Abstract

In Italy, Books of Hours did not spread as widely as they did in northern Europe but they display a considerable variety. Alternative texts were frequently used here for similar practices, and it was generally the images that fashioned the books to suit a devotional use. These types of manuscripts share their cycles of images, and frequently also their texts, functions and recipients, with Books of Hours. They have never been examined systematically before, while all types of manuscripts with devotional functions should be investigated comprehensively in order to gain an accurate image of the variety of tools used for private devotion in Late Medieval Italy