In the pages
of the Music Box Book of Hours, paintings of manuscripts lying open on tables evidence the importance of books in an era of shifting royal courts and territories.

The Music Box Book of Hours was, the University Archivist deduced, probably created in the studio of French Court Painter Jean Bourdichon, during the reign of Anne of Brittany, whether when she was married to Charles VIII from 1491-to 1498 or when she was married to his successor, Louis XII.

Pages that are image-dominated each contain a central painting set in a border of intertwined flowers and animals. In an environment of ethereal landscapes, people with distinctive faces -- their reality more apparent than in French illuminated manuscripts of earlier eras – emerge in scenes of domestic and country-side activity, or in familiar Bible stories.

Aboard a medieval fishing boat, backgrounded with an unexpected Northern woods landscape, four fishermen sail among a miraculous school of cod fish. Bordering the swirling dark blue sea, images of cod, haddock, and lobsters intertwine in a floral pattern. Set into this border is a section of a surprising map in which Newfoundland and the tip of Nova Scotia are clearly recognizable.

This is the first time I have seen The Grand Banks of Newfoundland clearly alluded to in a Fifteenth Century manuscript, the University archivist observed. It was not the only mystery in the pages of the Music Box Book Of Hours, temporarily concealed in her archives.