The Folios - f.82r
The Hours of the Virgin (Terce) -historiated initial
Hours of the Virgin. The beginning of the office for the hour of Terce is marked by a historiated initial. The scene in the initial is the Nativity and derives from the scriptural accounts in Luke 2.1-20 (mainly 6-7) and in Matthew 1.25 and 2.1. The presence of the ox and the ass is based on prophesies in Isaiah and Habbakuk and early apocryphal Infancy Gospels The artist belongs to the 'Cholet Group' of Parisian illuminators. The very fine scrolls painted in gold paint on the burnished gold background are a feature found in only a small number of luxurious manuscripts of the late 13th century such as the Alphonso Psalter in the British Library and the Breviary of Philippe le Bel in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
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