This prayer book was commissioned by Anne de Bretagne, wife of two successive kings of France, Charles VIII and Louis XII, to teach her son, the dauphin Charles-Orland (1492–1495), his catechism. It was painted in Tours by Jean Poyer, an artist documented as working for the queen. The book is richly illustrated, and its thirty-four airy, light-flooded miniatures are among the most delicate examples of late-fifteenth-century art.
The Apostle Simon and the Prophet Sophonias (fol. 5v, left)
Poyer skillfully depicts Simon
and Sophonias in a subtly
dramatic moment, in which the
prophet sternly gestures to the
cautious Apostle.
Sophonias's scroll is appropriate
for his serious demeanor and
gesture of warning. Inscribed
"I will come to you in judgement,"
the words prophesize Christ's
judgment of humankind on the
Last Day, also the theme of the
accompanying Article of Faith.
The scroll attributes the text to
Sophonias, when it was actually
written by the prophet Malachi;
this is one of many such
mistakes of textual attribution.
The Apostle James the Minor and the Prophet Joel (fol. 6, right)
James, the first bishop of
Jerusalem, stands with the
club with which he was beaten
to death, and a book of the
New Testament in a barren
landscape with the prophet
Joel.
James was clubbed to death
with a fuller's bat (a club used
to full, or cleanse, cloth by
beating) after he was thrown
from the parapet of the Temple
in Jerusalem. He was perceived
as a threat becausehe had
converted so many Jews to
Christianity.
The bound book that James
(like Peter, Bartholomew, and
Matthias) holds contrasts with
Joel's scroll. In medieval and
Renaissance art, roll and codex
often represent the Jewish
Old Testament and the Christian
New Law.
