Cutting from a Franciscan gradual
A cutting from a Franciscan gradual, a choir book of chant, painted by Cosmè Tura around 1470, probably for use in a Franciscan community's liturgy. The single picture is a gold-ground initial showing a haloed saint in a rose robe holding a book and a staff beside a white serpent, set in a painted frame of blue, green and rose acanthus leaves. A designer might take its jewel-bright palette set against gold leaf, and its flat, ornamental framing of a figure within a decorative border.
