| dc.description.abstract | Printed books of hours, the best-seller of the late medieval trade in books, provide
evidence of an information revolution equal to that occasioned by the Internet today.
The Grey Collection of the National Library in Cape Town possesses eight books of
hours, printed between 1498 and 1530, and they are almost completely unknown. Yet
these valuable incunabula, all of them printed on vellum with hand-painted initials, and
some of them with hand-painted miniatures, are of importance to anybody interested in
books, the history of the book, the dissemination of information, the art of the late 15th
to the early 16th centuries and early printing. They are also religious books, and of value
to people interested in that discipline. The books are therefore eminently suitable as
subjects for transdisciplinary research through which the subjects of history, sociology,
art and religion can be drawn together. Two of these books, printed by Thielman Kerver
in Paris, are discussed in detail in this article. The books are especially remarkable for
their many illustrations that include pictures around the borders of each page as well as
full-page illustrations. The pictures are neither metal cuts nor woodcuts, as were usual in
that period, but relief prints. The most important part of the texts is a sequence of
prayers to the Virgin Mary. Soon after these books were printed , in 1571, Pope Pius V
prohibited the use of all existing books of hours. | en_US |
