Four Prophets behold a Vision of Christ, initial from Antiphoner

An image of Illuminated manuscript. Cutting. Initial from an Antiphoner. Production Place: Italy Tuscany. Parchment, gold, 182 x 171 mm, five musical staves ruled in red ink, five fragmentary lines of text ruled in brown ink, traces of red wax and earlier paper mount on reverse, circa 1320 to circa 1340.
CONTENTS: On reverse, the versicle and responsory at First Vespers of the First Sunday of Advent, [V. Rorate celi de super et] nubes pluant iustum. R. Aperiatur ter[ra et germinet salvator]em, followed by the antiphon for the Magnificat: Ad M[agnificat]. A[nt.]. Ecce nomen domini uenit [de longinquo et clari]tas eius replet orbem terrarum. Ps. Mag[nificat], then follows the opening of Matins for the First Sunday of Advent: [Inv. Regem venturum do]minum venite [adoremus]. Dominica prima de aduentu. Ad matutinum. Inuitatorium [uenite] In primo nocturno a[ntiphona]. Ueniet ecce rex excel[sus]; the initial, which would have been on the verso of the original leaf, probably introduced the responsory for the first lesson at Matins for the First Sunday of Advent, Aspiciens a longe. DECORATION: Historiated initial in pink with foliate motifs in blue, orange and gold on a square ground of solid blue framed in orange: [A] Four Prophets behold a Vision of Christ. ORNAMENTATION: On reverse, alternate red and blue initials with turquoise or red pen flourishing; rubrics in red with blue paragraph marks.

Terms of use

The low-resolution images published on this Website are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY-NC-ND). For more details: Fitzwilliam Terms of Use

This licence does not include any images of works that are still in copyright. Artistic copyright extends from the life of the artist to 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the artist died.

Download this image

For further information on use of images or to license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who can discuss terms and fees.

Illuminated manuscript. Cutting. Initial from an Antiphoner. Production Place: Italy Tuscany. Parchment, gold, 182 x 171 mm, five musical staves ruled in red ink, five fragmentary lines of text ruled in brown ink, traces of red wax and earlier paper mount on reverse, circa 1320 to circa 1340. CONTENTS: On reverse, the versicle and responsory at First Vespers of the First Sunday of Advent, [V. Rorate celi de super et] nubes pluant iustum. R. Aperiatur ter[ra et germinet salvator]em, followed by the antiphon for the Magnificat: Ad M[agnificat]. A[nt.]. Ecce nomen domini uenit [de longinquo et clari]tas eius replet orbem terrarum. Ps. Mag[nificat], then follows the opening of Matins for the First Sunday of Advent: [Inv. Regem venturum do]minum venite [adoremus]. Dominica prima de aduentu. Ad matutinum. Inuitatorium [uenite] In primo nocturno a[ntiphona]. Ueniet ecce rex excel[sus]; the initial, which would have been on the verso of the original leaf, probably introduced the responsory for the first lesson at Matins for the First Sunday of Advent, Aspiciens a longe. DECORATION: Historiated initial in pink with foliate motifs in blue, orange and gold on a square ground of solid blue framed in orange: [A] Four Prophets behold a Vision of Christ. ORNAMENTATION: On reverse, alternate red and blue initials with turquoise or red pen flourishing; rubrics in red with blue paragraph marks.

Image data

Accession Number: MS McClean 201.9c
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Photographer name: Andrew Morris
Image height: 1097 pixels
Image width: 1024 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows
Filesize: 245.36kB

Key words

14th Century _WF_AdOK _WF_KWD _WF_OPAC _WF_OPAC_pending acanthus angelic angels antiphonal antiphoner antiphons blessing blue Christ Christianity cutting decorative initial Early Renaissance Fitz_MSPB foliate heaven heavenly heavenly vision heavens historiated initial illuminated illumination inhabited initial initial Italian Jesus manuscript miniature music manuscript parchment prophet prophets religion religious Renaissance scrolls Trecento vision visionary winged wings

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025)
            "Four Prophets behold a Vision of Christ, initial from Antiphoner"
            Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-4126954966 Accessed: 2025-12-25 03:05:27

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:


            {{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-4126954966
            |title=Four Prophets behold a Vision of Christ, initial from Antiphoner
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-12-25 03:05:27|publisher=The
            University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/images/media-616825501

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/portfolio/F25982D9_7CB9_CFFF_028E_8BBFC531887C/727/876/large_MS_McClean_201_9c_dc1.jpg"
        alt="Initial from an Antiphoner"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Four Prophets behold a Vision of Christ, initial from Antiphoner</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>