This immense progress, which showed itself simultaneously in France and in Italy by the production of many original works, seems to have attained its climax in the execution of a justly celebrated manuscript, known by the name of “Heures d’Anne de Bretagne” (Fig. 375). Among the numerous pictures which decorate this book of prayers, many would not be unworthy of Raphael’s pencil: the expression in the face of the Virgin Mary is, with many others, remarkable for its sweetness; the heads of the angels have something divine in them; and the ornaments which occupy the margin of each page are composed of flowers, fruits, and insects, represented with all the freshness and brilliancy of nature. This inimitable masterpiece was, like a sort of sublime testament, to mark the glorious boundary-line of an art which must necessarily degenerate now that the printing-press was causing the numerous class of scribes and illuminators of the Middle Ages to disappear. It has never revived since, but at intervals; and then more to meet the requirements of fancy than to be of any real use. A few manuscripts adorned with miniatures of the end of the sixteenth century may still be mentioned, especially two “Livres d’Heures” (prayer-books) painted in _grisaille_, which [Illustration: Fig. 375.--Miniature from the Prayer-book of Anne de Bretagne, representing the Archangel St. Michael. (Musée des Souverains.)] belonged to Henry II., King of France (now in the Musée des Souverains), and the “Livre d’Heures,” executed for the Margrave of Baden by a painter of Lorraine or of Metz named Brentel (Fig. 376), who, however, did nothing [Illustration: Fig. 376.--Miniature in the “Livre d’Heures” belonging to the Margrave of Baden, representing the Portrait of the blessed Bernard of Baden, who died in the odour of Sanctity, on July 15, 1458. (Imperial Library, Paris.)] but put together designs copied from the great masters of Italy and Flanders. There were, nevertheless, good miniature-painters in France up to the seventeenth century, to illustrate the manuscripts executed with so much taste by the famous Jarry and the caligraphers of his school. The last manifestation of the art shines forth, for example, in the magnificent “Livre d’Heures” presented to Louis XIV. by the pensioners of the Hôtel des Invalides, a remarkable work, but yet unworthy to appear by the side of the “Livre d’Heures d’Anne de Bretagne,” which the painter seems to have adopted as his model. [Illustration: Fig. 377.--Escutcheon of France, taken from some Ornaments in the Manuscript of the “Institution of the Order of the Holy Ghost.” (Fourteenth Century.)] BOOKBINDING