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This codex contains the mystical dialogue between Wisdom and a scholar, written down by the Dominican prior Heinrich Suso around 1328. The text was extremely popular in the late Middle Ages. It was translated in 1389 from Latin into French, and the translation provided the stimulus for many editions of richly illuminated manuscripts to be produced in 15th-century France. The example in Brussels is particularly sumptuous.
The exceptionally high quality miniatures in the first section of the manuscript were executed by the Rolin Master, the illuminator of the Missal of Jean Rolin, now in Lyons. The scenes with powerfully modelled figures possess a delicate coloration of the greatest luminosity with an extremely rich tonal range. The incredibly intense azure underlies most of the pictures.
The miniature on folio 39r shows Old Testament events taking place in the ecclesiastical court of a Dominican monastery. The stories are taken from the Books of Daniel (upper register), the Book of Esther (central register) and the Book of Samuel (lower register).
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