HORAE, use of Rome, in Latin and French. Paris: Philippe Pigouchet, [not before 1492].
PRINTED ON VELLUM, 8° (162 x 105mm). Collation: A-I8 K4 L-N8 (A1r Pigouchet device, A1v almanac in French, A2r anatomical man, A2v-8r calendar with French verse, B1r-3r Gospel sequence [Martyrdom of St. John, 3 small cuts], B3v-8v Passion according to St. John [Betrayal] C1r-D6r Hours of the Virgin: Matins-Lauds [Annunciation, Visitation], D6v-8r Hours of the Cross and of the Holy Ghost [Crucifixion, Pentecost], E1r-G2v Hours of the Virgin: Prime-Compline [Nativity, Annunciation to the Shepherds, Adoration of teh magi, Presentation in the Temple, Massacre of the Innocents, Coronation of the Virgin], G3r-H4r Seven Penitential Psalms [David's Penitence], H4v-K4v Office of the Dead [Les Trois Vifs, Les Trois Morts, Dives and Lazarus], L1r-N3r Suffrages [The Trinity, 25 small cuts], N3v-8r Seven prayers of St. Gregory, and various prayers in Latin and French, including prayers to the Virgin for saying on Saturday and Missus est Gabriel [Mass of St. Gregory, 2 small cuts], N8r colophon, N8v blank). 100 leaves. 24 lines. Type: 3:81 Bâtarde (text), 2:65G (almanac and border inscriptions), 4:130G (almanac heading). Large metalcut Pigouchet device, anatomical man, and 18 full-page metalcuts from Pigouchet's set 1 (cf. Davies), 30 smaller metalcut portraits, multiple-piece ornamental and historiated borders, one- and 2-line initials, paragraph marks and line-filler in liquid gold on magenta or blue ground. 18th-century Italian brown goatskin over thin pasteboard, two fore-edge clasps missing, gilt edges, later endpapers (sympathetically rebacked, joints a little worn); modern solander case. Provenance: modern monogram booklabel.
A rare Book of Hours printed by Pigouchet. 'Among the printers of the beautifully decorated French Books of Hours in the XVth and early XVIth Centuries, Pigouchet is pre-eminent' (Davies, Murray French, I, p.265). The metalcuts are from Pigouchet's set 1, as enumerated by Davies in his ground-breaking survey of Books of Hours in the Fairfax Murray collection. It was in fact preceded by another set of metalcuts in use by Pigouchet about 1488, and in 1492/3 by Jean Morand. Although its almanac commences for the year 1488, the present Pigouchet Hours was unlikely to have been printed before 1492, when his type 3 (81B) was introduced; the metalcuts too are not found in editions confidently datable to before 1492. The majority of the more than 75 pre-1501 editions printed by Pigouchet for himself or for other publishers contained an almanac for either 1488-1508 or 1489-1508, even when they were printed as late as 16 September 1498. Their continued use points to the standardisation that characterised the production of Books of Hours, both manuscript and printed, in the final years of the 15th century. RARE. Cf. Bohatta (1924) 508; Lacomb 6; Goff H-364.