Duchy of Berry, France, c. 1412–1416
The Calendar
Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry: the most celebrated Book of Hours ever made, its calendar cycle a hinge in Western art between medieval symbol and Renaissance observation — peasants and princes alike, rendered under the Duke's own castles and a sky full of gold-leaf stars.
January — The Duke's New Year
The calendar's famous frontispiece: Jean de Berry at his own feast table.
February — The Peasants' Hearth
A snow-covered farmyard, and the coldest, tenderest scene in the calendar.
March — Plowing at Lusignan
Sowers and shepherds beneath a fairy-tale castle on the horizon.
April — The Betrothal
A ring exchanged before the Château de Dourdan, in the year's first green.
May — The Green Ride
A cavalcade of nobles in may-green, riding out to welcome the spring.
June — Haymaking Before the Sainte-Chapelle
Peasants scythe hay in the shadow of Paris's royal palace.
July — Shearing and Harvest at Poitiers
Sheep-shearers and reapers work beneath the Duke's own château.
September — The Grape Harvest at Saumur
Pickers fill baskets before one of the era's most fantastical castles.
October — Sowing Before the Louvre
A scarecrow-archer guards the seed as Paris's old fortress looms.
November — Gathering Acorns
A swineherd knocks acorns down for his pigs in an autumn wood.
December — The Boar Hunt at Vincennes
Hounds bring down a boar in the Duke's own royal forest.
August — The Falconry Party
Nobles ride to hawk before the Château d'Étampes, harvest and hounds all around them.
The Anatomical Man
Folio 14v — the body mapped onto the zodiac, front and back.
The Garden of Eden
Folio 25v — Temptation, Fall, and Expulsion in a single walled garden.