Music, Silence, and the Senses in a Late Fifteenth Century Book of Hours

Although it is common in the musicological literature to compare decorated music books with books of hours, studies addressing the musical features of books of hours are rare. This article considers musical features in the decoration of a book of hours made by leading illuminators in Ferrara ca. 1469. Images appearing in books of hours are considered to have had an exemplary and meditative function in relation to devotional practice; therefore, this study asks what the reader was intended to learn from musical images, drawing conclusions about the alignment of the senses and the significance of music in fifteenth-century religious experience.