Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Vitae patrum
Italy, Naples, between 1350 and 1375
MS M.626 fol. 51r

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1) Isidore of Pelusium: Scene, Porter warning Men -- Within door of cross-surmounted monastery, possibly Isidore of Pelusium, wearing hooded monk’s habit, raising right hand toward group of men.
2) Serapion of Egypt: Scene, Monks at Labor -- In center, among group of tonsured monks, wearing monk’s habits, the foremost grasping sheaf of wheat with left hand and with right hand holding sickle, two bundles of wheat in foreground.
3) Serapion of Egypt: Scene, giving Alms -- At far right, among two tonsured monks, wearing monk’s habits, one possibly Serapion of Egypt, one holds basket laden with loaves and one extending loaves in both hands to extended hands of poor men, seated (most with only heads visible).
Scenes in common landscape.
Illustration of Rufinus of Aquileia, Historia Monachorum in Aegypto, Chapters 17 and 18.