3-039-734 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Cutting from a Gradual, about 1440-1450. Additional Info:In this closely trimmed historiated initial S from a gradual, the illuminator represented Saul's dramatic conversion to Christianity. Dressed in a soldier's helmet and armor, Saul tumbles to earth, his horse collapsing beneath him. Though the artist omitted the rest of the biblical account, in which Saul changes his name to Paul and takes up an evangelical Christian mission, the initial's viewers would have been familiar with the story. In the top half of the initial, another soldier, seated erect on a more elaborately liveried steed, wears a fancy hat and tunic trimmed in green, white, and red, the colors of both the Gonzaga and Este families. Given his visual precedence in the image, this man may have been the book's patron, commissioning the gradual for use in his family's private chapel or for an ecclesiastical foundation under his protection.