page_title: Sforza Hours
section_title: Structure and contents
hierarchical_section_title: Sforza Hours / Structure and contents
caption_attribution_description: English: St Mary Magdalene, Sforza Hours (fol.211.v), c.1490, British Library Add. MS 34294
context_page_description: The Sforza Hours, is a richly illuminated book of hours initiated by Bona Sforza, widow of Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan, around 1490, who commissioned the illuminator Giovanni Pietro Birago. The book remained in an unfinished state for 30 years until Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, commissioned its completion in 1517–20 from the artist Gerard Horenbout. The book therefore contains decoration of the highest quality by two artists. It provides a unique example of an early sixteenth-century Northern Renaissance illuminator's response to Milanese art of the late Quattrocento. The history of the Sforza Hours also includes one of the earliest recorded examples of art theft.
context_section_description: The book comprises 348 leaves of vellum. Nearly a third of these are replacements. The book was designed to be easily carried: hence its pages are small, measuring 13.1 x 9.3 cm. It contains 64 full-page miniatures and 140 text pages with decorated borders and small miniatures. Its binding, in dark red Morocco, dates from around 1896.
  Birago's miniatures are in the North Italian antiquarian style of Andrea Mantegna. Horenbout's additions to the Sforza Hours demonstrate a deliberate attempt to adapt his own style to a more Italianate one that would complement Birago's existing illuminations. Horenbout's Saint Mark (fol.10.v), for example, has similar features to Birago's  St Matthew (fol.7.r), such as the Italian Renaissance architectural setting and the scroll in the foreground.  The framing of the miniatures with gold frames with simple mouldings, imitating the wooden frames of contemporary panel paintings, can also be seen in the French Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany of 1503–1508.
caption: St Mary Magdalene by Birago
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