Initial D: Saint Peter, cutting from an antiphonal
This is a cutting from a choir book, an antiphonal, made by Maestro Daddesco in Italy in 1331 and now held by the J. Paul Getty Museum. The single picture shows a painted initial D enclosing a bearded, haloed figure of Saint Peter in a tall mitre-like headdress, holding keys and a book against gold leaf and blue, orange and green foliage. A designer could take from it the way gold leaf, flat saturated pigment and curling acanthus-like ornament frame a single figure inside a letter.
