Psalter

This Psalter is in small format but of excellent artistic quality. Its decoration consists of eight illuminated initials inhabited by small figures. Delicate borders framing the pages are enriched with buds and small leaves, or with fantastic animals and little birds.

On folio 14 in the initial "B" at the beginning of the Psalm Beatus vir, David is shown playing the lyre. At the bottom, along the sober and elegant frame, the small figure of a huntsman sounding his horn and a deer hunted by two dogs are highlighted by the careful use of shadow.

The decoration is the work of an able follower of Jean Pucelle, the main representative of the Paris school in the first half of the fourteenth century.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 9 minutes): Antonio Vivaldi: Beatus vir (Psalm 112) RV 598