Missal of Barbara of Brandenburg (Messale di Barbara di Brandeburgo)
Per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen. Dominus vobiscum. Et cum spiritu tuo.
Our renderingFor ever and ever. Amen. The Lord be with you. And with your spirit.
What it is
A magnificently illuminated missal — the mass-book for the Eucharist — commissioned by Gianlucido Gonzaga in 1442 and continued after his death in 1448 under the personal direction of Barbara of Brandenburg, consort of Marquis Ludovico III Gonzaga. Barbara herself hired Girolamo da Cremona at the recommendation of Andrea Mantegna to complete the sixty-eight miniatures, writing that he was 'a young man who illuminates very well.' The manuscript introduces the nine principal feasts with half-page miniatures and contains over two thousand decorated initials. Originally intended for the cathedral of San Pietro at Mantua, it was finally donated to the church in 1554 by Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga and remains in the Mantua Cathedral to this day.
Why it still matters
The Tridentine and Ordinary Form Mass texts still echo the prayers in this missal almost verbatim; praying through the ordinary of the Mass alongside this historic text deepens appreciation for the Eucharistic liturgy.
Kept alongside
Thomas à Kempis: De Imitatione Christi (The Imitation of Christ)
Perhaps the most widely read Christian devotional work after the Bible, the Imitation of Christ counsels interior piety, Eucharistic devotion, and detachment from worldly ambition — values promoted at both the Wittelsbach Counter-Reformation court and in Erasmian Lutheran circles in Saxony. The Jesuits recommended it throughout their German mission work, making it a standard text in the Bavarian court milieu under Albert V and William V; Luther himself was formed in the Devotio Moderna tradition from which it springs. No single Wettin or Wittelsbach ownership record has been located, and the dual-house listing reflects the near-universal presence of the text in every German Catholic and Erasmian Protestant court of the period rather than documented patronage.
Hours of Isabella d'Este
An exquisite Florentine Book of Hours made for Isabella d'Este (1474–1539), daughter of Ercole I d'Este, upon her marriage to Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua in 1490. The four full-page miniatures and countless decorated initials were executed by the Florentine brothers Gherardo and Monte di Giovanni del Fora; the Annunciation miniature consciously echoes a painting by Leonardo and Verrocchio now in the Uffizi. The arms of both the Este and Gonzaga families appear on an illuminated double page at the Hours of the Virgin, confirming the manuscript's personal provenance for Isabella at the Gonzaga court. Isabella was among the most cultivated women of the Renaissance and used her private chapel and library for sustained devotional practice.
Pier Paolo Vergerio, De ingenuis moribus et liberalibus studiis (On Noble Character and Liberal Studies)
The most influential Renaissance educational treatise, written by Pier Paolo Vergerio and explicitly adopted by Vittorino da Feltre at the Casa Giocosa — the school Vittorino founded at the court of Gianfrancesco I Gonzaga in 1423. Vergerio argues that formation in virtue, piety, and letters is the foundation of the Christian gentleman; the curriculum he outlines (which Vittorino implemented for the Gonzaga children) integrates scriptural study, moral philosophy, physical discipline, and devotional practice. The treatise saw more than forty editions by 1600 and is documented as the theoretical backbone of the Gonzaga educational program, making it a formation text for every Gonzaga heir educated by Vittorino from about 1423 onward.