The Annunciation facing the beginning of the Psalter
St John’s Coll. U.10.10, f. 1r
Breviarium Praedicatorum
Lyons, 1586

Image reproduced by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College

The Dominican Breviary was revised as approved by the Chapter General at Salamanca in 1551 and a new edition printed at Venice in 1552. This is one of several later editions of the 1552 Breviary published between 1556 and 1586. It was printed at Lyons by Symphorian Beraud and Étienne Michel, this being one of only two recorded surviving copies. Finally, after the end of the Council of Trent, a revised Breviary was printed Venice in 1596 and at Rome in 1603. The pages shown are a frontispiece with a woodcut or metalcut of the Annunciation facing the opening of the Psalter with the title Breviarium secundum consuetudinem Fratrum Ordinis Praedicatorum iuxta Acta Capituli Generalis Salmaticensis. The recitation of the psalms is the core of the Divine Office. The rubrics at the head of the text give the antiphons which precede psalm 1, the first psalm for Sunday Matins, on Sundays for various seasons of the church year. Some of the antiphons in the Dominican use, as in the case of those on this page for the seasons of the year, were changed to conform with Roman use in the revised Breviary published after the Council of Trent.