Leaf for the feast of Pentecost from a Missal, Umbria, ca.1320-1330.

Leaf from a Missal that introduces the feast of Pentecost. Double-sided. Text written in black ink with red rubrics (a title, chapter heading, or instruction that is not strictly part of the text but helps to identify it).

Two columns of text are separated by slender acanthus leaves and delicate foliate shapes painted in coloured pigments and burnished gold leaf (gold paint that has been polished to shine). Foliate decoration runs along the top of the leaf, down the middle, and extends into the bas-de-page (bottom of the page).

Recto: One historiated initial 'D' painted with coloured pigments and burnished gold leaf shows Christ appearing to the apostle from above as they are gathered below. One decorated initial 'S' (a letter composed of non-figural, non-zoomorphic decorative elements) painted with coloured pigments and mosaic gold (an imitation gold pigment consisting of tin disulphide).

Christ appears to the apostles fifty days after Easter Sunday

Part of a group of 'illuminations' bought from Spithower in Rome on 18 December 1860 (now Museum nos 1487-1537).
Cuttings from the same manuscript in the V&A collection: Museum nos 1489, 1490, 1491, 1492, 1493, 1494, 1495.

This leaf (cutting) is from a mid to late 14th century Italian Missal (a service books containing the texts necessary for the performance of the Mass together with cermonial directions) for the feast of Pentecost (celebrated fifty days after Easter Sunday; commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles). The historiated initial 'S' (a letter containing an identifiable scene of figures, sometimes relating to the text) shows Christ appeaing to the apostles from above.

1492