The Pentecost, cutting from an illuminated Antiphoner, in Latin, on vellum [Italy (Bologna), c.1320]

a cutting, 164mm. by 145mm., with a large historiated initial 'O' in pink with acanthus leaves in yellow, blue and red, on a blue ground framed in red, enclosing the seated Apostles, the tongues of fire from the Holy Spirit descending over them, the back with three lines of text in black ink with music on 4-line red staves and a red initial with blue pen-flourishing, rastrum: 27mm., inscribed in nineteenth-century German pen “Pfingstfest”, laid down on card (but lifted at one corner), trimmed to edges of initial, small pigment losses and slightly rubbed, else in excellent condition

This cutting is from the same antiphoner for Benedictine Use as eighteen other cuttings: three in Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Marlay cuttings It.80a-c, four at the British Library, Add.32058, fols.1a-b, 2a-b, six at the Victoria & Albert Museum, 9024c, 9024e, 9025a, 9025c, 9025e, 9025f, four in Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, 40093-6 and one in New York, Metropolitan Museum, Rogers Fund, 1912, 12.56.1. They are ascribed to the celebrated Bolognese illuminator Nerius (fl.1310-25), by Bauer-Eberhardt in Die Italienischen Miniaturen, 1984, pp.69-72, 117 and 162. Characteristic for his style are physiognomies with dark shadows, hair and beards indicated by short broad brushstrokes and the muted palette with the unusual maroon for St. Peter’s coat. The burnished halos encircled in red with little white dots and the draperies decorated with flower patterns can be found in many of the other initials. The spatial arrangement with the view here of some of the Apostles with their backs to the viewer reflects new concepts introduced by Giotto in the early fourteenth century.