Book of Hours of Queen Leonor of Portugal
Livro de Horas da Rainha D. Leonor
Dilexi quoniam exaudiet Dominus vocem orationis meae.
Our renderingI love, because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer.
What it is
Commissioned for Eleanor of Viseu (1458–1525), Queen Consort of Portugal and sister of King Manuel I, probably as a wedding gift on her marriage to the future King John II around 1471. Produced in the Bruges workshop of Willem Vrelant, it is a masterpiece of the grisaille technique — figures rendered in fine grey shading heightened with gold leaf — containing the Hours of the Virgin, an Office of the Dead, and narrative scenes of the Annunciation, Nativity, Passion, and Last Judgment. Eleanor later founded the Convent of Madre de Deus (1509), to which the manuscript passed on her death; it is now held at the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (BNP II.165). The manuscript stands as a paradigm of northern European devotional luxury brought into Portuguese royal piety.
Why it still matters
The structured Office of the Dead within this manuscript offers a complete and unhurried liturgical form for prayer on behalf of the faithful departed, still usable in its Latin text alongside any modern translation; its grisaille imagery encourages a sober, meditative engagement with mortality appropriate to All Souls devotion.
Kept alongside
Vita Christi (Portuguese translation commissioned by Eleanor of Viseu)
Vita Jesu Christi Redemptoris nostri / Vita Christi em lingoagem portuguesa
The Vita Christi of Ludolph of Saxony — a massive 14th-century meditation on the life of Christ, drawing on Scripture, the Church Fathers, and Carthusian contemplative practice — was translated into Portuguese and printed in four volumes beginning in 1495, at the commission of Eleanor of Viseu (1458–1525), Queen of Portugal, who is credited with introducing the printing press to Portugal through this patronage. The printers were the German craftsmen Valentino de Moravia and Nicholas of Saxony. This translation made the foundational text of affective Christ-centered spirituality available to the Portuguese court and literate laity; the same Latin text shaped the conversion of Ignatius of Loyola and influenced the development of Ignatian meditation. It remains one of the longest and most comprehensive gospel meditations ever assembled.
Da Costa Hours
Horas da Costa
Illuminated in Ghent c. 1515 by Simon Bening — the last great master of the Flemish manuscript tradition — the Da Costa Hours is among the most celebrated Books of Hours to survive. Heraldic evidence confirms original commission for a member of the Portuguese Sá family; traditional provenance records a gift from Pope Leo X to King Manuel I of Portugal in 1514 and subsequent presentation to his chamberlain Álvaro da Costa, though this narrative is reported by facsimile publishers and is not independently confirmed by the Morgan Library's catalog. The manuscript's 75 full-page miniatures include a revolutionary full-page calendar cycle depicting the labors of the months. It contains the Hours of the Virgin and the Office of the Dead for the Roman rite. Now at the Morgan Library (MS M.399).
Book of Hours said to be of King Dom Manuel I
Livro de Horas de D. Manuel I
A Portuguese illuminated Book of Hours held at the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (MNAA), Lisbon, long attributed to King Manuel I (r. 1495–1521) on the basis of heraldic and iconographic evidence. Scholars believe the scenes illustrating the Service for the Dead were completed under his son João III (r. 1521–1557), suggesting the manuscript spans the transition between two Manueline reigns. A related manuscript in the MNAA — the Book of Hours of D. Fernando or D. Catarina — was illuminated by Gerard Horenbout's workshop, linking Portuguese royal Books of Hours to the wider Habsburg-Savoyard network of court piety that stretched across northern Europe and the Iberian peninsula. The manuscript situates Manueline imperial confidence within the traditional rhythm of Marian and liturgical devotion.