With a Lovely Historiated Initial Showing a
Winged Saint Matthew Writing his Gospel

AN ILLUMINATED VELLUM MANUSCRIPT LEAF WITH A FINE HISTORIATED INITIAL, FROM AN EARLY BIBLE IN LATIN.

TEXT FROM THE OPENING OF THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW.

(1220). 152 x 102 mm (6 x 4"). Double column, 50 lines of text, in an extremely fine tiny gothic book hand.

In a very pleasing 15 x 12 1/2" gilt wooden frame. The visible side with rubrics in red, capitals struck in red, two-line initials in red or blue with elaborate penwork in both colors, one handsome three-line initial in pink and white on a ground of blue and magenta, with gold disks and foliate marginal extension, and WITH AN EXTREMELY PLEASING FOUR-LINE HISTORIATED INITIAL SHOWING MATTHEW WRITING HIS GOSPEL, the initial (measuring approximately 12 x 11 mm.) executed in colors and gold to match the three-line capital and with a 60 mm. marginal extender. Top margin with "Novum Testamentum" penned in a neat early hand. Two tiny stains of no consequence, bottom-most flourish from a decorative initial just grazed at lower edge, but IN FINE CONDITION, the leaf in general bright, clean, and fresh, and with no erosion of paint in the delicate historiated initial.

The initial here is both immensely charming and historically revealing. In the bottom portion of our "L" (for "Liber"), the Evangelist Matthew, seated in a golden chair at his desk, works intently on his text, a pen in one hand and a knife (for making erasures) in the other. In an especially delightful departure from normal iconography, the angel that is Matthew's identifying attribute--and that normally accompanies Matthew when he appears in manuscripts like this--is largely obscured by the saint's ample nimbus so that the angelic companion's wings actually appear to be attached to our Gospel writer. Whether this is a deliberate conflation of identities that represents a use (successful in our minds) of artistic license or whether it is simply the result of a crowded room, we cannot say. The leaf comes from what have come to be called "pocket Bibles," produced by scribes working mostly in commercial settings using letters tiny enough to allow the text of an entire Bible to be contained in a portable book, even to the extent of fitting into one's pocket. The demands placed on the artist, who was asked at the beginning of each biblical book to provide a detailed scene in a space smaller than the average thumbnail, are obvious, but the considerable success that such illuminators achieved can be seen quite clearly in this example. (ST11410)