W.H. BEUKEN & JAMES H. MARROW
SPIEGEL VAN DEN LEVEN ONS HEREN
(MIRROR OF THE LIFE OF OUR LORD)
Diplomatic Edition of the Text and Facsimile of the 42 Miniatures of a 15th-century Typological Life of Christ in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.

1979. Manuscript: 129 pp. including 42 full-page miniatures
Comment: 99 pp. text and 34 pp of comparative ills.
Cloth bound with miniature in color at front cover.
Printed in an edition of 750 copies
ISBN 90-7028-801-X

   The Spiegel van den Leven ons Heren is apparently a unique illustrated copy of a Middle Dutch typological Life of Christ arranged for meditative prayer. Produced in the Northern Netherlands about 1450, the manuscript provides new evidence of the range of literary and artistic activity in the circles of the Devotio Moderna.
   This publication consists of a diplomatic edition of the text from the only known copy in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, and a facsimile of its 42 miniatures, accompanied by studies of the manuscript, its text and its illustration.
   In his historical and philological introduction, W.H. Beuken describes the codex, analyses its text, and relates it to the tradition of typological interpretations of Christ's life throughout the Middle Ages. Observations on the character of the text, its structure and purpose are combined with detailed notes on its dialect and linguistic peculiarities.
   James H. Marrow studies the cycle of illustration and the artist and his style, reconstructing sources for some of the miniatures, identifying seven other manuscripts illustrated by the artist of the Spiegel, and clarifying his position as an intermediary between styles of illumination in the Northern and Southern Low Countries.