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.
St. Sebastian Shot with Arrows (fol. 16, right)
Traditional iconography depicts
Sebastian tied to a tree, shot
with arrows, and left for dead
by the archers. Sebastian was
popular in the late Middle Ages
and Renaissance because he
protected people from bubonic
plague, a disease without cure
that was widespread in Europe
from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century.
Sebastian did not actually die
from these arrows; St. Irene
removed the weapons and
nursed him back to health.
Sebastian returned to work
for Emperor Diocletian, who
promptly had him clubbed to
death and thrown into the
sewers of Rome.
