Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Book of Hours
Belgium, Bruges, ca. 1470
MS H.7 fol. 74v

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Innocents: Massacre -- Herod the Great, wearing hat, holding scepter in right hand, extending left hand, sits on throne, in front of standing man, wearing hat and raising right hand. In foreground, soldier, weaing armor, holds sword in right hand and grasps arm of nude infant with left hand. Mother, wearing hat and veil, kneels, holding left arm of the infant in her right hand, and with her left hand touching hauberk of soldier. Behind, second soldier, wearing armor and helmet, raises sword above nude infant held in draped left arm of mother, wearing hat, raising her right arm to the soldier's left shoulder.
Scene in room with window and portal open onto landscape.
Margins decorated with floreate border inhabited by bird, crown around his neck, grasping tail of dragon, and by bird pecking at foliage.