Partial Leaf from a Latin Bible: Initial I[n principio] with the Marriage at Cana

About this artwork

The illuminator of this initial placed three small scenes one above another to suggest the vertical stem of the initial I, here standing for the introductory passages of the Gospel of Saint John, In principio erat verbum . . . (In the beginning was the word . . .). Such initials have been called "ladder initials" because the individual scenes were arranged one on top of the other to be read in sequence. Each group of figures stands beneath a cusped gable and depicts scenes from the Marriage at C...