Grimani Breviary

All the images facing the calendar are intended to highlight, in court life, the differences between the urban world of the lords and the rural world of the peasants in their service.

Here a solemn banquet is taking place, where the rich lord is seated in the middle of the table and all around him his servants can be seen busy with their various tasks. The table is impeccably laid and the room contains ornaments and furnishings that immediately bring to mind the idea of wealth and luxury.

At the top, the signs of the month, Capricorn and Aquarius and in the centre, the symbol of Providence. All the signs of the zodiac described in the calendar indicate the limits within which God governs, through the motions of the stars, the works and days of mankind. In the borders, as we shall see in each month, the most important feasts and the tasks to be carried out are depicted.

Below, a tournament is depicted, in which the banners of Flanders and of the Habsburgs bear clear witness to the long struggle for the freedom of the Low Countries.

This scene, extremely poetic and melancholy, has the immediate power to bring out the poverty in which the peasants were forced to live, but, at the same time, manages to give off a pleasant sense of warmth, which emanates from the pantheistic contact established between the peasants and nature.

At the top are the signs of Aquarius and Pisces.

Below, from right to left, a woodcutter, some children playing on the ice and a man carrying wood.

Here the scene seems almost to take on a political value. One can in fact recognise, from top to bottom, a definite social hierarchy. Starting, for example, from the foreground and moving into the depth of the picture, one gradually sees the peasants tending the flock, sowing, digging and hoeing the soil, and ploughing, until one reaches the almost rarefied vision of a city. It is clear that this verticalisation derives from a variant of Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s conception of “Good Government” concerning the relationship between town and countryside.

At the top are the signs of Pisces and Aries.

Below, scenes representing night fishing, with splendid “candle-light” pictorial effects.

This image, where the main scene is the wedding procession, is rich in symbolic elements. In the background there emerge, like visions, spires recalling the landscapes of Van Eyck, in the distance a boat can be seen that suggests a long voyage and, on the left, a minstrel holding a frog, a symbol of good fortune.

The whole scene is dominated by the chariot of time, which determines, through the stars, earthly events.

At the top are the signs of Aries and Taurus.

It is above all here that the chariot, drawn by winged horses, reveals its true meaning, namely that of the triumph of Eternity. It dominates the scene of the festival, in which the cavalcade of couples through the woods recalls, through the depiction of the horses, lined up and foaming, the memory of Pisanello and Van Eyck.

The signs are those of Taurus and Gemini.

Below, a cheerful scene representing milking.

Once again the glorious vision of a northern city appears in the distance, looming over the work of the peasants, busy haymaking. Some men are mowing the grass and, to their left, the women spread the grass so that it dries in the sun.

At the top are the signs of Gemini and Cancer.

Below, the two scenes depicting river fishing and heron hunting.

In the scene one first notices two men intent on shearing sheep, watched over by a bailiff. In the middle ground, the reaping of the corn, which, lit by the sunlight, seems almost to give off warmth. In the distance, dominating and threatening, rise the buildings of the city.

The signs are Cancer and Leo.

Below, a curious scene of ducks grazing on the bank of a river.

In this image too, which depicts the setting off for the wild boar hunt, the artist highlights the difference between the ladies and rich lords, recognisable because they are on horseback and sumptuously dressed, and the servants, who walk beside them together with the dogs. All this is reinforced by the looming view of the city in the distance. Worthy of note is the sharp characterisation of the breeds of the dogs, which in this way become fundamental protagonists of the scene.

The signs are Leo and Virgo.

Below, two peasants tired from reaping, depicted in different ways. One is struggling to quench his thirst and the other, lying down, seeking a little rest.

The predominant image in this case is that of the peasants busy with the grape harvest in a vineyard at the foot of a castle. In the distance, on the right, other peasants can be seen picking fruit from the trees, fleetingly spied on by a figure, barely perceptible, at the window.

The signs are those of Virgo and Libra.

The scenes below represent, in one, the interior of a barber’s shop, which, evidently, also practised the rudiments of surgery, and in the other, a woman busy milking a goat.

The scene is rich in elements. In the background, the mass of the city seems almost to be separated from the rural surroundings by a circuit of walls rising along the river. On this side of the walls all the servants are at work: the washerwomen busy on the riverbank, some men intent on hauling boats and, in the foreground, the organised work of sowing. On the left a peasant is hoeing the soil, another on the right is sowing the corn and a third, with a bow, is intent on hunting the crows that are ready to peck at the corn.

At the top, the signs of Libra and Scorpio.

The three scenes below represent three kinds of bird hunting: the one with a net, for quails, the one with a decoy, in which a caged animal is placed to attract the birds and, finally, the one with a falcon.

This time there are two dominant scenes. In the foreground a herd of pigs devouring the acorns knocked down from the oaks by the peasants. In the middle ground, beyond a stream, a night patrol hunting hares. In this plate too one notices the great mastery with which the artist manages to delineate the breeds of the animals and to bring out their characteristics.

The signs are those of Scorpio and Sagittarius.

Below, the scene represents, in all its nuances, the feast of St. Martin, a typical folk festival in the Low Countries.

In the foreground, in the centre, is a wild boar brought down and seized by a large number of dogs, which the servants are busy holding back to prevent it from being torn to pieces. On the right a man is blowing a horn to tell the scattered hunters that the hunt is over. The city appears rarefied in the background.

The signs, closing the calendar, are those of Sagittarius and Capricorn.

Below, the preparation of the slain boar for butchering is described. One can see, in fact, a man burning its bristles. On the right, instead, a housewife is shown baking bread together with her daughter.