LORENZO Monaco
(b. ca. 1370, Siena (?), d. ca. 1425, Firenze)

Gradual (Cod. H 74, folio 43r)

c. 1410
Tempera and gold on parchment, 131 x 129 mm
National Gallery of Art, Washington

The tree volumes of the gradual written for Santa Maria Nuova in Florence are likely to have been produced at the same time (c. 1410) as the completion of the gradual for Santa Maria degli Angeli. One of them (Cod. H. 74 in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence) contains thirty-eight illuminated initials, all but one portraying single figures of prophets or saints. In addition, at least two of the seven missing folios contained large, perhaps full-page, narrative illuminations.

The cutting from one of the missing folios, folio 43, depicts a Prophet in an initial E, which begins the introit to the Mass for Sunday within the octave of the Ascension.

The green initial E is decorated with white and yellow filigree ornament, a row of pearls along its back edge, and a blue band studded with gilt diamonds and gilt and silver circular "gems" highlighted with white along its inner edge. Within the initial is the half-length figure of a bearded prophet wearing a red robe and a white shawl and turban, his hands raised before him in prayer.