The Sforza Hours

The Sforza Hours, in one of the British Library’s outstanding Renaissance treasures. The manuscript was commissioned about 1490 for Bona of Savoy, widow of Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan. It was decorated by Giovan Pitero Birago, a leadingMilanese illuminator much favoured by the ducal court, whose style reflects familiarity with the work of Mantegna and Leonardo da Vinci. Even before work on the book was finished, a number of major illustrated pages had been stolen from Birago’s workshop and the Hours remained incomplete for more than quarter of a century, until it passed into the hands of Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands and Bona’s niece by marriage. In 1519-20 she arranged for the missing pages to be supplied by her own court painter, Gerard Horenbout, one of the most celebrated Flemish book painters of the day.

When the manuscript was presented to the British Museum in 1893 by the Scottish connoisseur and collecter, John Malcolm of Poltalloch, it had already been separated into four parts with the aim of achieving greater ease of handling the document.