Five Leaves from a Noted Breviary
A breviary, an illuminated prayer book of the Latin Church, is an unattributed manuscript from around 1420, now held by the J. Paul Getty Museum and made for clergy and religious readers. The picture is a painted initial with a hooded monk in dark robes pointing up at an open book on a lectern, set against a gold ground and ringed with green, red and blue foliage. A designer could take its gold-leaf framing, the curling acanthus-like border and the warm, saturated medieval palette.
