Il libro d’ore in Italia tra confraternite e corti (1275–1349)

The Italian book of hours has traditionally been viewed as a type of book that made its way into the peninsula from Northern Europe, via the Italian courts of the fourteenth century, and was therefore, from its beginnings, a product for the elite. However, careful and systematic examination of surviving manuscript specimens is now revealing, on the contrary, that its origins can be traced back to devotional practices in the Italian comuni of the late thirteenth to mid-fourteenth century, among artisans and merchants, and more generally in the confraternities, which gathered together men and women of diverse social origins, whose attitude to religion was inspired by the new Franciscan spirituality. Detailed research in recent years has been preparing the ground for these conclusions: surviving manuscripts have been identified and dated to the thirteenth century, undermining the claim that they were disseminated only in a later courtly environment. The modest appearance

Ancient history · Archaeology · Elite · Middle Ages · Peninsula · Political science · Politics · Classics · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · History · Law · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies · Renaissance Literature and Culture