Scrolling through Scrolls and Books in Books of Hours
Résumé
This contribution presents an analysis of the iconographic motive of scrolls, codices and inscriptions depicted in miniatures of books of hours. The primary focus is on examining a vast corpus of over 1,100 digitized books of hours, containing more than 20,000 miniatures. The objectives of this study are twofold. First, to demonstrate that an artificial intelligence model, trained on a limited dataset, can proficiently not only detect miniatures in digitized images, but also representations of books within miniatures. Second, to utilize a corpus of more than 6,000 images of books to explore their iconography and take a transversal approach of examining the presence or absence of objects across diverse iconographic scenes. In particular, we will analyze the context and depiction of the Virgin beyond the presence of “the Virgin Mary’s book at the Annunciation” (Miles 2020) as well as the representation of Evangelists and saints with a specific focus on the presence and form of the written Word. For the author portraits specifically, the research aims to investigate if books take part in “the number of ways of highlight[ing…] John’s preeminence as primus inter pares among the four Evangelists” (Hamburger 2002:49). By applying a scholarly approach and scrutinizing an extensive corpus of digitized materials, this analysis endeavors to shed new light on the iconography found within the miniatures of books of hours and address the presence of written artefacts both as iconographic attributes and as decorative elements.