Leaf from the Antiphonal of Cardinal Bessarion
This is a single leaf from a choir antiphonal, a large liturgical songbook of illuminated manuscript pages, made around 1455 in Italy by the illuminator Franco dei Russi for Cardinal Bessarion's use. The pictures show a historiated initial with a kneeling saint in a red robe beneath a rayed image of God in a roundel, set in a blue-green landscape, framed by flourished gold and pink vine scrolls with putti, beside square-note chant on red four-line staves in dense black Gothic script.
