On June 18, 2025, Franco Cosimo Panini announced the publication of a new facsimile edition of Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. This masterpiece of Franco-Flemish illuminated art is considered the most precious book in the world. The press conference took place at the Musée Condé, inside the Château de Chantilly, which holds one of the most important collections of French manuscripts.
Exhibited to the public for a limited time after a careful restoration, this magnificent manuscript consists of twenty-six illuminated pages of extraordinary beauty and refinement, depicting the famous “labors of the months” and offering a vivid portryal of courtly and rural life at the time. It is a rare privilege for the visitor, to be able to examine one of the absolute pinnacles of medieval art.
Thirty years after the first facsimile edition published by Franco Cosimo Panini Editore, the Gruppo Panini Cultura announced this new and prestigious international collaboration with Universal Art Group. The companies have enjoyed a twenty-year relationship, with Lucia Panini, co-founder of Gruppo Panini Cultura and managing director of Franco Cosimo Panini Editore, and Charlotte Kramer, president of Universal Art Group, working together.
The new edition, to be released in Italy in 2026, was created with meticulous care, using advanced printing techniques to ensure color fidelity and materials that match the original, with brighter pigments, new gold and parchment paper. As Lucia Panini describes it, “It is not a reprint, but a qualitative leap that allows us to get closer than ever before to the living material of miniatures.”
Charlotte Kramer highlights the cultural commitment of this project and how for 60 years the publishing house “…has been dedicated to safeguarding the world’s cultural heritage, giving people around the world access to unique masterpieces of the art of bookmaking. Our facsimile editions combine the past and the future, promote cultural exchange and build bridges between different cultures.”
With this new edition, Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry returns to enchant us, to educate us and to unite eras, cultures and artistic sensibilities, renewing its timeless appeal.
