uwmspeccoll:Staff Pick of the WeekThis week,Hayley chose to share this miniature copy of Officium Be
uwmspeccoll:Staff Pick of the WeekThis week,Hayley chose to share this miniature copy of Officium Beatae Mariae Viriginis, which translates as Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary or the Little Office of Our Lady. Also known as the Hours of the Virgin, the text is a liturgical devotion dedicated to the Virgin Mary, containing a cycle of psalms, hymns, and passages from scripture. While the practice of reciting the Hours of the Virgin developed in the monastic community, it came to be recited by devout members of the laity, even after the Protestant Reformation. This text was one of the core texts of the Book of Hours, another popular medieval devotional. According to scholar R. W. Scribner, Cologne, the city where this text was printed, was the one of the imperial cities which “never experienced a crisis of faith, nor deviated from the path of Catholic orthodoxy.”*The title page indicates that this particular text was printed “apud Viduam Petri Meucheri”: that is, by the widow of Peter Meucher. Meucher was a printer active in Cologne, Germany between 1651 and 1660 according to the European Consortium of Research Libraries. Meucher primarily printed devotional texts, including Thomas à Kempis’s De Imitatione Christi (The Imitation of Christ) in 1652 and a German-language edition of medieval mystic Johannes Tauler’s Dess Hoch erleuchten in 1660. Given that Officium Beatae Mariae Virignis was printed in 1664, it appears that Meucher’s widow ran his printing business until at least that date.The Officium Beatae Mariae Virginis has several details typical of early printed books, including an engraved title page, and catchwords and signature marks to assist the binder in binding the pages in the correct order. The book is printed in black and red ink, traditional printing colors. The printer, in this case, put the colors to good use; in the liturgy portion of the text, all text describing the actions taken during worship is described in red, while all text spoken by the priest and congregants are printed in black.Most interesting of these details are the etched illustrations. Calendar pages are decorated with seasonal images, showing people sowing seeds, harvesting, and crushing grapes. Other woodcuts feature scenes from the life of Jesus Christ related to feast days, including his birth, crucifixion, and resurrection. The four canonical Gospel writers are depicted with their traditional symbols: St. Matthew and a man or angel; St. Mark with a winged lion; St. Luke with a bovine; and St. John with an eagle. Each author is holding a pen and contemplating an empty book. These images hearken back to what are known as author pages in medieval gospel manuscripts. Author pages feature the gospel writer and his symbol, often holding a pen over a scroll or book. These scrolls and books are always blank, as the evangelist has not yet begun writing the story. The story begins as soon as the reader turns the page. I wanted to highlight this book because it illuminates the role of women in printing; not only is a widow running her husband’s print shop, she also is publishing a text venerating a holy woman. I also was drawn to the minute etchings, particularly the Gospel images, which connect seventeenth century printing and medieval manuscript production.Find this tiny devotional work in the catalog here.*Scribner, R.W. “Why Was There No Reformation in Cologne?” Historical Research 49, no. 120 . -- source link