Artistic relations between Portugal and Flandres through the Books of Hours preserved in Portugal.

Abstract

Tese de Doutoramento em História da Arte Medieval, apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Junho de 2017. Orientação da Doutora Maria Adelaide Miranda, do Doutor Bernardo Vasconcelos e Sousa e do Doutor Dominique Vanwijnsberghe.

This thesis aims to show that Books of Hours played a central role in late medieval Portuguese society and in the relations with the main European royal houses. This study allowed us to retrace the path of some of these codices and confirm the prestige of Portugal among the main houses of the time, the enthusiastic reception of Flemish art by the Portuguese nobility, and its influence on the national production. Because the vast majority of these manuscripts have never been studied, we carried out a comprehensive survey of the Books of Hours, manuscripts, and loose folios currently preserved in Portugal, as well as a brief study of sixteen exemplars from foreign institutions, which are clearly linked to the Portuguese royal house. By systematically identifying and inventorying the works and by elaborating a critical reflection on the historiography of the topic and the specimens under analysis, we were able to build a corpus and identify the general features of this type of book, as well as the specific characteristics of the exemplars of Flemish origin.