This volume is part of an antiphonary in three volumes that was
produced in duplicate for the liturgy of the Collegiate Church of
St. Vincent in the city of Bern shortly after the college’s
founding in the years 1484/85. The manuscript contains the entire
winter portion of the Temporale, of the Sanctorale and of the
Commune Sanctorum according to the liturgy of the Diocese of
Lausanne. The book decoration with miniatures for numerous initials
is attributed to the Master of the breviary of Jost von Silenen, an
itinerant artist who was active in Fribourg, Bern, Sion and later
in Ivrea and Aosta. He got his name from a breviary in two volumes
that was created around 1493 for the Bishop of Sion, Jost of
Silenen (1482-1496). After the introduction of the Reformation to
Bern in the year 1528 and the subsequent secularization of the
chapter, the entire group of antiphonaries was sold in 1530: four
were sold to the city of Estavayer-le-Lac and were used there for
the liturgy of the Collegiate Church of St. Lorenz; the other two
— among them a duplicate of this manuscript — reached Vevey
under circumstances that remain unexplained. They are currently
held in the historical museum there.
