Set against a gold ground whose unreal luminosity confirms the fulfilment of the divine project, the drama unleashed by opening the pit of the abyss carries on inexorably. The thirsty sun and the mournful moon are bystanders to the massacre inflicted by the hellish locusts with stings on their tails in close formation trampling down humans with bleeding wounds. Their mission is to torment heretics and evil believers for five months by inflicting stings like those of scorpions but whose pain is insufficient to bring about a fervently desired death. Two groups of men at prayer flank these horse-like monsters in brown or ash-grey fleecy gowns, with winged knees, as described in the text: their hair braided in two long plaits frames their grimacing human traits with lion-like jaws, beneath heavy, sparkling crowns.
Marie-Thérèse Gousset and Marianne Besseyre
Illuminated Manuscripts Research Center, Bibliothèque nationale de France
Fragment of the Apocalypse of 1313 commentary volume
Set against a gold ground whose unreal luminosity confirms the fulfilment of the divine project, the drama unleashed by opening the pit of the abyss carries on inexorably. The thirsty sun and the mournful moon are bystanders to the massacre inflicted by the hellish locusts with stings on their tails in close formation trampling down humans with bleeding wounds. Their mission is to torment heretics and evil believers for five months by inflicting stings like those of scorpions but whose pain is insufficient to bring about a fervently desired death. Two groups of men at prayer flank these horse-like monsters in brown or ash-grey fleecy gowns, with winged knees, as described in the text: their hair braided in two long plaits frames their grimacing human traits with lion-like jaws, beneath heavy, sparkling crowns.
Marie-Thérèse Gousset and Marianne Besseyre
Illuminated Manuscripts Research Center, Bibliothèque nationale de France
Fragment of the Apocalypse of 1313 commentary volume
