Horae ad usum Romanum (Heures à l'usage de Rome) (1498)

Title page with Pigouchet's Adam and Eve device — Title page, hand-coloured on vellum: Pigouchet's printer's mark (Adam and Eve flanking the gridiron-and-monogram shield) above the heading "PHILIPPE PIGOUCHET" and the imprint stating these Hours of the Use of Rome were finished "le viii. iour de Septembre. Lan Mil CCCC.iiii.xx.r.xviii" for Simon Vostre (BnF Arsenal RÉSERVE 4-T-951).

Anatomical / Zodiac Man — The "Anatomie" full-page metalcut: a nude figure (Homo signorum / Zodiac Man) ringed by banderoles linking the parts of the body to the twelve signs, set within Pigouchet's criblé borders of saints and labours.

Office of the Dead page with Danse Macabre borders — A leaf of the Office of the Dead enclosed in the criblé Danse Macabre des hommes borders, the marginal scenes labelled by estate in French (l'amoureux, l'aduocat, le moinne) as Death leads each figure away.

Almanac with criblé borders — The "Almanach pour XX. an" — a perpetual calendar/Easter table giving golden numbers and movable feasts, framed top, side and foot by Pigouchet's dotted-ground metalcut borders.

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The defining French printed Book of Hours, printed by Pigouchet for the publisher Simon Vostre. Every page is locked inside Pigouchet's criblé (dotted-ground) metalcut borders — running the Danse Macabre and Anatomie cycles — around full-page metalcuts after the Master of Anne de Bretagne. The finest copies are hand-rubricated in liquid gold on vellum, fusing text and image into a single jewel-like architecture. This is the 16 Sept. 1498 Use-of-Rome issue; Pigouchet printed at least one earlier 1498 issue (22 Aug.).

Horae ad usum Romanum (Heures à l'usage de Rome)

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