Such artistic ferment fed the appetite of the dukes of Burgundy for lavish works of art to glorify their reign.

ECONOMIST: Flemish manuscript painting

It hinged on an alliance with the powerful dukes of Burgundy, who detested their French rivals far more than their English ones.

ECONOMIST: England's war with France: Once more unto the breach | The

It shows Philip the Good, surrounded by his courtiers, receiving the gold clasped book that legitimised the reign of dukes of Burgundy over Flanders by somehow tracing their ancestry back to Alexander the Great.

ECONOMIST: Flemish manuscript painting

Rather, it was the Protestant Reformation that halved the market for illuminated manuscripts, and, combined with the end of the reign of the dukes of Burgundy and the ascent of Spanish rulers in Flanders, disrupted the pan-European network of trade routes and patronage on which illumination depended.

ECONOMIST: Flemish manuscript painting