dc.description.abstract | The Petite Hours of Jean, Duke of Berry contains a set of vernacular texts which
were arranged in the same order as in the Psalter of Bonne of Luxemburg. Though
these illustrated portions share the same ideas, the iconography of their illuminations
is quite different. This paper explores visual solutions employed in the miniatures
of the Three Living and Three Dead and their relationships with the surrounding
marginal imagery. Following the trail set by the new iconology, special
emphasis is placed on the representation of a wild man in the Petite Hours arguing
that this image altered the viewer’s experience of the main illumination, making it
similar to the response toward the page in the prayer book of the duke’s mother,
Bonne of Luxemburg.
The miniatures of the Three Living and Three Dead in both manuscripts, though
markedly different, share the distinctive characteristics typical of the iconography
developed south of the Alps. These Italian features highlight the gradual process
of physical decomposition in order to emphasize the horrors of decay. Thereby,
the viewers of both manuscripts were invited to contemplate their own mortality.
However, more often than not, the macabre imagery in lay devotional books was
employed to remind the owners to pray for the souls of their ancestors and other
deceased family members. It has been remarked that the coats of arms placed
near the illumination of the Legend in the Psalter of Bonne of Luxemburg fulfilled
the role of the reminders. Yet this layer of meaning cannot be read from the representation
of the Three Living and Three Dead in the Petites Hours unless the
marginal image of the wild man is taken into consideration. Being the frivolous
creature of medieval folklore that inhabits places far from the ordered Christian
civilized world, the sacred duty to pray for the dead was unknown to the homme
sauvage. Therefore, this marginal figure in connection with the image and text of
the Legend was designed as an anti-model for the pious viewer, who was reminded
not only of his own mortality, but of his responsibility towards the dead ancestors
as well. | sr |