).

A Tiny Book for a Tall Woman

A contemporary described Anna as a tall woman. Her prayer book, by contrast, is diminutive. The text is written in Gothic Rotunda, the customary script for Italian devotional books of the period. Although small, the writing is clear and the letters well-proportioned.

Bound in the Eighteenth Century

Peter Marié, then George H. Richmond, owned the manuscript before Henry Walters (1848-1931) purchased it from Richmond. Walters bequeathed it to the Walters Art Gallery (now Walters Art Museum) in 1931. The binding of red morocco with simple gold tooling dates from the eighteenth century.