mheu, Historical Museum of the Urban Environment

The artists

Lay people in the Middle Ages used a book of hours, a kind of religious calendar composed of texts devoted to each liturgical hour of the day, accompanied by prayers and psalms, to pray at any time of the day. They became very popular in the 15th century when miniaturist painters would illustrate them with magnificent illuminations. Of all the books in existence, the one made for the Duc de Berry at the beginning of the 15th century by the Limbourg brothers, three artists from Flanders, is undoubtedly the most sumptuous. Little is known about the Limbourgs: they worked for the Duke of Burgundy, Charles le Chauve, entered into the service of the Duc de Berry around 1408, and succumbed to the plague in 1416.