Vision of St Peter of Luxemburg from the Coëtivy Hours

Dunois Master, attributed to

Folio with three-quarter page miniature from a book of hours attributed to the Dunois Master, written in Latin and French in a bastarda script, made in Paris and dated 1443–1445. It was commissioned by Prigent de Coëtivy (1399?–1450) on the occasion of his marriage to Marie de Rais (1429–1457). The folio was removed from the bound volume between 1933 and 1960. Beneath rubrics in red, a prayer to St Peter of Luxembourg opens with the illuminated initial ‘R’ (Regali ex progenie sancti Petrus de Luxembourg) painted with white, red, blue and gold ivy-leaf ornament. It is one of an unusually large series of forty-seven suffrages, or short prayers to saints, arranged hierarchically. The section opens with a number of prefatory prayers, followed by the Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors and Virgins. The miniature is painted in demi-grisaille with pigments and gold and depicts the Vision of St Peter of Luxembourg (1369–1387). In a gilded oratory or chapel, Peter kneels before an altar upon which rests an open book and his red cardinal’s galero (wide-brimmed hat), looking toward a vision of the Crucifixion. On the right, an angel holds the crest of Luxembourg, a lion rampant, surmounted by the saint’s galero (wide-brimmed hat) and tassels. In 1384, Peter was made bishop of Metz and then cardinal by the antipope Clement VII. When he was forced from Metz by those loyal to Urban VI, the pope in Rome, Peter moved to Clement’s court at Avignon. He died at the age of 18 at Villeneuve from extreme austerity, presumably anorexia. While he was not officially beatified until 1527, he was named the patron saint of Avignon in 1432. A hybrid musician plays a pipe in the lower margin.