The prayer book is a small but precious booklet. Handmade on parchment with rich painterly decoration of miniatures, borders and initials in tempera and gold. A unique work owned by Queen Bona Sforza.

A short history of the prayer book

It was created in the 16th century in Kraków, but it was not until the 19th century that its existence was first mentioned in Polish literature. Jan Tadeusz Lubomirski, prince, social activist, historian and encyclopaedist, describes it in his article published in the Biblioteka Warszawska of 1856. It is now in the Bodleian Library in Oxford under the name Godzinki królowej Bona ( Book of Hours of Queen Bona ) . In Polish studies it is referred to as Prayer Book of Queen Bona II , as two books of private prayer belonging to the sovereign have survived. This much we know for sure about the secret life of this monument. But let's take it one step at a time...

Sigismund the Old's wedding gift to his wife

Bona Sforza d'Aragona (1494-1557), daughter of a Milanese duke and a Neapolitan royal, was groomed from childhood to be a future ruler. An ambitious aristocrat, she received a careful education. She was literate, fluent in Latin and Spanish, and acquired knowledge of state administration, law, mathematics, history and theology. She played several instruments, loved horse riding and hunting.
In 1518. Bona Sforza marries the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, Sigismund I, known as the Old. It was for her that the king commissioned an elaborate gift. Handwritten in Latin and richly illustrated, the prayer book with the text of the Hours (intercessory prayers) was made on parchment. It is decorated with painted decoration with gilding, consisting of ornate initials and borders and 15 full-page miniatures with scenes from the Bible. The total number of pages is 258/271 and measures just 130 x 114 mm. The prayer book exists in only one copy.

Stanisław Samostrzelnik - creator of the prayer book of Queen Bona

. The prayer book certainly delighted the well-educated ruler. The author of such elaborate orders was a monk-painter, a valued and sought-after illuminator - Stanisław Samostrzelnik (c.1490-1541), who came from a bourgeois Krakow family. As a teenager, he joined the Cistercian Order.
The first information about the painter appears when Stanislaw is about 16 years old (1506) - he is described as pictor de Mogila , a painter from the Cistercian monastery in Mogila near Kraków. There he engaged in illumination, that is, illustration-painting of books and wall painting. He was very talented, and his fame soon enabled him to find a wealthy protector and gain permission to live outside the monastery. He was even able to set up an atelier in Krakow, as he had so many orders for handwritten and richly illustrated books that he had to hire co-workers. At first he worked for high government officials and then for the king.

The works of Stanisław Samostrzelnik

The painting of Stanisław Samostrzelnik is unrivalled in Renaissance Poland, and the manuscript for Queen Bona is considered to be the finest work of the Cistercian from Mogiła (there are three more known masterpieces-prayers by Samostrzelnik). The artist gives the biblical events a joyful, festive mood, taking the viewer into a colourful, fairy-tale world combining lyricism and a somewhat naive splendour.
His style is characterised by great decorativeness, a love of detail and vivid, contrasting colours. Looking at the miniatures, one can see that the author was following news from the art world. In some compositions, one can find not only inspiration from the prints of his contemporaries by the great masters (Albrecht Dürer or Hans Baldung Grien), but also innovation in depicting popular biblical themes.
The artist boldly drew on the achievements of the Renaissance: he placed scenes in a landscape rendered with great sensitivity to nature and the virtuosity of a landscape painter, and depicted figures almost portrait-like, without too much idealisation, dressed in contemporary costumes. And finally, the signature, testifying to the growing stature of the artist in the Renaissance, even if the author was a humble monk.

Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary - miniature from a prayer book

The scene is set in an interior with Renaissance decoration, with a vast landscape visible outside the window. The Archangel Gabriel is unveiling a curtain over the kneeling Mary. On the step of the kneeler is the painter's signature and the date S.C.f.Ao.MDXXVII. The Latin abbreviation reads as: Stanislaus Claratumbensis fecit Anno 1527.
The bordure, or frame, is filled with a floral arabesque on a gold background, and at the bottom - set in a medallion and supported by putti - is the four-field shield of Queen Bona's coat of arms, with the coats of arms of the Sforzas and the eagles of the Visconti, the emblems of the Duchy of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples, and the coats of arms of Poland and Lithuania.
There is no dedication or signature of the owner in the prayer book, but it unquestionably belonged to the queen. This is evidenced by Bona's name written twice in the text of one of the prayers and, above all, by her coats of arms visible at the bottom of 12 of the 15 miniatures. It is easy to read that they were intended to emphasise Bona's descent from a powerful royal family, her rights as heir to the Italian principalities and her current position: queen of Poland and grand duchess of Lithuania.

Queen Bona's prayer book - further history

. Queen Bona went down in history as an ambitious ruler with a difficult character, quarrelling even with her own son. A conflict with Sigismund Augustus (1520-1572), by then already king (Sigismund the Old died in 1548), influenced Bona's decision to return to her hereditary duchy of Bari and Rossano in Italy, where she died on 19 November 1557, poisoned by her trusted courtier, John Lawrence Pappacoda.
What happened to the prayer book? Most likely the queen took it with her when she left Poland in 1556, and so it disappeared from the pages of history. It certainly remained in the hands of a person who knew its value and appreciated it. Despite the passage of centuries, it was preserved in excellent condition. The high quality of the materials from which it was made was not insignificant: a very durable writing material, such as parchment, and inks made from natural dyes.
After more than 200 years, the manuscript ended up in the collection of the well-known London antiquarian and bibliophile, Francis Douce, and after his death in the Bodleian Library - the University Library of Oxford. It has been there since 1834 under the signature Douce 40.
In Poland, a facsimile edition of the prayer book was published in 2016, in the series 'Libri Precationum Illuminati Poloniae Veteris'.