Read at least 6 books about art this year:
Feb 1 - July 31
The page for September in this book of hours represents the grape harvest at the foot of the Château de Saumur, which is special to me because I had the opportunity to visit it a few years back. It is a truly memorable sight, rising above the Loire at the edge of town. The chateau was owned by a nephew of the Duc de Berry, Duc Louis II d’Anjou, who had completed its construction at the end of the fourteenth century. It appears here in all its fresh newness: chimneys, pinnacles and weather vanes crowned with golden fleurs-de-lys reach to the sky.
Although the crowning crenellations have disappeared, and is easily recognizable in this miniature by the buttressed towers, battlements, glacis, and general arrangement of the buildings. To the left is a belfry that might belong to the church of Saint-Pierre; next is a monumental chimney with secondary stacks undoubtedly belonging to the castle kitchen; and last, a drawbridge entrance from which a horse walks while a woman with a basket on her head approaches.
In the foreground, the harvest of the grapes is taking place in the vinyard. Aproned women and young men pick the purple-colored clusters of and fill baskets to be loaded into hampers hanging from the mules or into vats on the wagons.
In the tympanum, Virgo and Libra dominate the night sky, and Phoebus, as usual, drives the chariot of the sun.
