Illuminated initial, c. 69 x 70 mm, ‘D’ depicting the Devil tempting Christ. The Devil, shown in a beastly form, clutches a scroll and gestures towards Christ. Christ, who faces the Devil, holds a scroll with one hand and outstretches the other towards the Devil. The illumination, completed in brown ink, is framed in a six line initial in blue and red with extending ornaments along the margin.
 
Single leaf on parchment, c. 299 x 209 mm, three lines of music in square notation on four-line staves ruled in red, followed by twelve lines on the recto, and eighteen on the verso, ruled in ink, c. 209 x 152 mm (ruled), in a fine gothic script in two different sizes, rubrics in red, with alternating red or blue one-line initials and two two-line initials in red or blue with pen flourishes.
 
The text accompanying the music on the recto is from Psalm 148, ‘Omnes angeli ejus laudate d[omi]n[u]m de c[a]elis’, (‘All his angels, praise the Lord from the Heavens’). The main texts include Psalm 52 which continues to the verso, and are followed by Psalm 53 and 54. The Psalms are sign-posted by sixteenth-century numbers in brown ink in the margins.
 
A very good and charming example, there is significant rubbing to the scrolls within the miniature, to the body of the Devil and the extended ornaments are very rubbed, some darkening of the parchment and repairs to the outer margin, with later tape remnants to the upper corners.
 
Sister Leaves:
The Nativity and The Flight into Egypt [Sotheby’s, 10 July 2025, lot 35].