Yolande of Aragon
Owners
Yolande of Aragon (1381-1442), Dowager Duchess of Anjou, most probably commissioned the manuscript for herself or for her daughter, Yolande of Anjou, while arranging her marriage to the future Duke of Brittany, which took place in 1431.
As heiress of King John I of Aragon and widow of Louis II, Duke of Anjou and King of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem, Yolande of Aragon was known as the Queen of the Four Kingdoms. She played a major role in European politics during the Hundred Years War. Between her husband’s death in 1417 and the mid-1420s, she was busy protecting her territories in Anjou, Maine, Barrois and Provence, supporting her sons’ campaigns in Italy, negotiating politically advantageous marriages for her children, and advising the future Charles VII of France who married her eldest daughter in 1422. Yolande turned her attention to art patronage from c. 1425 onwards, when she financed the stained glass windows at the Cathedral in Le Mans, completed in the early 1430s. This Book of Hours was most probably produced during the same period. A learned patron of art and literature, Yolande was also a devout woman of strong Franciscan spirituality. She is shown praying in three small miniatures in the manuscript.
Patron praying to Christ (prayer to be said for oneself)
This is the third image of the woman in black, most probably Yolande of Aragon who was widowed in 1417. She kneels at a prayer desk with an open book (presumably this manuscript) and looks across to the image of Christ that illustrates her prayer – ‘a prayer for oneself’, according to the rubric. Seated on a rainbow at the Last Judgement, Christ extends his hand to the woman, an eloquent gesture promising salvation at the end of her book and at the end of time.