The Book of Hours of Gian Galeazzo Visconti: a Latin book of hours commissioned by the first Duke of Milan of the House of Visconti in the late fourteenth century

The Book of Hours, also known as the "Golden Book of Visconti", is lavishly illustrated in the manner characteristic of the "International Gothic".

The pigment used for the blue contains rare lapis lazuli mixed with gum arabic (a hard, translucent resin consisting of the dried sap of various species of acacia), while the ink used for the text was iron gall ink: a red-black or brown-black ink made from iron sulphate and tannins obtained from the so-called "oak galls". The artists used three kinds of gold, including gold emulsion and burnished gold leaf.

The codex is kept in the National Central Library in Florence.

Incidentally, the Italian director of Rocco and His Brothers, La terra trema and The Leopard, Luchino Visconti, was a descendant of the Visconti dukes of Milan. His full name and title: Don Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo, Lord of Corgeno, Co-lord of Somma, Crenna and Agnadello, Milanese patrician.

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The Book of Hours of Gian Galeazzo Visconti: a Latin book of hours commissioned by the first Duke of Milan of the House of Visconti in the late fourteenth century

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