DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45257#0257
SPINOLA OWNED TRES RICHES HEURES 163
Comte Paul Durrieu identifies the THs Riches
Heures with a MS. mentioned also in an Inventory
of 1523 as “ une grande heure escript e a la main','
whereby it can be explained how the Grimani
Breviary' executed about the end of the sixteenth
century, and other Flemish MSS. have obviously
taken this famous Codex as a model ; and even in
some points copied it very closely.
When Margaret of Austria died in 1530 the
volume passed into the hands of one of her executors,
Jean Buffant, Treasurer to the Emperor Charles V;
and from that time there occurs a gap which even Paul
Durrieu has so far been unable to fill. The present
binding of red morocco leather belongs to the
eighteenth century and bears the coat-of-arms of
the Spinola family, which points strongly to the
probability that the volume also once belonged
to the celebrated General Spinola, who captured
the town of Breda—an historical event immortal-
ised by Velasquez. From the Spinolas it came
into the family of the Sevres, a fact proved by
another coat-of-arms amongst the illuminations ;
and from a member of that family it was acquired
by the Due d’Aumale, by whom it was deposited
at Chantilly.
From this amazing list of MSS. we may see that
nearly all the important books and manuscripts
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are repre-
sented at Chantilly. Some portions of the collec-
tion go back to the old Montmorency and Conde
1 Cf. p. 168.
Comte Paul Durrieu identifies the THs Riches
Heures with a MS. mentioned also in an Inventory
of 1523 as “ une grande heure escript e a la main','
whereby it can be explained how the Grimani
Breviary' executed about the end of the sixteenth
century, and other Flemish MSS. have obviously
taken this famous Codex as a model ; and even in
some points copied it very closely.
When Margaret of Austria died in 1530 the
volume passed into the hands of one of her executors,
Jean Buffant, Treasurer to the Emperor Charles V;
and from that time there occurs a gap which even Paul
Durrieu has so far been unable to fill. The present
binding of red morocco leather belongs to the
eighteenth century and bears the coat-of-arms of
the Spinola family, which points strongly to the
probability that the volume also once belonged
to the celebrated General Spinola, who captured
the town of Breda—an historical event immortal-
ised by Velasquez. From the Spinolas it came
into the family of the Sevres, a fact proved by
another coat-of-arms amongst the illuminations ;
and from a member of that family it was acquired
by the Due d’Aumale, by whom it was deposited
at Chantilly.
From this amazing list of MSS. we may see that
nearly all the important books and manuscripts
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are repre-
sented at Chantilly. Some portions of the collec-
tion go back to the old Montmorency and Conde
1 Cf. p. 168.