Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Diurnal of Isabelle de Bourbon
France, Amiens, ca. 1455
MS M.221 fol. 244v

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Two mourners (pleurants), wearing black hats and robes, are beside draped bier, surrounded by four lit tapered candles. At right, among four tonsured clerics, possibly priests, wearing vestments fastened with morses, three open their mouths (chanting), the foremost two gesture and read from open book with pseudo-inscriptions, all before altar on which is open book with pseudo-inscriptions and retable with the center panel depicting Virgin Mary and Christ Child, flanked by two saints on outer wings. Scene in chapel with four windows and tiled floor. Margin, upper left: Half-figure of angel playing horn. Margin, center left: Beneath rays issuing from foliate bud, male figure, partly draped in shroud, sits upright in sarcophagus. Margin, lower left: Margin, lower center: Beneath rays issuing from foliate bud, male figure, partly draped in shroud, sits upright in sarcophagus, raising right hand. Margin, upper right: Bust of blue angel playing horn. Margin, center right: Mask with two arms amid foliate ornament. Margin, lower right: Margins decorated with foliate and floreate ornament, including irises, violas and cornflowers. Text is from Vespers for Office of the Dead taken from Psalm 116 (Vulg., 114).