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.
Trinity (fol. 1)
Poyer begins the Prayer Book
of Anne de Bretagne with an
image of the Three Persons of
the Holy Trinity, which is a
fundamental doctrine of
Christianity. The picture
illustrates the Our Father.
Poyer's Trinity is unusual.
Instead of differentiating
among the Three Persons:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
he represents each as a
young man with long hair.
Each figure of Poyer's Trinity
holds an orb adorned with a
cross, signifying Christ's
salvation of the world.
