The Conversion of Saul, large historiated initial on a leaf from an Antiphoner, in Latin [Italy, Tuscany, c.1480-1500]

single leaf, c.485x360mm, vellum, with an initial 'Q' for the Matins responsory for the feast of St Paul ‘Qui operatus est Petro’,  5 lines of text and music on four-line red staves, 400x275mm, rastrum c.42mm, the recto with the end of the antiphon ‘[Bonum] certamen certavi cursum ’, later folio number ‘LXI’, some cracking of gold and very minor pigment losses, framed

 

This work is not unlike Florentine book illumination but was probably produced in a provincial centre somewhere in Tuscany. The initial represents the moment when Saul, who was travelling from Jerusalem to Damascus to arrest followers of Jesus, heard a voice from heaven, was struck blind, and fell to the ground; he subsequently regained his sight and was baptized with the new name Paul. In art he is normally shown falling from his horse, but this detail is not scriptural.