When I first received this scroll assignment, I knew exactly which exemplar I wanted to use. I’d had it in the back of my mind for quite some time and it would be perfect for a scribe. The difficulty occurred in finding the source, finding more than just a low resolution photograph and hunting down the source. The exemplar, from the “Libro d’Ore di Leonor de la Vega”, Bibloteca Nacionale de Espana, Madrid is (to my best knowledge) NOT digitized. I found ONE (luckily high-res) photo from foliamagazine.it from an article in 2014….entitled “San Giovanni Evangelista compone l’Apocalisse”, miniatura tratta dal ‘Libro d’Ore di Leonor de la Vega’ (Fiandre, XV secolo), Biblioteca Nacionale de Espana, Madrid. Even more fortunate was finding that clicking on the photo opened up a larger image…yes!
Now to personalize….I did remove a portion of the middle, the boatman, the eagle and other details were not pertinent to the recipient. Titivillus definitely was, the scroll was, and I made use of the city in the back to insert her barony’s heraldry onto the keep wall and to place her award symbol as part of the sky. I also stalked her on social media to find a photograph to use for her face.
All is gouache on pergamenata, the detail on her robe and on the demon is shell gold. The full scroll was done as a triptych with the wording adjacent and similarly framed. As an aside, I was trying to copy as closely as I could and realized that the original scribe had a very uneven white border which I tried to replicate. Finally, while photographing the final piece, I realized I had misspelled her name with only one “L”. Below is my correction, and my admission on this page because I think it is important to show errors and how you corrected them as well to admit to them, the better to learn (in this case the essential details!)
Philomene’s Scriptorium 