Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Book of Hours
France, Paris, ca. 1425-1430
MS M.453 fol. 53r

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Virgin Mary: Visitation -- Below rays emerging from top of frame, Virgin Mary, decorated nimbus, and Elizabeth, nimbed, wearing knotted headdress and wimple, embrace. Two women stand at left, heads together, gesturing toward Virgin Mary and Elizabeth. Scene in landscape with trees, rocky outcrops, and city on hill in background; figure in field in distance.
Margins, within circle of foliage (from top to bottom):
1) John Baptist: Birth and John Baptist: Naming -- Elizabeth, wearing headdress and wimple, reclines in draped bed. Zacharias, head draped, is seated on bed, writing on tablet. On other side of bed, midwife extends with both hands, swaddled infant toward Elizabeth.
2) John Baptist, nimbed, seated on ground is nose to nose with lamb he holds upright in his lap.
3) John Baptist: Beheading -- John Baptist, nimbed, with joined hands, kneels on ground before executioner raising, with both hands, broad axe behind his back.
Margins decorated with border of floreate and foliate ornament, including rose, and inhabited by birds, cock, and by two confronted dragons, linked by cord tied around their necks.