# The Black Prayer Book [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [MINIATURIST, Flemish]() - Date: 1451-1500 - Technique: Manuscript \(Codex Vindobonensis 1856\), 250 x 176 mm ## Commentary This codex contains the Book of Hours according to the use of Rome. Its individual leaves are kept separately between acrylic glass panes in order to maintain their present state of conservation. The aggressive chemical reaction of the black dye with the parchment made this a necessity. The copy located in Vienna is the richest and most sumptuous example, although not the only one of its kind: six other manuscript made in the same manner are known. They can all be dated to the third quarter of the 15th century and located in Bruges. The open double page \(folios 32v and 33r\) shows the four Evangelists in the miniature on the left, accompanied by their symbols: Mark and the lion, Matthew and the angel, Luke and the bull and John with the eagle. The vignettes in the borders show a hairy wild man on a grotesque imaginary animal and a strange figure fighting an equally bizarre dragon. the text page opposite begins with the introductory words of St John's Gospel: "In principio erat verbum" \(In the beginning was the word\). The vignette in the right-hand border depicts St John on Patmos, where he had his vision of the Apocalypse. The round device below illustrates a Flemish proverb. Formerly it was thought that the miniatures are by Philippe de Mazerolles \(c. 1420-1479\), Flemish court illuminator to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. ## Related artworks - [Apocalypse]() - [Boccaccio: Des cas des ruynes des nobles hommes et femmes]() - [Boethius: De consolatione philosophiae]() - [Book of Hours \(La Flora\)]() - [Book of Hours \(La Flora\)]() - [Book of Hours of Isabella of Castile]() - [Book of Hours of Isabella of Castile]() - [Book of Hours of Marie of Gueldern]() - [Book of Hours of Marie of Gueldern]() - [Book of Hours]() - [Book of Hours]() - [Book of Hours]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()