Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Psalter-Hours
Belgium, Liège, ca. 1280s
MS M.183 fol. 9v

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Scenes in four concave hexagons:
1) Jesse: Tree -- Jesse, with his head resting on his right hand, reclines asleep on draped mattress, before Virgin Mary, nimbed, veiled, with joined hands raised in front, seated on bench, flanked by tree branches enclosing two doves, representing gifts of Holy Spirit, and above her, cross-nimbed head of Christ.
2) Virgin Mary: Annunciation -- Archangel Gabriel, nimbed, raises right hand toward Virgin Mary, nimbed, veiled, with right hand raised to her breast and with book in left hand. Both stand.
3) Virgin Mary: Visitation -- Elizabeth, nimbed, wearing wimpled veil, and Virgin Mary, nimbed, veiled, embrace.
4) Christ: Nativity -- Virgin Mary, nimbed, veiled, reclines on draped mattress, before swaddled, cross-nimbed Christ Child lying in architectural mager behind which are ass and ox (heads only), and beside Joseph the Carpenter, wearing pointed cap, with hands leaning on tau-staff.
Oval medallion in center:
5) Nimbed angel stands, playing viol.
Half medallions at top and bottom:
6) Two hybrid men, one, hooded, with foliate tail, and the other, wearing hat, with bat wings.
Figures and scenes in six medallions on decorated frame, reading from left to right top to bottom:
7) Mary Magdalen, nimbed, wearing berbette, stands with right hand holding ointment jar and with left hand holding two stems of seven disks enclosing acrostic letters, S.A.L.I.G.I.A. She is flanked by tree and man kneeling as supplicant with joined hands raised.
8) Catherine of Alexandria: Scene, Torture -- Catherine, nimbed, crowned, half nude, stands with hands bound to column, facing broken spiked wheel on stand beneath flames issuing from sky; man falls backward, and two heads rest on ground.
9) Agnes of Rome: Scene, Death of Procopius -- Flames descend from sky toward Procopius, Son of Prefect, holding gloves, before Agnes, nimbed, seated with right hand raised and left hand on lamb. Building at left.
10) Agatha of Catania: Scene, Torture -- Two torturers with pincers attack breasts of Agatha, nimbed, half nude, with raised arms bound to post above.
11) Ursula of Cologne, nimbed, veiled, crowned, stands with right hand spreading her mantle above three of six men and women and with left hand holding cross-inscribed bannered cross-staff.
12) Margaret of Antioch: Scene, swallowed by Dragon, and Margaret of Antioch: Scene, emerging from Dragon -- Margaret, with her legs still visible, is swallowed by dragon from which emerges in its back Margaret, nimbed, raising cross in her joined hands.
Miniature on verso facing Walloon French poem on recto (Sinclair, no. XV).