Master of the Lescalopier Horae. Use of Rome. Latin (and a few French rubrics). [Hainaut (Mons or Valenciennes) c. 1490] 8vo, manuscript on vellum (c. 15,5 x 11cm): ii+239+i ff. (lacking Pentecost miniature facing f. 30), ruled in red, written in textura (writing area c. 8,4 x 5,7 cm). In excellent condition. Old (contemporary ?) binding : blind-stamped calf over wood, covers with blind ruled border and frames of blind roll stamps, spine on 4 raised bands, gilt gauffered edges (recent ?), edges bevelled inside, silver catches, vellum endpapers (rubbed, clasps gone, some repairs, head and tail def.). Contents: Calendar (ff. 1r-12v); Nativity texts of the Four Gospels (f. 14r-21v); (smaller) Offices (Trinity, Dead, All Saints, Holy Sacrament, ff. 23r-41r); Hours of the Cross (ff. 42r-54r); Office of the Holy Virgin (ff. 55r-134r); Office of (major) Saints (ff. 135r-150v); Seven Penitential Psalms (ff. 152r-173v); Office of the Dead (ff. 175r-239r). Decoration: red rubrics; 1-2 line initials alternate in gold and blue, or gold and silver; 4-line initials at hours in gold and blue, or gold and silver; rich border decoration in Flemish style (with flowers, drolleries etc.), on a variety of coloured backgrounds. Illustration: 25 full-page miniatures (i.a. 4 Evangelists, Purgatory, Crucifixion, Virgin and Child, Visitation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, St James the Greater, Three Dead and Three Living), 12 half-page miniatures in grisaille (i.a. Christ before Pilate, Descent of the Cross, St Gregory’s Mass, David and Goliath), and 18 initials in grisaille (saints, i.a. Michael, John the Baptist, George, Sebastian, Nicholas, Hubert, Mary Magdalene, Catherine, Barbara). The miniatures are to be attributed to the so-called Master of the Lescalopier 20, who was working in Hainaut (Mons or Valenciennes) in the final quarter of the 15th c. His work includes Hours for the Use of Rome preserved in Amiens, Bibliothèque municipale, Ms. Lescalopier 20, and Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Cod. brev. 4. The present manuscript appears to be made for a client called Jacobus/Jacques (his arms in the bottom margin of the miniature of St James the Greater on f. 140v). Ref. G. Clark, "Beyond Jacquemart Pilavaine, Simon Marmion, and the Master of Antoine Rolin. Book painting in the Hainaut in the penultimate decade of the fifteenth century", in Manuscripts in transition. Recycling manuscripts, texts and images (2005), pp. 391-398. Provenance : unidentified coat-of-arms in bottom border of f. 140v; old name on front flyleaf: ‘Josyna de Cuellar [-Salamanca]’ (16th c., also owner of Brussels, Royal Library, Ms. IV 225). Loosely inserted a letter of the Bollandist Maurice Coens (1893-1972) to the (previous) owner, dated 8 June 1949; [Georges Petit].