Officium Beatae Mariae Virginis of Maria Antonietta of Savoy
Officium Beatae Mariae Virginis
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus.
Our renderingHail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women.
What it is
An Italian manuscript Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary produced in the second half of the 15th century, attributed to the Flemish illuminator Willem Vrelant by multiple facsimile and art-historical sources. Acquired in 1764 by Carlo Emanuele III of Savoy from the ecclesiastic Sigismond Touttemps, it was subsequently used by his daughter-in-law Maria Antonietta (Maria Antonia Fernanda of Spain, wife of Victor Amadeus III), Queen of Sardinia-Piedmont. The manuscript features 13 full-page miniatures, 13 historiated initials, and 172 decorated initials, depicting scenes of the Annunciation and Lamentation. Now preserved in the Archivio di Stato di Torino—Museo dell'Archivio di Corte (inv. Imago JB.II.34), it remained in active Savoyard court use until the late 18th century.
Why it still matters
The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary is one of the most enduring Christian devotional cycles; this manuscript preserves a Savoyard court version that remains usable today as a framework for structured daily Marian prayer across any of its eight canonical hours.
Kept alongside
Hours of Charlotte of Savoy
Heures de Charlotte de Savoie (Horae ad usum Parisiensem)
This Parisian-use book of hours (Morgan Library MS M.1004) bears the added arms of King Louis XI of France and Charlotte of Savoy, his queen consort, confirming Valois royal ownership; Charlotte (d. 1483) was also the documented owner of Gerson's Montagne de Contemplation. The manuscript contains a full Paris-use devotional cycle: calendar, Gospel sequences, Obsecro te, O intemerata, Hours of the Virgin, Psalter of Jerome, Penitential Psalms, litany, Hours of the Cross, Hours of the Holy Spirit, Office of the Dead, Fifteen Joys of the Virgin, Seven Requests of Our Lord, and masses for major feasts. As a single royal commission subsequently kept within the immediate royal family, it never entered the commercial book trade. Its textual richness — combining the standard offices with the rarer Fifteen Joys and Seven Requests — makes it one of the more devotionally complete manuscripts in the Valois corpus.
Sforza Hours (Book of Hours of Bona of Savoy)
Ore di Bona Sforza
Commissioned around 1490 by Bona of Savoy (1449–c. 1503/1505), daughter of Duke Louis I of Savoy and widow of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, for her personal private devotion. Work ceased c. 1494 when Bona was excluded from Milanese power by Ludovico Sforza; the manuscript passed to Philibert II of Savoy and then, after his death in 1504, to his widow Margaret of Austria, who commissioned Gerard Horenbout to complete it c. 1517–1520. The manuscript contains the Hours of the Virgin, the Cross, and the Holy Spirit; the Seven Penitential Psalms; Office of the Dead; Gospel lessons; Passion narratives; and the Marian prayers Salve Regina, Obsecro Te, and O Intemerata. Now held at the British Library (Add. MS 34294), it is one of the supreme examples of Lombard and Flemish book illumination.
Turin-Milan Hours
Heures de Turin-Milan
A combined Book of Hours, prayer-book, and missal of exceptional quality, belonging to the House of Savoy by 1479, and donated by the House in 1720 to the National Library of Turin. The Turin Hours portion was destroyed in the catastrophic fire of 1904; the surviving Milan Hours portion is now preserved in the Museo d'Arte Antica at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. The manuscript contains Passion narratives, an Office of the Dead, scenes of the Birth of John the Baptist, and the Finding of the True Cross—themes central to Savoyard dynastic and personal piety. Several miniatures attributed to Jan van Eyck, his brother Hubert, or a closely associated master make this among the most artistically significant devotional manuscripts of the early Flemish Renaissance.