Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Antiphonary
Italy, Milan, ca. 1470-1495
M.687 fol. 1r

See more information »

In initial L, Lawrence of Rome, nimbed and tonsured, wearing deacon's vestments, holding palm and gridiron with right hand, book with left hand, seated in landscape with trees and with buildings in background.
Initial composed of hybrid man wearing hat; horned fish eating another fish or serpent (?).
Seven medallions in margins:
1-3) Virgin Mary: Annunciation -- In upper margin, in first medallion, Archangel Gabriel, nimbed, raising right hand in blessing, and holding stem of lilies with left hand. God, nimbed, raising right hand in gesture of blessing, holding cross surmounted globe with left hand, amid rays in center medallion looking toward third medallion. In third medallion, Virgin Mary, nimbed, with arms crossed on breast, kneeling at prie-dieu on which is open book; dove of Holy Ghost flying toward her head amid rays.
4) Lamb of God, nimbed, holding cross-staff with cross inscribed banner, seated on book.
5) Jerome, nimbed, as cardinal, raising right hand in gesture of blessing, holding book with left hand; lion visible at left.
6) Escutcheon decorated with heraldry of Carlo Pallavicino (checky gules and argent on a chief or an eagle sable) surmounted by miter with infulae, and flanked by crozier and crossed keys, and by the initials C and P.
7) Half-figure of bishop, nimbed, wearing miter and bishop's vestments, raising right hand in gesture of blessing, scourge hanging from right wrist, holding crozier with left hand.
Margins decorated with alternating sections of red and blue, with floreate ornament, inhabited by rabbit and dog