The Whitney Hours

The Whitney Hours was a lavishly illuminated manuscript, use of Rouen. As hypothesised in this investigation, it was produced for Louis I de Bigars, Seigneur de La Londe, on the occasion of the birth of his first male heir in 1508.

Louis I de Bigars was one of King Louis XII's captains, at the head of the French fleet during the Neapolitan campaign, and among the leaders of the city of Rouen.

The manuscript, hitherto unknown to scholars, is the work of Robert Boyvin, who ran one of the largest ateliers in the city from the end of the 15th century to the beginning of the following century, and of Jean Serpin, an expert border decorator.

Auctioned at Skinner's in 2017, this Book of Hours was purchased by a well-known US biblioclast dealer, who dismembered it, and resold single leaves from that date onwards.

By applying the WayBack Recovery Method, Nancy Impellizzeri has found 100% of the manuscript’s iconographic cycle and 90 per cent of the text leaves, thus digitally reconstructing the book and providing a virtual facsimile edition.