Hubert” (Hours of Pierre de Bosredont, about 1465), a crucifix appears between the antlers of a hunted stag. In an illustration for “The Miracle of St. A twist on the Annunciation, from a Book of Hours (Utrecht, about 1500), shows Gabriel driving the unicorn into the Virgin’s lap with the help of two hunting dogs. At the Morgan, several illuminated books fuse hunting imagery with religious iconography. The stag season, for instance, began on the feast day of the discovery of the True Cross. Hunts were coordinated with the calendar of feast days. It affirmed man’s superiority over the animal kingdom at the same time, it demanded the cooperation of highly trained dogs and falcons. For Phoebus and other noblemen hunting was a sport, an art and a game of chance. The jewel-toned miniatures (by an unidentified illuminator) reveal the extraordinary effort, discipline, skill, timing and etiquette of the medieval hunt. Voelkle, head of the department of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts.Ī leaf from Le Livre de la Chasse, by Gaston Phoebus. Fifty leaves from Phoebus’s manuscript are on view in “Illuminating the Medieval Hunt” at the Morgan, along with other manuscripts and printed books from the 11th to the 16th century, in a show curated by William M. (The other is in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.) As part of a conservation effort, the Morgan’s copy has been temporarily unbound, affording viewers a rare opportunity to study the individual pages. The Morgan Library & Museum’s copy of “Le Livre de la Chasse,” lavishly illuminated with 87 miniatures, is one of the two finest surviving examples. The one is arms, the next is love, and the other is hunting.” He added, “There have been far better masters of the two former than I am.”Īn expert hunter, Phoebus wrote the detailed manuscript “Le Livre de la Chasse.” Dedicated to his fellow sportsman Philip the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy, and later owned by King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella, it became popular throughout Continental Europe and England and was widely translated under the title “Master of the Game.” The 14th-century French nobleman Gaston Phoebus summarized his life’s achievements: “I have delighted all my days in three things.
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