Engraved Prayers

Les sainctes prieres de l’ame chrestienne
escrites & gravees apres le naturel de la plume.
Engraved throughout by Pierre Moreau.
Paris: Pierre Moreau, 1644. (BRB0061)

This handsome prayer book in Latin and French, which imitates the decorative richness of devotional manuscripts, was not printed with moveable type but with copper plates engraved by the calligrapher Pierre Moreau (c. 1600–1648). Although every prayer appears at first to have its own ornamental border, close examination reveals that Moreau engraved the prayer texts on small plates printed inside any one of several recurring borders engraved on larger plates.