TheGrandes Heuresof Anne de Bretagne with its well-known naturalistic borders is one of her few manuscript commissions for which payment documents survive (Figure 1).¹ In the mandate, signed and dated at Blois on 14 March 1508 (n.s.), the queen requested hertrésorier généralRaoul Hurault to pay 1,050livres tournoisin 600écus d’orfrom her dowry revenue of the current year to Jean Bourdichon of Tours (1457–1521) ‘pour le recompenser de ce qu’il nous a richement et sumptueusement historié et enlumyné unes grans Heures pour nostre usaige et service’.² That Bourdichon, painter to Kings Louis XI,...

Anne de Bretagne’s patronage of the arts has attracted much scholarly interest. In particular, her relationship with contemporary authors and her love of books have been the subject of sustained research. The large number of surviving books (both manuscript and printed) that she owned or that were dedicated to her represent a treasure trove for those studying the initial decades of the French Renaissance. She acted as a protector and patron to authors such as Antoine Dufour, André de la Vigne, Jean Lemaire de Belges – who dedicated hisTiers livre des illustrations de Gaule et singularitez de Troyeto...

The subject of this article is the emphasis placed upondoctrineby the Parisian publisher Anthoine Vérard in the 1497 edition of Christine de Pizan’sTrésor de la cité des dames[Treasury of the City of Ladies] that he dedicated to Anne de Bretagne. This emphasis is noticeable both at the beginning of the text and in the dedication miniature heading that text. I am interested in the ways in which Vérard reframes Christine’s original use ofdoctrinein order to promote his own commercial success. The reigning expert on Vérard, Mary Beth Winn, observes that with over 280 editions...

In 1504, Antoine Dufour, a Dominican at the French court, offered a book containing the lives of famous women to Anne, duchess of Brittany and queen of France. This beautiful manuscript is preserved in the Musée Dobrée in Nantes.¹ In 1506, it was illuminated by Jean Pichore, an artist managing a workshop in Paris.² According to the prologue, Dufour was complying with Anne’s desire when he undertook to write his collection and she probably chose Jean Pichore, who was already quite famous,³ as the illustrator.

Compiling lives of famous women is no original endeavor at the beginning of the sixteenth century.⁴...

A small prayer book belonging to Anne de Bretagne is now housed in the Newberry Library in Chicago (MS 83).¹ This manuscript is relatively unknown, having been eclipsed by some of Anne’s more lavish commissions, notably theGrandes Heures, richly illuminated by Jean Bourdichon around 1503–08.² This essay offers a closer look at Anne’s prayer book, exploring its contents in the context of her roles as duchess of Brittany, queen of France and potential mother to the heirs of both realms. Three aspects of the manuscript will be examined in particular: the emphasis on penitence and indulgences, the prayers...

As queen of France and duchess of Brittany, Claude de France (r.1515–24) ostensibly possessed the same politico-cultural stature as her mother, Anne de Bretagne (r.1491–98, 1499–1514), who earlier bore the same titles. While we know little about the actual relationship between Anne and Claude,¹ their sharing of cultural space, a unique circumstance in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, can be measured through an examination of their joint appearance in contemporary books. One of the earliest known images of the princess and her mother decorates the king’s copy of Petrarch’sRemèdes de l’une ou l’autre Fortune(BnF MS ffr....

The profile of Claude de France has long been at a discouraging low amongst French queens. Although pictured an uncommon number of times as a child or youth, her adult face is particularly hard to grasp: Henri Pigaillem’s 2006 monograph sports on its cover, tellingly, a portrait of someone other than the queen.¹ Historians have had trouble tracing the contours of Claude’s queenly persona, too.² Even in Nantes, where the cult of Anne de Bretagne overflows into the streets and squares, the 2007 exhibition dedicated to the history and myth of the queen-duchess cast a rather somber light on the...

Behind the windows, the dark blue sky hardly reveals that it is Christmas Eve 1508 (Cover Illustration) (BnF, Rés Velins 2780, frontispiece). A few courtiers luxuriously clothed witness the symbolic exchange by the entrance gate. A female audience in no less colorful guise attends the scene at the side of the queen. Anne sits on a canopied throne covered by a grey cloth decorated with ermines. Her royal coat of blue azure with goldenfleurs de liscreates a striking contrast with her gold dress and her black Breton cap surmounted by an open lilied crown. The author kneels before...

Anne de Bretagne’s role as a stateswoman has never been adequately examined. Yet the manner in which she conceived and defended a political project, namely the perpetuation of the autonomy of the duchy that she had inherited, is of vital importance to an understanding of her reign. It is particularly instructive to see how she defended this project coherently over a considerable period of time, especially during her second marriage, when her freedom of action was greater than it had been at an earlier time.

Anne has suffered recently at the hands of a number of biographers who have had...

The pursuit of order and the eruption of discord are recurrent themes in the life of Anne de Bretagne that cast light on her character, her tastes, her comportment, and her aspirations. Like Anne’s contemporaries, modern biographers have paid far more attention to Anne’s virtues, piety, and positive accomplishments than to her frustrations and failures. Order has been given precedence over the disruptive elements and events in her life: the questionable circumstances of her two marriages; her inability to preserve Breton independence; her failure to produce a male heir; the indecorum of her first husband’s funeral; the pretentiousness of her...