Five lines written in dark brown ink in a rounded gothic script, ruled lightly with ink, square and diamond-shaped musical notation on five four-line red staves (36 mm high), rubrics, very large illuminated initial ‘P’ (Puer natus est nobis, 345 x 157 mm) of leafy design in shades of pink, green, red and blue against a burnished gold ground and enclosing a scene of the Nativity, the Virgin kneeling before the Christ child (who wears a rosary and emits rays of golden light) in front of a shed set between rocky hills with Joseph, the ox and the ass looking intently on, a star and a banderole-bearing angel in the sky above

A charming large initial introducing the Introit for Christmas Day. Although somewhat less refined, the composition, palette and drapery style may be compared to those of Milanese illuminators of the mid-fifteenth century such as the Master of the Franciscan Breviary, the Master of the ‘Vitae Imperatorum’, and the Olivetan Master.