2-733-616 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Leaf from a Book of Hours: Initial D, c. 1400. This leaf presents an extravagant visual feast that is both colourful and delicate. The parent codex to which this leaf belonged, still intact as recently as 1983, was made for use in the Diocese of Soissons. The manuscript listed Saint Medard of Soissons in its litany, which suggests that Soissons was also the city where the manuscript was made. A prayer to Saint Anne written in an Italian hand is also in the manuscript, and may indicate that it was taken to Italy during the 1400s.