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 Matthias and the Prophet Ezekiel (fol. 7v, left)
Matthias reads from an open
copy of the New Testament;
Ezekiel points to the words
on his scroll, Evigila(bunt)
om(ne)s ali (All shall awake,
others . . . ).
Matthias is always last among
the Apostles because he was
chosen from the seventy-two
disciples to restore to twelve
the number of the Apostles
after Judas's betrayal and
suicide.
Poyer employs the letters
A, N, and E in regular patterns
surrounding all the miniatures;
the letters spell the first name
of the patron, Anne de Bretagne.
The letters of the border are
enmeshed within interlacing
strands of the cordelière, a
personal device of Anne's
referring to the cords St. Francis
of Assisi wrapped around his
torso to remind him of those
that had bound Christ.
The Supper at Emmaus (fol. 8, right)
The two disciples with Christ
raise their hands in pious
surprise and awe as they
recognize their newly resurrected Savior after he has
blessed, broken, and shared
bread with them in the village
of Emmaus.
Poyer's rendering of a prayerful
moment before eating, a
subject often painted on walls
of monastic refectories in the
Middle Ages and Renaissance,
illustrates the prayer Grace
before Meals accompanying
this miniature.
The three figures wear pilgrim
hats (although Christ and the
disciple at the right have
thrown theirs back on their
shoulders) like that worn by
the Apostle James the Major.
