Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Vita S. Benedicti
Italy, perhaps in Padua, ca. 1450
MS M.184 fol. 3r

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Benedict of Montecassino: Scene, leaving Home -- Departing from city gate of Nursia, group of seven men, some wearing hats, accompany parents of Benedict of Montecassino, his veiled mother and his father, wearing hat, with his right hand on head of child Benedict of Montecassino, nimbed, wearing short tunic, raising left hand toward veiled nurse Cyrilla of Norcia, holding basket with right arm. To right, one of two grooms wearing short tunics, with left hand holds rein of saddled and bridled horse and right arm draped with cloth, and the other, wearing hat and water-bottle tied at waist, holds short staff, amid two other horses and one bridled ass, with luggage tied to its back, surmounted by dog. Scene before crenellated city wall of Nursia and in landscape with trees, some bearing fruit. Miniature within frame for end of Prologue of Book II of Dialogues; Benedict of Montecassino departs his parent’s home in Nursia to attend school in Rome.