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.
Sts. Liphard and Urbicius (fol. 23v, left)
St. Liphard is identified as an
abbot in chasuble (the ornate
vestment worn by the priest at
Mass) and miter (liturgical
headdress) he wears as well
as the crozier (symbolic staff)
he is holding. He offers a
blessing from a book held by a
monk who is probably meant to
be St. Urbicius.
Urbicius was the sole companion with whom Liphard had
retired in solitude and who
succeeded Liphard as head of
the religious community that
came into being around the two
at Meung-sur-Loire.
