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![A Charming Discovery: Florentine Book of Hours](https://artlogic-res.cloudinary.com/w_1400,h_1240,c_limit,f_auto,fl_lossy,q_65/ws-guntherrarebooks/usr/images/artworks/main_image/items/40/409b3964d0ff4974b352d80946cca61a/hours_florence_c1475-90_13r.jpg)
Book of Hours, use of Rome,
Illuminated manuscript on vellum written in Latin.
Italy, Florence, c. 1475-1490.
![](/lib/archimedes/images/shim.gif)
Book of Hours, use of Rome,
Illuminated manuscript on vellum written in Latin. Italy, Florence, c. 1475-1490.
![](/lib/archimedes/images/shim.gif)
Book of Hours, use of Rome,
Illuminated manuscript on vellum written in Latin. Italy, Florence, c. 1475-1490.
![](/lib/archimedes/images/shim.gif)
Book of Hours, use of Rome,
Illuminated manuscript on vellum written in Latin. Italy, Florence, c. 1475-1490.
![](/lib/archimedes/images/shim.gif)
Book of Hours, use of Rome,
Illuminated manuscript on vellum written in Latin. Italy, Florence, c. 1475-1490.
![](/lib/archimedes/images/shim.gif)
Book of Hours, use of Rome,
Illuminated manuscript on vellum written in Latin. Italy, Florence, c. 1475-1490.
![](/lib/archimedes/images/shim.gif)
Book of Hours, use of Rome,
Illuminated manuscript on vellum written in Latin. Italy, Florence, c. 1475-1490.
![](/lib/archimedes/images/shim.gif)
Book of Hours, use of Rome,
Illuminated manuscript on vellum written in Latin. Italy, Florence, c. 1475-1490.
![](/lib/archimedes/images/shim.gif)
Book of Hours, use of Rome,
Illuminated manuscript on vellum written in Latin. Italy, Florence, c. 1475-1490.
![](/lib/archimedes/images/shim.gif)
This work is now sold.
Decorated with luxurious white-vine-stem ornamentation and seven unusual historiated initials in full borders, this small volume is light and manageable. Its size suggests that it was intended as a travel prayer book for its owner, possibly a learned member of the Dominican order. Another notable aspect of this newly-discovered Book of Hours is its design and layout, both so unconventional for a devotional manuscript that one is tempted to surmise that the scribe and illuminator were usually engaged in the production of literary and humanistic works.