Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Breviary
France, ca. 1511
MS M. 8 fol. 390r

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Virgin Mary: Birth -- Anna, nimbed, wearing headdress, arms crossed, reclines in draped bed with curtains and canopy. She looks toward Joachim, wearing hat, pushing aside curtain, looking toward her. In foreground, two midwives, wearing headdresses and aprons, bathe nude infant Virgin Mary, nimbed, in wooden tub. Margins decorated with border of floreate ornament including grapes, strawberry, campanula, daisy, holly, viola and rose, and inhabited by fantastic bird with face on breast and by hybrid animal partially wearing hood, holding crozier. Text is first lesson in first nocturn for Matins on 09.08, feast of birth of Virgin Mary.