ABSTRACT

The Breviary of Anne de Prye is in many ways typical of the illuminated manuscripts produced in late fifteenth-century Poitou. A close inspection of the illuminations reveals that the enduring rivalry between Anne's convent of La Trinité and the neighboring convent of Sainte-Croix motivated some of the patron's iconographic choices. Anne de Prye typifies the provincial lower nobility of later fifteenth-century France. One of six children, she was the daughter of Antoine de Prye and Madeleine d'Amboise. Symbols of ownership, distinction, and identity, coats of arms are especially important and common visual clues for determining patronage in fifteenth-century manuscripts. By adopting as a model of spiritual virtue and birthright a local saint whose cult was newly revitalized, Anne shared in the desire and ambition for self-promotion that was typical of the provincial petty nobility of the late fifteenth century. In Anne, we find a patron who embraced local tradition to an extraordinary degree in order to elaborate her particular message.