The Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry: the world's most precious book
It measures 29 cm by 21 cm. 206 vellum pages. Each page worth more than a house. You cannot touch it. At the Musée Condé in Chantilly, it rests under glass. Once a month, conservators turn a page.
By Artedusa
••9 min read
The Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry: the world's most precious book
It measures 29 cm by 21 cm. 206 vellum pages. Each page worth more than a house. You cannot touch it. You cannot flip through it. At the Musée Condé in Chantilly, it rests under glass in a temperature-controlled room. Once a month, conservators turn a page. That's all.
The Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry, begun in 1412, is the absolute summit of medieval illumination. Three genius brothers paint for a billionaire prince. Then in 1416, catastrophe: the three brothers die. The duke dies. The manuscript remains unfinished for seventy years. When it's finally completed, the Middle Ages are over.
It's a book that crosses five centuries, two world wars, a revolution. A book nobody reads, but everyone wants to see. The most beautiful book ever created.
Jean de Berry, the prince who collected everything
Jean I of Berry was born in 1340, son of King John II of France. Third son, he would never reign. No matter. He becomes Duke of Berry, governor of Languedoc, the richest man in France after the king.
And he spends everything on art. Castles, tapestries, goldwork, illuminated manuscripts. At his death in 1416, he owns 300 manuscripts — colossal fortune. Most nobles have three or four. He wants hundreds.
He commissions the Très Riches Heures around 1412 from the Limbourg brothers: Paul, Herman, Jean. Three Netherlanders installed in Paris, already famous. They work exclusively for the duke. Fixed salary, housing, protection. In exchange: absolute perfection.
The contract is simple: create a book of hours — collection of prayers for each moment of the day. But not an ordinary book of hours. The most beautiful ever made. Unlimited budget. Most expensive pigments. Real gold. Infinite time.
The Limbourgs work four years. Then in 1416, all three die within months of each other. Probably plague. The duke dies the same year, in June. The manuscript remains unfinished. Blank pages. Sketched miniatures. Broken promise.
The calendar: twelve months, twelve masterpieces
The most famous pages are the calendar. Twelve full-page miniatures, one per month. Each shows a seasonal activity. But not as you imagine.
January: the duke's banquet in his palace. Table covered with food, guests in sumptuous robes. Insane detail: a little dog under the table nibbling scraps. Servants bringing dishes. In back, tapestry with Battle of Troy. It's the aristocratic court in all its splendor.
February: peasants warming themselves by the fire. Outside, snow everywhere. Sheep, covered hive, cart. Brutal realism: a woman lifts her dress to warm her thighs. A man blows on his frozen hands. Total contrast with January.
May: aristocratic cavalcade in forest. Young nobles in green clothes, leaf crowns. Caparisoned horses. Trumpets. It's the month of courtly love. Background: Paris, with identifiable palaces.
August: falconry. Nobles on horseback with falcons. Peasants bathing naked in the river in foreground. Joyful sexuality, total naturalism. Background: Château d'Étampes, duke's residence, painted with topographic precision.
October: sowing. Peasant throws seeds, horse pulls harrow. Background: the Louvre as it was in the 15th century, medieval fortress. Priceless historical document.
Each miniature is topped with an astronomical lunette. Zodiac signs, chariots of sun and moon, exact degrees. Complex medieval astrology, probably calculated by court astrologers. The duke believed in stars. The calendar is both prayer book and astrological guide.
Hallucinatory techniques
The Limbourgs use the world's most expensive pigments. Afghan lapis lazuli ground for ultramarine blue. Real gold beaten into sheets so thin you can see through. Cinnabar vermillion for reds. Murex purple (Mediterranean shellfish) for violets.
The technique is called illumination: "putting into light." They paint on vellum (stillborn calf skin, ultra-fine). First drawing in lead. Then color layers, light to dark. Then gold: applied on garlic glue, polished with wolf's tooth. Finally microscopic details with three-hair brush.
Look at the faces. Each is different. The Limbourgs paint portraits: the duke, his nephews, his servants. In January's miniature, it's the duke himself presiding over the banquet. White hair, blue fur-lined robe. His favorite dogs around him.
The landscapes are revolutionary. Before the Limbourgs, backgrounds are golden, abstract, symbolic. They paint the real world. Identifiable castles, recognizable Paris, exact seasons. Atmospheric perspective: distant mountains are blue, vaporous. Technique not found again until Leonardo da Vinci a century later.
Shadows are precise. Light comes from a coherent source. Textures are differentiated: fur, silk, metal, stone. Hallucinatory level of detail. In August's miniature, you can count the falcon feathers.
Seventy years of waiting
1416: the manuscript is abandoned. It passes through several hands. House of Savoy, Dukes of Bourbon. Nobody finishes it. It's too sacred. The Limbourgs were geniuses. Who would dare continue?
Around 1485, Charles I of Savoy commissions Jean Colombe to finish the work. Colombe is the best illuminator of his time. But he's not a Limbourg. He completes missing pages, finishes unfinished miniatures.
You see the difference. Colombe is excellent, but less subtle. His colors are brighter, less nuanced. His characters stiffer. His landscapes less atmospheric. Cruel comparison: genius vs very good craftsman.
The manuscript then passes between princely collections. House of Savoy until 1793. French Revolution: seized, sold. It disappears. Its trace is lost for a century.
Rediscovered in 1855 in an Italian private collection. Bought in 1856 by the Duke of Aumale, son of King Louis-Philippe. The duke bequeaths it to the Institut de France in 1884 with the entire Musée Condé.
Today, the manuscript is worth... incalculable. Insurance: several hundred million. But it's unsellable, inalienable, untransportable. French classified national treasure. It will never leave Chantilly.
What you'll never see
The manuscript has 206 folios (412 pages). Only a few pages are exhibited at a time. Minimal light: 50 lux maximum (candlelight). Hermetic showcase with argon. Temperature 18°C, humidity 50%.
Conservators turn one page per month, sometimes less. Why? Light destroys pigments. Lapis lazuli fades. Gold remains stable, but vellum dries. Each exhibition shortens the manuscript's life.
Some pages haven't been exhibited for fifty years. The less famous, less spectacular ones. They exist in photographic archives, but nobody sees them in real life.
The margins contain hidden marvels. Drolleries: hybrid creatures, learned monkeys, rabbit-knights. Medieval humor, social satire. A bishop with fox head. A donkey playing harp. These margins were as important as main miniatures.
Historiated initials: each prayer begins with an ornate letter containing a miniature biblical scene. David and Goliath in a D. Annunciation in an A. Scenes of one square centimeter painted with same perfection as large miniatures.
The texts themselves are calligraphed in gothic textura. Writing of perfect regularity. No erasure, no error. Scribes were also artists.
Why it matters
The Très Riches Heures marks the end of the Middle Ages and announces the Renaissance. The Limbourgs still paint religious scenes, saints, medieval symbols. But their technique announces Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo.
The realism of faces, precision of landscapes, mastery of light — it's already Renaissance. Except it's 1415. Ten years before Van Eyck. Thirty years before Piero della Francesca. The Limbourgs invent the future.
The calendar influences all European landscape painting. These everyday life scenes, peasants and aristocrats mixed, social realism — it's revolutionary. Before, allegories were painted. After the Limbourgs, life is painted.
And it's a manuscript. Not a church fresco, not an altar painting. A book a man leafed through alone in his room. Private, intimate, precious art. The Duke of Berry looked at these pages in the evening, by candlelight. Absolute privilege.
Seeing the Très Riches Heures today
Musée Condé, Chantilly, 40 km north of Paris. The château houses France's second collection of old paintings after the Louvre. The Très Riches Heures are in a dedicated room on the first floor.
You'll see two, sometimes three pages under glass. Subdued lighting. Photography forbidden (flash light). You can approach to 30 cm, no closer. Enough to see details, brushstrokes, vellum texture.
It's frustrating and magical. Frustrating because you'll never see the whole. Magical because you're before an absolute treasure, something few humans have seen in real life.
Musée Condé
Château de Chantilly, 60500 Chantilly
Open Wednesday-Monday 10am-6pm (closed Tuesday)
Château + collections admission: €17
Train from Paris Gare du Nord: 25 min
Advice: avoid weekends. Come on weekdays, early. The Très Riches Heures room is small, quickly saturated. Take your time. Read labels. Understand what you're looking at: six centuries concentrated in 29 cm by 21 cm.
The museum sells facsimiles: near-perfect reproductions at €10,000 per volume. Some libraries own them. It's the only way to "flip through" the manuscript.
A book that survived everything
1416 plague. Wars of religion. French Revolution. World War I (Chantilly château was near the front). World War II (hidden in Swiss bank). The manuscript survived.
Six hundred years. Intact colors. Brilliant gold. Supple vellum. Modern restorers analyze pigments: exceptional purity, perfect binders, miraculous conservation.
The Limbourgs didn't know they were creating for eternity. They painted for a prince who would die in four years. They wanted immediate beauty, not posterity.
But here's the thing: absolute beauty crosses time. These February peasants warming their hands, this January dog eating under the table, these May nobles riding in forest — they're more alive than most people you meet today.
The Très Riches Heures isn't a book. It's a time machine. A window on 1415. A vanished world still breathing.
The Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry: the world's most precious book | Art History
