Leaf from the Hours of Duke Louis of Savoy: Saints Nereus and Achilleus (mid-1400s): Art, History and Details

Leaf from the Hours of Duke Louis of Savoy: Saints Nereus and Achilleus (mid-1400s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Once part of a book of hours made for Louis, Duke of Savoy and Prince of Piedmont (1413–1465), this miniature depicts two Roman martyrs of the early church, Nereus and Achilleus, shown in the center. Their feast day was jointly honored on May 12, suggesting this leaf comes from the Suffrages, a customizable section of a book of hours containing prayers to particular saints. On the left we see the saints being asked to worship idols, which they refuse. They are then burned at the stake and beheaded. On the right we see their burial at the top and the transfer of their relics to a new location below. Some sections this book are currently preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.

Object facts

• Title: Leaf from the Hours of Duke Louis of Savoy: Saints Nereus and Achilleus
• Date: mid-1400s
• Culture: France, Savoy(?), 15th century
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: tempera and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Sheet: 11.2 x 8.9 cm (4 7/16 x 3 1/2 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1952.4

A detail from the museum

An estimated 82 folios is still missing from the original manuscript, the bulk of which is preserved in Paris.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.