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This illustration is from the typological book "Speculum humanae salvationis" (Mirror of Human Salvation), the original text of which has been attributed to a Carthusian monk, Ludolphus of Saxony, who presumably composed the manual in Strasbourg sometime around 1320. The book was intended to be an aid in illustrating the harmony of the Old Testament and the Gospels. It contains twenty-three New Testament scenes, each accompanied by three Old Testament parallels or types extending across two open pages. Usually these are preceded by eight scenes from Genesis and appended with two illustrations of the Last Judgment with its types. In all, fifty-eight blocks are used, printed on one side of the paper. The text, in Latin and Dutch editions, printed below the illustrations, however, is not cut out of the block but is printed with movable type. (The invention of the movable type was the final step in the evolution of the printed book in the fifteenth century.)
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