The Beatty Rosarium

Bening, Simon

A rosarium codex written in Latin on parchment with miniatures painted by Simon Bening (1483-1561) made between 1540-1545 in Bruges. The codex is bound in a sixteenth-century Spanish gold-tooled leather binding with two metal clasps. A number of its miniatures were removed from the binding and are now housed separately. A rosarium is a collection of devotions dedicated to the Virgin Mary. One of the most conspicuous features of this richly illuminated example is its purple margins, a distinctive mark of royal ownership. Indeed, this illuminated rosarium was commissioned by either the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500–1558) or his son, Philip II, King of Spain (1527–1598). The paintings are the work of Simon Bening, the last of the great masters of Flemish manuscript painting. Bening drew inspiration from his peers, quoting freely from Jan van Eyck and Albrecht Dürer, and he in turn influenced the next generation of artists. The miniatures display a remarkable consistency of palette, composition and brushstroke. This work has been described as the culmination of Bening’s study of landscapes, exhibiting his superlative attention to detail and his distinctive command of atmospheric far distances.